“You little brat, I’ll kill you!”
The overseer screamed, clutching his bleeding thigh as he reached for Little Leonora.
Little Leonora’s face was cold.
She grabbed a nearby iron bucket filled with rotten flesh and blood.
With a splash, she dumped it all over the overseer’s face.
The thick black blood instantly filled his mouth and nose, the foul liquid burning his eyes with a fiery pain.
This time, the overseer didn’t even have the strength to scream.
He could only fall to his knees, clutching his eyes.
After doing that, Little Leonora glanced back at Shiya and saw that she was still standing there like an idiot.
The girl immediately slapped Shiya’s hand hard, making her eyes water, then turned and pulled her into a run.
The overseer, straining his neck, pointed a trembling hand at the retreating backs of the two girls.
“Go after them! What are you waiting for?”
The expressionless workers exchanged glances, for a moment not moving.
‘This bunch of brainless old farts!’
The overseer muttered under his breath, then looked up.
“Weren’t you complaining about living underground for centuries, afraid to go up? Just catch them, and I’ll have the big shots above make temporary disguises for you. You’ll see the light of day again.”
As the overseer finished speaking, those workers with pale, rotting skin all stirred, chasing after the girls in the direction they fled.
Most astonishingly, despite having just sliced off an entire arm or calf of their own flesh, they didn’t lose the ability to move;
Instead, they ran swiftly.
The footsteps of the workers behind were closing in.
As they turned another corner, Shiya could clearly feel the distance shrinking.
Shiya was frantic, even considering the last resort of staying behind to cover their escape.
To get away from those male workers.
As females, their physical disadvantage destined them to be unable to…
But then, suddenly, Little Leonora tugged her arm and pointed to a door made of golden-thread nanmu that had appeared.
“That place is safe. Hurry, hide in there.”
Shiya unconsciously rubbed her eyes.
Why hadn’t she seen this room in the corridor before?
But she had no time to wonder.
Following Little Leonora into the room, they both pushed a cabinet against the door to block it, jamming a mop handle behind the doorknob.
Only after securing everything did Shiya have a chance to look around this space.
The air was filled with the green scent of potted plants.
Several white hospital beds were lined up.
The clean, tidy, and well-lit environment was completely out of place in the underground Longevity Factory.
“…Where is this? Are we still in the sewer?”
It was no wonder Shiya was so confused.
The girl walked across shiny tiles, looked up at a slowly rotating magic-powered electric fan, and finally fixed her gaze on a window at the end of the room, covered by a white curtain.
How could a window exist in a sewer that never sees the sun?
But all the light in the room came from outside this window…
Little Leonora was visibly startled by Shiya’s murmured question.
“This is the school infirmary.”
She quickly realized that Shiya’s mother had never come here.
Shiya rarely responded to Little Leonora.
Instead, she turned and stepped toward the window.
She thought she had seen something behind the curtain.
Vaguely, it seemed like…
A bloody handprint?
No.
Shiya’s eyes widened as she finally identified what it was.
A missing half of a woman’s face, palm-sized…
Suddenly, Little Leonora grabbed her from behind and pulled her back.
“Don’t pull open the curtains. It’s safe here, but once you open the curtains, something terrible will happen!”
The girl’s voice was tense.
After blurting out that nonsensical statement, she shook her head in confusion.
Shiya’s body stiffened, and at that moment, she noticed through the gap in the curtain that sticky blood covered the entire pane of glass.
She had no idea why such a thought came to her.
At that moment, the closed curtain began to flutter without wind, making the half-missing face on the white curtain even more terrifying.
Shiya collapsed to the ground, clutching her chest, her heart pounding wildly.
“Miss, what is going on here?”
“I… my head hurts. I don’t remember.”
Little Leonora gritted her teeth, then suddenly remembered something.
She ran to the bedside drawer and rummaged, quickly finding a medical chart.
But just as Little Leonora was about to open it and read, Shiya snatched it away.
“Hey, what are you doing?”
Little Leonora jumped up to reach the chart that Shiya held high, but Shiya used her height advantage to keep it away.
No matter how furiously Little Leonora tried, she couldn’t grab it.
Finally, Shiya tapped the young lady’s head.
“Let me take a look first.”
In reality, Shiya’s heart was already filled with an inexplicable sense of panic.
This medical chart was extremely similar to the medical records they had found in the old doctor’s file when they first entered the sewer.
Without waiting for Little Leonora to object, she quickly examined it.
As expected, on the first page of the chart, the photo showed Little Leonora’s face, delicate like a doll’s.
However, unlike before, it didn’t have the stamp of death in red ink.
Shiya let out a long breath of relief, then continued flipping.
But the middle nine pages seemed to have been deliberately torn out.
Apart from the first page with the patient’s detailed information, there was only the last page with the doctor’s note.
On it, someone had written a line in red ink.
“Do not let the patient recall anything that happened at the academy. If she does, the potion on Patient Leonora will expire, and she will die immediately.”
In an instant, Shiya’s fingertips turned white as she gripped the chart tightly.
So that means back then, the young lady had remembered something and directly fallen into some kind of near-death state?
But no matter how much Shiya searched her memories of the original owner, after her father was convicted, she never went back to that noble girls’ academy.
Shiya frowned, rolled up the medical chart, and silently stuffed it into her pocket.
Suddenly, a small head with maple-red hair bumped into her belly.
The young lady, who had been calmly thinking, let out a sob and fell onto the bed.
Little Leonora, having struck once, didn’t hold back.
She sat on Shiya’s waist, flailing her arms angrily, trying to grab the chart.
“Are you even listening to me, you idiot? Give it back!”
But no matter how much Little Leonora scolded, her little body twisted around, tormenting Shiya’s waist.
The usually weak and pushover Miss Shiya didn’t give in either.
The normally fine hospital bed creaked as they struggled.
Shiya’s voice came, tinged with tears.
“Miss, I really can’t give this to you.”
Little Leonora, who had been in a dominant position on top of Shiya, suddenly loosened her clenched fists.
The girl’s head drooped, her voice muffled.
“I just want to know what happened at the academy that day. I remember everyone… they all died because of me.”
In an instant, Shiya caught her breath.
Her soft, slender hands slapped the young lady’s cheeks, producing a crisp sound.