“Mm… Mother doesn’t seem very happy…”
Ziya looked up, her gaze timidly landing on Bai Li, her small brows furrowed slightly. Her heart fluttered with waves of anxiety.
She knew better than anyone that the person before her was originally the Father who had raised her.
Yet, because of her momentary impulsiveness with magic, he had been transformed into this weak and fragile state.
Anyone facing such a world-shaking change would find it impossible to accept calmly, let alone smile.
She sighed silently in her heart, her eyes overflowing with worry.
‘I want to get closer,’ she thought, her feet instinctively moving half a step forward, but she was afraid of making him even more upset.
“Mother… I will do my best to find a solution… No matter how hard it is, I will definitely find it,” Ziya promised in a low voice.
She swore to herself that even if she had to scour every Forbidden Tome and tread through every corner of this continent, she would find a way to make her Father’s side effects disappear.
It didn’t matter if the price was everything she owned.
“Yes, I believe you, Ziya,” Bai Li replied softly.
Although her mind was currently a mess and her spirits were so low she could hardly lift her head, looking at her daughter’s anxious face, the bone-deep affection she felt didn’t diminish in the slightest.
Having lived together for ten years, seeing them grow from tiny infants to the sensible girls they were now, the three children had long since become the most inseparable part of her life.
No matter how ridiculous the situation, she couldn’t truly hate or blame them.
She paused for a moment and slowly shifted her gaze toward Rongrong, who was standing quietly nearby.
With just one look, Rongrong immediately understood Bai Li’s intent.
She wanted to speak with Ziya alone and didn’t want anyone else present.
Being tactful, Rongrong bowed slightly without saying a word.
She light-footedly turned and retreated, carefully closing the door behind her and leaving the small room as a private space for the two of them.
The moment the door clicked shut, the room fell silent, and even the air seemed to grow a bit heavier.
Bai Li coughed twice, trying her best to calm her surging emotions, and her tone suddenly became serious.
“Ziya, I think we really need to have a talk.”
Hearing that suddenly stern voice, Ziya tensed up, her back stiffening.
Her heart pounded wildly in her chest, as if it were about to jump out of her throat.
She was so nervous she couldn’t even speak clearly.
“Talk… talk about what?” her voice squeaked, laced with obvious panic.
“Don’t be so nervous. I just want to talk to you about what has happened over these past few months.”
Seeing her look like she was about to cry, Bai Li’s heart softened slightly, but there were some things she had to ask clearly.
“Now, you can start by explaining why you turned me into this.”
“Mm…”
Ziya immediately lowered her head, looking like a wronged child caught in the act.
She didn’t dare meet Bai Li’s eyes. Fear and guilt filled her heart, making her wish she could find a hole to crawl into.
“Ziya!”
Seeing her remain silent and keep her head bowed, Bai Li’s voice unconsciously sharpened a bit.
That small reprimand was like a needle that finally popped Ziya’s strained emotions.
“Waaaah! I… I understand!”
She was so startled that a few tears fell on the spot. Her small body trembled as she hurriedly began to confess, fearing that any further delay would make her Father even angrier.
“Actually, I just thought about repaying Father… Father is a human, so your lifespan is too short… I didn’t want you to leave us so soon, so I came up with a bad idea… I wanted to turn Father into a Nightmare, just like me…”
Ziya spoke between sobs, her tears pitter-pattering onto the floor. Every word was heavy with distress and insecurity.
She had never intended to hurt anyone; she was simply too afraid of loss.
She was terrified that one day she would wake up and the Father who had always protected them would have grown old and eventually be gone forever.
“Was that all?”
Bai Li asked quietly. She could feel that her daughter was hiding a deeper, even more outrageous thought.
“…Actually… there is… I don’t know if I should say it… Father, please don’t be angry…”
Ziya’s voice grew smaller and smaller, and her head sank lower. Her heart was twisted into a knot of hesitation.
She knew what she was about to say was strange, perhaps even irrational, but she didn’t want to lie to her Father anymore.
“I won’t be angry. Tell me,” Bai Li said, softening her tone and waiting patiently.
Having received that guarantee, Ziya finally summoned the greatest courage of her life to speak the absurd yet earnest thought hidden in the depths of her heart.
“It’s just… seeing Father raise the three of us all alone was really hard… so I thought about letting Father… become… become my daughter, so I could pamper you… to repay this deep debt of being raised…”
“…”
After hearing that sentence, Bai Li fell completely silent. She stood frozen in place, her mind going blank.
For a moment, she didn’t know how to react.
‘Turn a father into a daughter and then pamper them?’
The idea was so ridiculous she didn’t know whether to be angry or to laugh.
“Father… dear?”
Ziya cautiously lifted her head a fraction, stealing a glance at Bai Li’s expression.
“Continue,” Bai Li said slowly, her voice so calm it was impossible to read her emotions.
“Mm… whenever I thought about Father becoming my daughter, I felt especially happy, because that way I could give all my love to Father… So I went to learn the Nightmare Transformation Secret Method and turned Father into what you are now…”
Ziya’s voice grew fainter as she spoke, until it was barely a whisper. She had always felt that this idea was beautiful.
She wanted to take all the tenderness and care her Father had once given her and return it manifold, so that her Father could be cherished in the palm of someone’s hand and never have to carry all the hardships alone again.
“Father, are you really… not angry?” she confirmed softly, her eyes still shimmering with unshed tears.
“…I’m not. Ziya, can you let me have some peace? Father needs time to think.”
Bai Li gently rubbed her aching temples, her mind tangled like a mess of hemp.
“Ah… okay, Mo—”
Ziya started to speak habitually, but she was interrupted halfway through.
“Don’t call me Mom! Call me Father from now on. Now, go outside.”
Those calm but firm words were like a bucket of cold water poured from her head to her toes.
Ziya froze on the spot, her eyes widening. For a moment, she even forgot to cry.
She stared blankly at Bai Li, a sense of indescribable sadness and loss welling up in her heart.
It turned out her Father still didn’t want to accept this identity. It turned out she had really messed everything up.
She slowly clenched her small fists, fighting back the tears that were about to burst forth, and walked out of the room one slow step at a time.
The moment the door was gently closed, Ziya could no longer hold it back. Tears fell like broken strings of pearls.
Her shoulders shook as she sobbed, yet she didn’t dare make too much noise.
She knew she had truly done something wrong—fatally wrong.
The Magic was wrong, the idea was wrong, and she had even slipped up on the title. But even knowing it was wrong, she didn’t regret it at all.
For her Father, she was willing to do even the wrong things.
‘This is Eternal Life,’ she thought.
‘And it allows Father to stay by the side of the Monsters legitimately, without having to use Magic to hide and live in the shadows every day.’
She simply wanted to protect the person who loved her most in her own way.
—
Inside the office, Bai Li leaned against the desk alone, one hand clutching her head. She let out a long, heavy sigh.
‘Sigh.’
‘A failure.’
‘A total and complete failure.’
She asked herself over and over where she had gone wrong in her teaching to let Ziya develop such a wild and preposterous idea.
When she first heard that her daughter did it to give her Eternal Life, she was actually a bit moved.
She understood that clumsy filial piety and could forgive it. But the words that followed were far beyond her expectations.
‘Turning a father into a daughter and then giving her everything to pamper her as a way to repay the debt of being raised…’
How was she supposed to respond to that?
Leaving aside whether she was willing or not, the act of turning one’s Father into a daughter was already rebellious enough.
Yet, strangely, she couldn’t bring herself to truly blame Ziya. She knew better than anyone that from a Monster’s perspective, everything Ziya had done was entirely for her benefit.
There wasn’t a hint of malice, only a heart full of clumsy, extreme love.
To be able to do something so unfilial while making it look like an act of devotion—Ziya was truly one of a kind.
Bai Li didn’t blame her daughter; instead, she blamed herself. Perhaps over the last ten years, she had truly pampered the three children too much.
She had tried to satisfy every request and overlooked every mistake, which allowed their thoughts to become so obsessive and distorted.
It wasn’t just Ziya, but Longjiu and Baining as well. Through ten years of day-and-night companionship, her parenting style had deeply influenced them.
But the fact that they chose such extreme methods to repay her was what pained her and made her feel most powerless.
She had always thought she was a capable Father, but only now did she realize she had never truly understood what the children were thinking, nor had she correctly guided their overly intense affection.
‘Sigh, it looks like I must handle these difficulties seriously and quickly.’
Once everything settled down, she would definitely have to re-educate her three daughters properly.
Other things could wait, but at the very least, she had to gently correct Ziya’s wildly skewed ideas, one bit at a time.
She didn’t want to lose her daughters, and she didn’t want this heavy love to become a burden for any of them.