Upon Her Lips - Chapter 13

Chapter  13

the winter day, blanketed in snow, was truly beautiful.

But that girl was about to have nothing to do with this beautiful world.

Fu Ya clipped a flower branch, watching Yuran squatting not far away, laboriously tending to the soil, and she couldn’t help but curl her lips in a smirk.

“Fu Ya.”

Hearing the stern call behind her, Fu Ya immediately turned around and bowed respectfully. “Present.”

“I will be heading out shortly and will return soon. I’m leaving Yuran in your care,” Aunt Dai, dressed in dark traveling clothes, instructed as she glanced at little Yuran, who was seriously weeding.

“Rest assured,” Fu Ya replied respectfully.

“Let her rest occasionally; she is, after all, a fragile human child,” Aunt Dai added. She didn’t want the poor thing to suffer any harm, but she felt the need to leave instructions, as the other servants in the house harbored a certain level of resentment toward humans.

Fu Ya nodded quickly. “I will look after her with great care.”

After watching Aunt Dai walk away, Fu Ya turned back to look at Yuran. Her face instantly shifted into a very kind expression. “Yuran, Aunt Dai has gone out.”

“Ah, ah… okay.” Yuran’s hands were covered in mud; she was just about to wipe her eyes.

Fu Ya immediately grabbed her hand, suppressing the look of disgust in her eyes. She used a wet wipe to clean the girl’s hands, her face, and that rather attractive neck. Truly, a human’s neck was the most beautiful part of the body; beneath the intersecting veins and skin lay scalding, hot human blood.

“S-Sister?” Yuran called out to Fu Ya, who seemed to be staring off into space.

Only then did Fu Ya release Yuran’s hand. Yuran gave a faint smile; she truly felt that Sister Fu Ya was very good to her. Although she was a bit strict during garden work, she usually took great care of her.

“Have you really made up your mind to go into the forest alone to find that flower?” Fu Ya asked with a hint of feigned worry.

Yuran nodded with great certainty. She had a good sense of direction; if it was just a bit of fog, she should be able to find her way back alone. Fu Ya had told her earlier that the forest wasn’t large and she could return in a short while. Moreover, Sister Fu Ya said she could only sneak out without being caught if Aunt Dai was away.

Because it was a secret.

“But…” Fu Ya still looked worried. She stroked Yuran’s hair. “How about this: I’ll have someone I know take you there. That’s the only way I can feel at ease.”

Yuran froze for a moment. She hadn’t expected Sister Fu Ya to be so concerned for her safety, and she was genuinely happy. She didn’t want to trouble Fu Ya, so she shook her head, indicating she could return on her own. But Fu Ya insisted on finding someone to accompany her.

She led Yuran to the side gate of the mansion—the West Gate. This was actually a blind spot for the entire estate; no one would notice anything unusual. Only a few people knew of it.

After waiting for ten minutes, a thin young man arrived from outside the gate. He was not a servant of the mansion.

“This is her?” The man glanced down at the small human child, his expression full of disdain.

Fu Ya looked at Yuran, who was hiding behind her, then stepped forward a few paces. She whispered in a voice only the man could hear, “Just take her to that area, then deal with her as you wish.”

“She’s so small, she’s not even enough for a snack.”

“Is the money I gave you not enough?” Fu Ya frowned at the cunning man.

“I’d rather do it with you one more time,” the man said, suddenly grabbing Fu Ya’s waist with crude words.

Fu Ya’s face remained cold—a silent form of consent. The man finally let her go.

“Let’s go, human kid,” the man said, lighting a cigar and calling to the little girl.

Fu Ya was still uneasy and emphasized in a low voice once more, “I need her to disappear completely.”

“Don’t worry. Once she goes there, it’s impossible for her to come back alive.”

After hearing her lover’s words, Fu Ya pushed Yuran forward from behind her and said gently, “Go with this gentleman. He will lead you. Make sure to come back as soon as you find the flower, okay? Before Aunt Dai returns—it’s our secret.”

Yuran listened intently to Sister Fu Ya’s instructions and indicated she would definitely return early. She slowly extended her pinky finger, carefully making a “pinky swear” gesture. She wanted to make a promise with her, because she had once heard an old person say that the gods hear promises made this way.

Fu Ya was confused and annoyed, but she symbolically linked pinkies with the girl. She waved gently to Yuran until she saw her get into the man’s car, at which point her expression instantly turned ice-cold.

Finally, she didn’t have to endure that feeling of disgust anymore. By disguising it as an accidental disappearance, the Mistress surely wouldn’t blame her. After all, the girl was just a filthy low-born creature. This would make things much smoother for her in the mansion, without that thing getting in her way.

…

Yuran followed the man out of the car and looked up at the forest shrouded in mist about ten meters away. She had never seen such towering black branches; the trees seemed to pierce through the fog and reach into the heavens. The perimeter was surrounded by several layers of barbed wire, making it look grim and eerie. There was no visible entrance.

Yuran looked timidly at the man beside her. He glanced down at the little girl, sighed, and pointed toward the front left. “There’s a small hole over there. It’s usually used by herbivores to go in and out for food. Your frame should fit through just fine.”

Yuran followed the man and indeed saw a hole beneath the wire that she could crawl through. The man arched an eyebrow as he watched her walk toward the hole, his expression subtle. He was debating whether it was better to kill the girl and drain her blood right here or simply release her into the Black Mist Forest.

After a few seconds of thought, he chose the latter. He didn’t want to bring trouble upon himself, and it was certain death for this girl to enter the Black Mist Forest anyway. That woman Fu Ya was truly sinister.

“D-Do… you… know… where… the… p-purple… f-flowers… are?” Yuran struggled to ask an incomplete question. The man’s fierce face made her speech even more unstable, yet she still looked up at the tall man with hope.

She’s a damn stutterer, too.

The man quickly pointed to a random direction in the forest just to be done with her. Although he didn’t belong to any family and was an old hand at smuggling, the official jurisdiction of this private territory still belonged to the Mu family. Heaven knows how careful he had been on the way here; if it weren’t for that stolen secret list of the manor, he wouldn’t have taken on such an unprofitable job.

Yuran nodded, then gripped the edges of the hole and slowly began to crawl inside. Because the forest was shrouded in heavy mist, it was impossible to see clearly with the naked eye. As soon as her front foot stepped through the entrance, the damp, steep slope caused her to lose her balance, and she suddenly plummeted downward.

Luckily, she was quick enough to grab a vine growing along the wall of the opening, preventing herself from falling. Beneath her was a bottomless abyss; a fall would mean being smashed to pieces.

She clung tightly to the vine. The mist seemed to have a mind of its own as it dissipated slightly before her eyes. Panicking, she looked down at her dangling feet.

There was no path below at all!

Her heart trembled violently, but she used all her arm strength to try and climb back up, out of that hole. Just as her hand was about to reach the edge of the opening, a cold gun barrel pressed against her forehead.

“Kid, don’t make this difficult for me, okay?”

The man squatted down and, with a trace of helplessness, cocked the trigger against her forehead.

Having lived in the “grey zones,” Yuran had often seen terrifying rioters holding these killing weapons to murder the residents there. With just a pull of that thing, a person’s breath would vanish, and they would never wake up again.

Yuran’s eyes widened in terror. She opened her mouth, but her throat couldn’t produce a sound.

“It would have been better if you had just fallen. You just had to climb back up. Sigh, I didn’t want to have to kill you myself.” The man looked at the girl’s tenacious will to live with a bit of respect; he hadn’t expected her to hold on so long without falling. She didn’t seem like a useless waste after all.

“It’s just a pity you have bad luck.”

With that, the man reached out a cold hand and, under Yuran’s helpless gaze, began to pry her fingers away from the edge of the hole.

“P-P-Please… you…” Her voice trembled, her eyes overflowed with tears, and she shook her head frantically, stuttering her pleas for the person in front of her not to kill her.

She didn’t know why he was suddenly doing this, but she wanted to live. She had to live. She still had so many things to do; she hadn’t gotten the flowers the Lady needed; she hadn’t…

Lady Mu Fei.

However, her tears only served to further excite the predatory smuggler. The man grabbed Yuran’s other hand, which had already been pried from the edge, applied a bit of pressure, and then, under the girl’s despairing gaze, he decisively let go.

“Farewell, you poor thing.”

I beg of you, no—!!

The weeping girl fell into the abyss, disappearing into the heavy mists.