The Dragon Palace was referring to the period when he was a demon infant, a time of wandering and homelessness. Back then, he was mischievous and even stole the corpse of a corpse driver. Later, out of boredom, he threw the corpse aside, but the sealing talisman on the corpse was accidentally broken. If the corpse driver hadn't arrived in time, an entire village would have been in grave danger.

At the time, Long Dian didn't think much of it, but now that he thinks about it, he realizes he was indeed a bit of a fool.

It seems that as he gets older, the Dragon Palace's mental maturity also increases.

He used to be single-mindedly focused on successfully being born, after which he would use his power to vent his long-suppressed anger and grievances, letting all mothers and fathers know that it is wrong to cruelly kill the soul of an infant. Now, he suddenly feels that if he really did that, it would all be meaningless. What has happened has happened. There are so many children in the world who can be born, but not all of them can live a happy life.

Of course, not all mothers will kill the child in their womb.

Long Dian knew that it was because of his and Long Shuang's birth that the elderly Madam Long passed away. However, the couple never blamed him and Long Shuang for it. Even though the two of them were out of place with everyone in the town, they would still carefully protect and take care of them. Now, that silly Shuang probably has no idea (not really) that the people in the town have secretly given them nicknames, one is called Silly Baby and the other is called Debt Collector. This is all thanks to Long Dian's parents.

For more than a decade, he never called them by name. Long Dian always remembered that before Madam Long passed away, she touched his face and said to him, "Whether you call me or not, I am content as long as you acknowledge me as your mother in your heart!"

He still remembered the scene when he knelt in the ancestral hall, his head was forced down by Sha Shuangqiang, and he uttered the first "Mother" in the hall. Master Long covered his face and burst into tears.

Long Dian had been consumed by resentment and cold-blooded for too many years. This was the first time he had been moved. He realized that there really were people who would unconditionally indulge and forgive him, unlike that foolish Long Shuang, who only knew how to impatiently tap him on the head. But who could blame him when she was his aunt from his past life and his younger sister in this life? Just as Master Long had said, girls in the family should be pampered. Your mother should be pampered, and your sister should be pampered even more.

I suppose that confused old man is right!

Long Dian never expected that after his mother's passing, his father would soon follow. He didn't cry, nor did he know what crying meant. He simply held Sha Shuang tightly, as if embracing the whole world. Suddenly, a deep, profound panic gripped his heart. He feared the future, because in some future, perhaps Sha Shuang would also leave him.

It was only at this moment that he realized that Sha Shuang treated him differently.

She led him out of that despairing 'cycle' and showed him so many different landscapes: Alessa in Silent Hill, betrayed and sold out by her mother, yet still unwilling to harm her; Alice in Resident Evil, enduring the pain of experiments, yet still willing to lend a helping hand to ordinary people.

What's the difference between them and him?

Dragon Palace occasionally ponders this question.

What he didn't understand was that when a demon begins to reflect and think, he has already shed his demonic identity and gained humanity.

The Dragon Palace's little brain wasn't big enough for him to understand such profound principles. He foolishly suspected that the only difference between them was their gender!

Then he felt deeply that he had suffered the greatest gender discrimination that God had given him...

When he finally told Cheng Shuang the truth he thought he knew, the girl politely turned her back and covered her face, giggling for half an hour.

Oh my god! She finally found this fake brother, the real demon baby, to be somewhat cute!

Cheng Shuang did not cruelly tell him the truth; what he, Alice, and Aresa experienced was fundamentally different.

Both Alice and Alessa have experienced emotions. Alice is an adult with normal values ​​and is unlikely to be swayed by sudden events. Although Alessa's mother was weak, she insisted on giving birth to her and raising her. Although Alessa ultimately met a tragic end, Alessa fundamentally received maternal love and believes that maternal love has always been there.

This is the most important difference.

Although both are demons, the unborn demon infant is not as cruel as Alessa.

Cheng Shuang was willing to keep the demon baby outside for this reason.

Even though the initial demonic infant didn't understand emotions, he knew who was truly willing to be good to him and accept his real, terrifying self. That's why he would cling to Cheng Shuang despite his insincere words.

The more the Dragon Palace understands now, the more it can figure out the predicament it once fell into, and how its recurring obsession can only devour all its emotions.

He didn't want to forget the bittersweet feeling when his parents held his sister and laughed happily, the touching moments when his wife tolerated him time and time again, the hurt when Sha Shuang ignored him, and the anticipation when Sha Shuang gave him a gift on his birthday.

But if he left Sha Shuang, he had a feeling that he would fall into that vicious cycle again, becoming a demonic infant hated by everyone, suffocating under layers of resentment, and eventually forgetting his true self after he had grown up.

The only thing Long Dian feared was that he could sleep with Cheng Shuang in his arms so that he wouldn't have nightmares every night.

Children who have experienced too much pain are astonishingly perceptive.

So when Longwei was transferred to a neighboring town for work, he packed up his younger siblings and took them with him, worried about them.

Looking at the unfamiliar streets, Long Dian had a bad feeling.

This premonition became even stronger when I heard Uncle Nine's name from the gossipy women by the roadside.

The Long family has relatives in a neighboring town—surnamed Ren, who is the husband of Madam Long's sister, named Ren Fa.

His family is wealthy and influential in this town, and his daughter, Ren Tingting, is the first girl in the town to receive an education abroad. She has just returned to China.

Since the three siblings of the Long family have temporarily moved here, they naturally need to pay their respects to their elders.

Long Wei immediately took a liking to Ren Tingting.

Cheng Shuang sized up her cousin. Although she was pretty, she lacked the refinement of a great beauty like Yuewei. However, she was still a rare beauty in the nearby towns. So she was quite arrogant and ignored Long Wei's clumsy attempts to please her. Her occasional smiles were not out of kindness, but because she found Long Wei's behavior old-fashioned and funny.

Her expression was undisguised, perhaps because she thought the twins were too young to tell anything. But, unfortunately, she encountered two precocious children.

Long Dian and Cheng Shuang simultaneously composed themselves. This pair of pseudo-siblings both had a tendency to be protective of their own; they could criticize this cheap older brother, but not others. If Ren Tingting didn't like him, she could simply reject him directly, at least Cheng Shuang wouldn't lose face, and Long Dian wouldn't interfere. But Ren Tingting treated her suitors as mere entertainment, neither taking initiative, nor rejecting, nor taking responsibility—that was a bit too much.

Cheng Shuang could tell that Ren Tingting wasn't a bad person; she simply enjoyed being fawned over. If she had someone she liked, she might not necessarily turn into a jerk. But Long Wei would definitely feel resentful because of being suddenly struck out, and might even do something wrong out of jealousy.

Long Wei learned about responsibility for his younger siblings, but that doesn't mean he's a magnanimous hero. He's still quite petty, so Cheng Shuang decided to break through this ambiguity and make Long Wei give up completely.