“Then… take them off?”
“But… my feet are dirty too. And my socks… they have holes. My toes are sticking out… I don’t want… I don’t want anyone to see…”
Lilith’s expression grew increasingly pained. In truth, she wasn’t thinking about her toes; she was thinking about that airheaded girl she’d met on the road to Scissor Town. She hadn’t expected to find herself in the exact same situation. It was ridiculous.
“If you’re that worried, I’ll carry you,” Briyue said helplessly.
But the moment her hand touched Lilith’s shoulder, she was blocked. The little girl looked up, her gaze suddenly so sharp it felt like a blade, making Briyue flinch.
“Only Wang Yue is allowed to hold me!” Lilith hissed, her eyes flashing with a predatory light.
“Huh?”
Lilith immediately realized she had broken character. She lowered her lashes, shifting back into a mask of trauma and pain. “I… I was hurt before. So… I don’t want people touching me…”
“Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t know,” Briyue apologized frantically.
Lilith didn’t need anyone to “rescue” her like that airhead girl. She tucked her clean clothes between her thighs, dropped her hands to the floor, and walked into the bathroom on her hands. She flipped herself upright with the grace of a gymnast and kicked the door shut behind her.
Briyue stood there, blinking in stunned silence.
A moment later, the sound of running water echoed through the door. Lilith didn’t have to worry about the water revealing her true face; the cosmetic effects of her potion wouldn’t wash off. It required a specific magical solvent to remove.
When she finished, she looked slightly cleaner, but the disguise still kept her looking dull and unremarkable.
As she stepped out of the bathroom, Briyue handed her a large glass of warm milk with a heart-warming smile. “It’s cold out, isn’t it? Have something warm.”
“Thank you…” Lilith replied, her voice thick with fake tears.
As she took the glass, her nose twitched. There was a faint, stinging sensation in her nostrils. She could smell it: the milk was laced with an anesthetic. The dosage was high enough to keep an adult unconscious for a day or two.
In the wilderness, Lilith often relied on her sense of smell and taste to identify toxins in plants or monster meat. However, human tolerance was not a universal metric; to knock out Lilith, one would need a dose capable of putting an elephant into a coma.
She raised the glass and drained it in one gulp.
***
Six hours later, Lilith “woke up” on the back of a speeding Sand-Crawler Lizard. Briyue, who was gripping the reins, looked visibly startled. She seemed confused as to why the sedative’s effects didn’t match the instructions she’d been given.
As the little girl rubbed her eyes, her hair tie came loose. Her long hair billowed in the wind, and for a fleeting moment, the refined, beautiful contour of her profile was revealed. Briyue felt a momentary surge of breath-taking beauty radiating from the child.
Lilith gathered her hair and tied it back with a strip of cloth. She turned her head, asking with feigned confusion, “Sister, is this a dream?”
“Just think of it as one,” Briyue said softly.
A moment passed.
“Th-This isn’t a dream!” Lilith suddenly “panicked,” her voice trembling with terror. “Sister, where are you taking me?”
“Please, don’t hurt me! Let me go back!”
“Did I do something wrong? I’m sorry! I apologize! Please let me go, I beg you…”
The girl beside her continued to plead and wail, but Briyue remained deaf to it all. She was utterly devoted to the Secret Window Society. Even her job as a clerk for the merchant guild had been arranged by the cult—not for honest work, but to spy on trade secrets.
Briyue’s eyes were glassy as she muttered, “By sacrificing yourself to the Great Biheze, your soul will finally find salvation.”
Lilith had used a bit of onion juice to make herself cry. Internally, she vowed to peel the scalp off this disgusting woman and turn everyone in the Secret Window Society into “twisted art” to wash away this humiliation.
The lizard carried them to a hidden outpost tucked away on a leeward slope. The secret base was buried underground like a tomb, ventilated only by narrow air shafts.
Inside, several interconnected rooms stretched into the darkness. The walls were covered in vivid, colorful oil paintings of eye-worship patterns and Holy Statues of Biheze. Candelabras were encrusted with mounds of waxy, black residue, casting a dim, gloomy light that heightened the sense of dread and despair.
A bald old man sat cross-legged facing a wall, his knobby knees jutting out. His rough hands gripped a carving knife and a small piece of yellowish bone.
Beside him sat a pile of carvings that, at first glance, looked like a heap of eyeballs. The most gruesome among them was a child’s skull; a hole had been bored into the center of the forehead, and a piece of turquoise had been inlaid there like a third eye.
Besides him, two or three other cultists sat upon eye-patterned floor engravings. Their bodies were painted with countless eye designs of varying sizes as they muttered rhythmic prayers under their breaths.
