I woke up again, shivering, to find myself locked in a cold storage vault, mínus 20 degrees Celsius. My injuries had been bandaged, but the pain persisted. The surroundings were arranged like a sacred shrine, with a clear ice table for inscribing sacred texts at its center. I couldn’t help but tremble, remembering my seventh death: I had been bled dry in a sanctuary to make ink, all while he claimed he wanted to transcribe sacred texts. I looked at the quest progress bar, now at 99%, and recalled how, filled with joy, I had agreed to sacrifice myself for his spiritual journey, believing I was helping him achieve enlightenment. Even in death, my corpse had worn a smile. It wasn’t until the System notified me of quest failure that I realized it had all been a performance–his cruel revenge for Seraphina’s death.
“Transcribe the entire Litany of Purity. Kneel while you do it.” Alistair’s voice echoed from the doorway, cold as ice. He remembered so much, yet he had forgotten one crucial detail: before our wedding, I had been treated for a rare serpentine venom, which flared painfully in cold conditions. I looked up at him, my voice weak. “What if I… cannot?”
He scoffed. “Didn’t you used to love kneeling before the Divine Light?”
I froze, then offered a bitter smile. “I’ve never prayed to the Divine Light since I met you…” That was in a previous life, when I had knelt for eighty–one days, offering prayers for his well–being. My words seemed to jar him. His eyes flickered with a momentary panic, which he quickly masked. “You yourself said you wished to spend your life in devotion by my side. Have you forgotten so soon? Kneel for another eighty–one days, prove that you will never again trouble Seraphina.”
Always for Seraphina. Yet, in the first lifetime, before she died, he hadn’t even bothered to look at her. He had called her a clingy nuisance, boring, full of false propriety. He had publicly declared I was the sole love of his life. And now that she was gone, he was filled with regret. How utterly laughable.
The cold–induced venom quickly spread through my body in the frigid environment. My entire being was numb and itching, as if countless ants were gnawing at my flesh. The wounds on my knees split open again, blood seeping onto the ice. I lost consciousn-
ess once more.
I awoke in a hospital room, only to hear Alistair coldly instructing the doctors: “Don’t waste resources. Just get some older orderlies
to watch her. Make sure she doesn’t die.”
Immediately, half a dozen middle–aged male orderlies swarmed in, flinging open the room door and roughly stripping me naked to attend to the wounds on my intimate parts. “Heard she drugged Mr. Valerius and tried to seduce him?” “My gods, look at her down
there, it’s a mess. She deserves it!”
I squeezed my eyes shut, biting my lip to keep the tears at bay. Laughter and chatter echoed from Seraphina’s VIP suite across the hall. Two nurses emerged, passing my room.
