Xing Lian slowly opened her eyes.
Everything before her was pitch black, and she could see nothing.
She didn’t care about this, however, because she had long since grown used to it.
Compared to the darkness before her eyes, she was more concerned about something else.
A breeze brushed against her cheeks, and she could smell the scent of green grass.
This was definitely not her home; it seemed to be a remote area of the wilderness.
Xing Lian’s face was filled with confusion as her pearly teeth lightly bit her lower lip.
The unfamiliar environment made her feel very uneasy.
She desperately wanted to find something to lean on, but…
“Rustle…”
She reached out and grabbed at the air twice but caught nothing.
With just that slight movement, a faint sound came from beside her.
The texture was dry and rough, a bit like withered leaves.
She really had been dumped in the middle of nowhere!
‘Who is it?’
Xing Lian pondered in her heart, yet she couldn’t come up with an answer.
She had no friends, no family, and never socialized with anyone.
She truly couldn’t think of anyone who would do such a thing.
Xing Lian was just as pitiful as her name suggested.
She wasn’t a child who had been welcomed by her parents; she was merely the product of a drunken accident.
Her parents didn’t love her and didn’t like her.
After both sides remarried, Xing Lian became a complete orphan unloved by both her father and mother.
No one was willing to look after her life anymore, even though she had a severe physical defect and could not live alone at all.
Xing Lian being able to grow up safely involved a bit of luck.
After all, for a blind child to stay at home alone, there were far too many things that could take her life.
However, she survived, bumping and stumbling through her childhood by relying on the living expenses her parents sent periodically.
Because of her physical condition, Xing Lian didn’t like going out or interacting with people.
Her greatest pleasure every day was holding a radio and listening quietly.
Although modern society already had mobile phones and computers, no one had taught a blind person how to use those things.
Therefore, this old radio became Xing Lian’s essential tool for understanding the outside world.
The dark world did not erase her imagination.
Listening to the warm little stories told on the radio, her thoughts always couldn’t help but drift along with them.
‘Interesting, so very interesting!’
The outside world was so colorful.
Being able to be born into this world was truly a blessing.
Except…
‘Why!’
‘Why can others live freely in this wonderful world, yet my world only has darkness?’
‘Why must I be locked in a room every day, and why do I always fall when I walk?’
She wanted to see the true appearance of this world with her own eyes.
She wanted to see the home she had lived in for many years, and she wanted to see the blue sky and white clouds.
The protagonists in stories always met kind people, had good friends, and had best friends, but she…
Xing Lian choked back a sob in her breakdown, but no one came to comfort her.
In the end, she soothed herself.
Although she had a physical defect, there were many people in the world like her.
There were even those who were more miserable; she was already very lucky.
Bringing her thoughts back from her fantasies, Xing Lian began to carefully analyze her current situation.
She woke up in a completely strange place.
Had she been kidnapped?
No, she was just an ordinary little blind girl who could barely manage her daily food and clothing.
She simply had no value in being kidnapped.
Discarding that thought, Xing Lian continued to think, but she couldn’t reach an answer at all.
Forget it.
If she couldn’t figure out the reason, she would stop thinking about it.
It was better to think about what to do now.
Xing Lian’s eyes were blind, but her ears and nose were very sensitive.
She judged from the sound of the wind that she should be in a very open place, possibly a dense forest.
Realizing this, Xing Lian’s heart pounded.
She had always been locked in a small room.
Even after growing up, she stayed in a dark room and couldn’t go out.
This was her first time coming to the wilderness.
For her, it was both terrifying and novel.
“I heard that the forest is very dangerous. I can’t stay here forever.”
Xing Lian supported herself with her hands on the ground to stand up with difficulty, but she suddenly noticed something wasn’t quite right.
Her body had been in poor health since birth.
She would feel tired after just a little movement.
She still felt very weak now, but it was much better than before.
What was going on?
Had she taken some kind of miracle medicine?
And…
Was it her imagination?
She felt an itch on her back, the clothes on her body felt light and airy, and her chest felt a bit heavy as if something extra had been added.
Xing Lian reached behind her back in confusion and her fingers caught a bunch of extremely silky material.
‘Is this texture… hair? It’s definitely hair!’
She pulled slightly, and a tugging sensation came from her scalp, confirming this fact.
When did her hair become so long?
Also…
She reached out and felt her chest.
It felt soft to the touch, like a marshmallow, and kneading it was very comfortable.
Xing Lian’s cheeks turned slightly red, and she subconsciously pressed her legs together.
Her lower body felt a bit chilly.
These weren’t the clothes she usually wore.
Who had changed her clothes as well?
“Something’s wrong. Something is really wrong.”
Xing Lian stood dazed on the spot, her mind blank as she thought.
The girl couldn’t see herself, but others could.
She had silver hair that reached her waist and wore a white dress.
Her features were exquisite, and her skin was as white as snow.
An ordinary person would forget to breathe and forget the meaning of their own existence with just one look.
Xing Lian had always been unaware of her own appearance, and it was the same now.
She just had a vague feeling that she was different.
As for what exactly was different…
Xing Lian clamped her legs tight and blinked her eyes in confusion.
She wanted to investigate, yet she didn’t dare to.
Besides, now was not the time for such things.
“Leaving this place is the priority.”
Xing Lian didn’t know where this was, but staying here was useless.
She could only walk around and see.
She gathered her courage, stepped out with her small white feet, and then…
“Ugh!”
As her delicate feet stepped on the ground, a sharp pain shot from the soles of her feet throughout her entire body, making her let out a groan.
“It hurts.”
Xing Lian’s eyes were filled with tears, looking extremely pitiful.
‘What was that just now? A plant thorn? As expected, an unfamiliar environment was very unfriendly to a blind person.’
Also, where were her shoes?
Only then realizing she wasn’t wearing shoes, Xing Lian clenched her fists, feeling very troubled.
The forest terrain was complex.
How could she walk without shoes?
Xing Lian was silent for a long time.
In the end, she couldn’t think of a way.
Even though she had no shoes, she couldn’t just not walk.
She could only try to be as careful as possible.
Walking barefoot in the forest was extremely difficult even for a healthy, normal person, let alone someone who was blind.
Xing Lian took every step with extreme caution, but even so, she inevitably got hurt.
Everything was pitch black.
Every step was unknown, and her feet inevitably stepped on foreign objects.
If it was a pebble, it was fine—at most, it would just be uncomfortable.
But if she stepped on a plant thorn, the situation would be very bad.
“It hurts… it hurts so much…”
For some reason, her body had become exceptionally sensitive.
Just a few pricks to the soles of her feet made her eyes well up with tears from the pain.
She clearly hadn’t been this afraid of pain before.
Her body had suddenly become so strange.
Xing Lian gritted her teeth and hurried along.
She didn’t know where the exit of the forest was and could only hope that her luck was good enough.
In this way, she walked with difficulty through the dark forest.
5 minutes, 10 minutes, 30 minutes…
Her frail body couldn’t support the load of long-term exercise.
Xing Lian felt very tired, her legs were incredibly sore, and her feet hurt terribly.
The soles of her feet felt wet.
‘They must be bleeding, right? If not treated properly, they would definitely get infected.’
Because her body was injured, her head began to feel dizzy.
Even worse, her stomach began to growl.
She was so hungry; she really wanted to eat.
Xing Lian licked her lips.
She wanted to eat hot buns and drink sweet milk, but there was none of that here.
Feeling both tired and hungry, she was somewhat unable to hold on.
‘Should I stop? No, I can’t.’
Xing Lian bit her lower lip and continued her journey while enduring the pain.
After stumbling for another 30 minutes, she finally couldn’t move anymore and froze on the spot, panting.
Her feet were already injured, and walking barefoot made every step painful, like a death by a thousand cuts.
She could barely endure the physical pain, but being unable to see anything, having no goal, and no direction—was what she was doing really meaningful?
She thought she was moving away from the forest, but in reality, she was very likely heading deeper into it like a headless fly.
More importantly…
“It’s getting dark.”
Xing Lian wrapped her arms around herself, her body unable to stop shivering.
She couldn’t see anything, but her physical perception was very sharp.
When she first woke up, her body felt warm, but now it had become somewhat cold.
This was undoubtedly a sign of the sun setting.
In a dark, dangerous forest, how could a defenseless blind person possibly survive?
The more Xing Lian thought, the more desperate she became.
In the end, she simply stopped walking and sat down on the ground.
Doing nothing and just giving up on the spot—the fate that awaited her was actually very obvious.
Xing Lian was very clear about it in her heart.
However, far from feeling afraid, she actually felt a faint sense of relief.
She had encountered misfortune since birth and then lived with difficulty in the darkness.
Her heart had long been riddled with holes, and she had had the thought of leaving countless times.
However, leaving also required courage, and she couldn’t make that choice.
But now, she probably doesn’t have a choice anymore.
She didn’t want to dwell on why she had suddenly come here because her life had always been beyond her control.
She had no right to choose when she was born into this world, and she still had no right to choose when she was abandoned by her parents.
If she could obtain eternal peace at this time, it would be fine, except…
‘I’m unwilling… I’m really so unwilling!’
She really wanted to see this colorful world and look at the magnificent scenery described in the stories.
Her mind was wandering, and unknowingly, the will to live surfaced again.
But the will alone wasn’t enough; she also had to consider reality.
However, right now…
‘Wait! What was that sound?’
Xing Lian pricked up her ears, she vaguely heard some strange noises.
“Should I go take a look? I should probably go.”
Although looking for the source of the sound was very dangerous, it was better than sitting here and waiting for death.
Xing Lian supported herself with her hands and stood up with difficulty, then staggered toward the sound.
As she got closer, she heard it more clearly.
It was the sound of trickling water.
Her sensitive skin touched the moist water vapor.
It seemed there was a stream ahead.
Xing Lian thought of the scenes described in many stories, and her dim eyes suddenly lit up.
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