Chapter 4: The Poisoned Mirror of Memories
The night she rose from the ashes of betrayal, she returned to the palace. Her body ached from a long day spent crushing bones, a heavy exhaustion dragging at her steps. "Damn it..." she hissed, her voice dripping with irritation. "This place is even filthier than my previous world."
Suddenly, the carriage jolted beneath her. A spiteful, mocking smile played on her lips as she looked at her ill luck. She raised a clenched fist toward the carriage ceiling, her voice sharp with a deadly promise: "I will skin you alive... whoever dared to send me to this hell!"
As the carriage came to a halt, she stepped out with a cold, terrifying elegance. She looked every bit the noble lady, as if she hadn't been tearing her enemies apart just minutes ago. A servant rushed toward her, panting heavily. "My Lady! The Duke is waiting for you. He demands to see you immediately."
She looked at him with eyes as cold as ice. "Tell him the person he wants is dead," she said flatly. "He can try again in his next life. Now, leave. No living soul is to disturb me."
She retreated to her room and collapsed onto the sofa. A migraine clawed at her skull like a jagged blade. Closing her eyes, she muttered, "Just a bit of rest... before this headache kills me."
But fate had no intention of giving her peace. Suddenly, the world plunged into a pitch-black darkness. She thought with a dry sense of irony, Did I really die from a headache?
The Poisoned Memory Lane
The scene shifted abruptly. She saw a ten-year-old girl. It was Holina. The child's trembling voice whispered, "Father hates me, and Mother does too... no one in this world loves me."
The vision flashed to a lavish dining table. The Duke glared at the little girl with pure disgust. "Stay in your room from now on," he barked. "There is no place for you at our table. You are nothing but a nuisance to me."
Time accelerated. She saw Holina at twelve, beaten by maidservants and left to starve behind locked doors. Hannah watched the scene with bored indifference. "What a pathetic, boring movie," she muttered. "When will this show end?"
But the final scene froze the blood in her veins. A desolate, black room. Holina, at fifteen, bound in heavy chains. She had been kidnapped for an entire month, and not a single soul had bothered to look for her. Hannah watched in silence as the girl escaped—in a way so gruesome, so horrific, that no human mind could endure it.
Awakening for Revenge
Hannah burst into a fit of hysterical laughter that echoed through the void. "Truly horrific! Hahaha... A villainess? Of course! How could she not become a villainess after tasting nothing but neglect, betrayal, hatred, and destruction?"
Hannah stood tall in the darkness, her eyes glowing with an inextinguishable fire. "I will make them all beg for death..." she vowed, her voice a deadly whisper. "...and I will make sure they never find it."