That night.

Phoebe was lying on the bed. When she first knew she was having her period, her mother was obviously delighted: "You have grown up, Phoebe!"

But soon, after seeing Phoebe's pale face and blood stains on her body, this joy turned into a bitter smile: "But it seems that growing up as a girl here is not a good thing."

Phoebe lay motionless on the bed like a corpse, her eyes empty as she covered her belly. She said in a weak voice, "When I pray tonight, can I curse all the gods who make women bleed during their periods to hell?"

Her mother laughed and said, "Of course."

"Phoebe." Her mother lay beside her, looking at her pale face, and asked her with some heartache, "Why do you want to be the heir of the Hinchmani family?"

"This is not a suitable place for you to grow up. If you are able to leave now, you can..."

"Is there a suitable place for me to grow up in this world?" Phoebe asked in a normal tone, "Or in other words, a suitable place for me with the surname Sinchmani to grow up without being found by my father?"

Her mother was silent.

"No, that's not normal." Phoebe said calmly, "Then I'll just take the Sinchmani family and make it a suitable place for me to live."

"If it's not free here, I will become its master and make it free."

Phoebe turned to look at her stunned mother: "You didn't need to pray to God at that time, you just needed to tell me what you wanted, and you would have it."

"If you want to become a bird, I can have them make an artificial skeleton robot so that you can really fly in the sky like a bird."

"If you want to leave Sinchmani forever, I guarantee you will never see anyone from the Sinchmani family again. If you want Sinchmani to disappear, it will disappear."

"Mom." Phoebe looked at her. Her face was still a little pale, but her tone was calm and firm. "Only when you are strong can you be truly free in this world."

"The weak have no freedom."

Her mother was silent for a long time, then she whispered to Phoebe through tears: "Maybe you are right, Phoebe."

"...You remind me of someone, a friend of mine, who helped me a lot, but I haven't seen him for a long time since I came here, and I miss that kid."

"I want to take you to see him."

"I'm fine recently, but it will be hard for my father to come with me." Phoebe thought for a moment, "Let's wait until Daniel's seventeenth birthday. He will take over some of the family affairs to gain experience. My father will go with him to observe Daniel and will be away for at least a month. We can take advantage of that time to run away."

Not long after, Daniel's seventeenth birthday arrived.

Children of the Sinchimani family do not celebrate birthdays before they reach adulthood. Their first widely celebrated birthday is their coming-of-age ceremony - it means that they have survived the fighting to adulthood.

And the killing will begin.

On the day of coming of age, the children of the Sinchmani family must take their own guns, go to the Sinchmani family's private prison, select one of the prisoners - perhaps someone who has betrayed the family, or someone imprisoned from another family, and shoot this prisoner with the first shot of their turbulent life, killing the Sinchmani family's first enemy with their own hands - this is a very representative ceremony, representing that from now on you are a member of this family, born to kill enemies of this family and those who betrayed this family.

Normally, they would not receive any trial missions before reaching adulthood.

But since Phoebe's intention on the shooting range was to train Daniel, after Daniel got off the shooting range, he was taken by his father to perform various tasks. Under the leadership of his father, Daniel completed these tasks very well, so this time, Daniel will go on a trial mission alone, and his father will only monitor from beginning to end and will not interfere or help - this means that Daniel will officially become the second in command of the Hinchmani family.

Before leaving, Phoebe stood at the corner of the stairs on the third floor and looked at Daniel in front of her.

Daniel grew up very fast. He had grown a head taller after just a few months of not seeing him. His soft golden curls looked so out of place in his hands. His apple green eyes were as cold as cocktail ice cubes. He had a gun on his waist and a bandage on his right hand. Phoebe could smell blood when he passed by her shoulder, and an extreme and twisted desire to kill was all over him.

——It’s hard to imagine that four years ago he was a little boy who hid in the bathroom and cried after shooting himself.

"You're still thinking about training before you leave." Phoebe said calmly, "Why don't you save some energy for yourself?"

"Oh?" Daniel turned around casually, and glanced at Phoebe with his apple-green eyes teasingly, "Do you care whether I live or die? The future head of the family?"

Phoebe glanced at the oil paint that had not yet been washed off Daniel's face - this man was getting crazier and crazier. Before going on a mission, he would paint all kinds of ugly little masks on himself. Although his original intention was to disguise himself and prevent outsiders from seeing his face, choosing this exaggerated method itself explained some problems.

"I know that the servant your mother left for you betrayed you during the last mission and was shot dead by you." Phoebe paused, "But I left you alive on the shooting range because I wanted you to be the second-in-command, not a lunatic."

"You'll have to take care of yourself."

"I'm the second-in-command?" Daniel's neurotic smile came from behind her. "Be careful, Master of the Family. I may also have the blood of betrayal flowing in my bones from my mother's side."

"Really?" Phoebe was unmoved. She shrugged and replied nonchalantly, "This blood is cleaner than the blood of the Sinchmani family, no matter what."

On the night Daniel left, Phoebe used her power to send her and her mother away from the Hinchimani family. After several rounds of transfers, Phoebe and her family landed on the Sky Island.

That was the first time Phoebe saw hearts.

The man was wearing an elegant robe with red and black stripes, his long hair was hanging down, and he wore a dark red long tassel earring on his right ear. He leaned lazily on the sofa, looking away at the rain outside the island, his purple eyes were half closed as if in a trance, and in the hazy candlelight, the tear mole under his eye was faintly visible, giving him a beauty that made it impossible to tell the gender of his appearance.

To be honest, this is the first time Phoebe has seen such a beautiful human being.

But she doesn't like hearts.

"You look weak." Phoebe looked at Hongtao and raised her eyebrows. "The person who gave my mother faith is actually a weak person?"

Phoebe's mother turned around in disbelief: "Phoebe!"

"I'm weak?" Hongtao turned his head to look at Phoebe, smiling, "Where am I weak? In my appearance? Do I look fragile?"

"No." Phoebe looked directly into Hongtao's eyes. "My mother knelt by my bed every night and prayed to leave the place that trapped her. Why don't you have the same faith?"

"Why don't you dare leave this island that has trapped you? What do you miss about this island?"

The smile on Hongtao's face gradually disappeared, and he looked straight into Phoebe's green eyes, and Phoebe looked at him straight in the face.

"Can I..." Hongtao turned to look at Phoebe's mother who was a little stunned and smiled slightly, "Talk to her alone?"

After Phoebe's mother left.

"You cherish your mother very much. You sent her to see me just to protect her. You treat her very well." Hong Tao paused. "What if one day, she leaves you?"

"Why did she leave me?" Phoebe asked.

"She died." Hongtao said softly.

"What killed her?" Phoebe asked.

"Disease, this island, her beliefs, and many people." Hongtao replied, "People are very fragile and can die easily."

"If it's a disease, I will cure it. If it's an island, I will blow it up. If it's a belief, I will make her change." Phoebe raised her head proudly, her eyes were as strong as ever, "Whatever killed her, I will destroy it."

"...If..." Hong Tao raised his head, his purple eyes were filled with emotions, and his tone was as light as the rain outside the island, "What if it was her?"

"What if she doesn't want to live anymore?"

——The sudden illness, the regular failures, the final farewell that had already been accepted, the will that had already been prepared, were like a ballet that she had rehearsed countless times, playing out and ending in front of him.

Hong Tao repeated the words softly: "What if she chose to die?"

Phoebe choked, and she managed a rare swallowing.

When they got off the island that day, Phoebe did not give an answer to this question. She was sent off the island by Red Heart. She turned around and looked at the man standing on the edge of the sky island in the wind and rain, wearing a loose robe, his hair rustling in the wind. Red Heart's eyes pierced through the wind and rain in the dark night, fell on them who were getting on the boat for a moment, and then moved away lonely.

——It seemed that he was also expecting to find an answer from her.

After returning home that day, her mother told her about Hong Tao, and finally just sighed: "I know Hong Tao's mother, she is a very good person, but..."

“Not everyone can live in such a situation where life is worse than death.”

What about you? Phoebe wanted to ask this question, but she didn't ask it in the end because she didn't know what the answer to the question was, and she would be satisfied only after hearing it.

Soon, the problem that Phoebe had forgotten about came back to her and her mother with unexpected sharpness.

Daniel went missing during the trial mission, and his father was furious. He mobilized almost the entire family, but he could not find any trace of Daniel. After clearing out the suspected enemies outside, his overly suspicious father quickly turned his attention to people within the family.

In fact, Daniel's disappearance itself was insignificant to her father. What was important was that someone dared to touch his subordinates in front of him, disobey his wishes, and escape from his control.

During the rounds of family cleansing, the fact that Phoebe and her mother had left the family during Daniel's trial mission was quickly revealed by the servant who could not withstand the torture.

No one can do anything in front of her father that her father does not allow or knows about, including her, the heir.

Phoebe was used to being thrown into prison and tortured. Her father would punish her like this when she gave some answers or performed poorly. This was not unique to her. Daniel, or every child in the family, had been to private prison.

But what was different this time was that her mother also came in.

Before being arrested, Phoebe repeatedly warned her mother that the prison staff would use a lie detector on her, and as long as she told the truth, they would not punish her - the Sinchmani family would treat honest people well, which was her family tradition.

So Phoebe knew that as long as she confessed the truth, she could leave this dirty prison in a week at most.

She did tell the truth and confessed that she went to look for Hong Tao. Anyway, no one could climb onto Hong Tao's strange island in the sky without Hong Tao opening the door. But those people kept asking her where she had been, and they looked so nervous that she felt a little anxious subconsciously.

...This is when the testimonies of the two conspirators are inconsistent, and they will repeatedly ask her the same questions to verify the testimonies.

On the tenth day, honest Phoebe was released from the privy prison, but her long-standing ominous premonition was confirmed when she saw her dishonest mother who was tortured and scarred.

Her father sat on the supervisor's chair nearby, looking at her gloomily: "Your mother is as ignorant and stupid as my ex-wife. She also betrayed me and refused to tell me honestly where she had been."

"The Sinchimani family does not tolerate dishonest people, but she is your mother, and you are my only heir. For your sake, I will give her one last chance in front of you."

Her father looked at her mother, who was kneeling on the ground with her hands nailed to the bloodstained wooden post: "Where did you go? Who did you meet?"

"If you tell the truth this time, I can let you live."

"Honest?" Her disheveled mother looked up. Phoebe had never thought that her always weak mother could put on such an expression in front of her father, with sarcasm and disdain. She was hurt all over, but she was actually laughing. "I have told you thousands of times."

"I have landed on a free land that a sinner like you can never land on."

"I saw a beautiful person that you will never see."

"Tell me the place and the name." Her father's face had become completely gloomy. "Your daughter has already confessed some information. As long as you tell me the truth about how you found that place, I will let you go."

Her mother looked at her father with hazy eyes and smiled hoarsely: "You have been to that place before, and you have met the people I have met."

"But it's been almost ten years, so it's normal that you don't remember it, but you have to hear it from me, and let me cooperate with him to trick him into opening the door for you and letting you go up to that place--"

"——No way."

"That place was once known as the Pure Land, and now it is truly the Pure Land. You are not worthy to go up there and disturb its purity. Even if I die, I will not let you see my old friend again."

Her father's face remained still for a moment, then he raised his hand, and a servant beside him solemnly pulled out his gun from his waist and placed it in her father's outstretched palm.

Phoebe stared at the gun. She was very familiar with the structure of the gun and had used it thousands of times, but at this moment, looking at the black muzzle, she had a strange feeling for the first time - she was afraid of the tool she had used countless times.

Her heart began to beat wildly.

"You are the second wife who betrayed me." Her father adjusted the gun nonchalantly. "I believe you already know the fate of the first wife who betrayed me. I have never regretted killing people who betrayed the family with my own hands, but in that matter, I think the only inappropriate thing I did was to alienate Daniel from me because of this incident."

"I failed to properly teach him what a betrayer is when he was young, so he didn't understand why I killed his mother. He grew up to be quite rebellious and gradually drifted away from me. It was not until he grew up and was betrayed and suffered a lot during the mission that he understood my difficulties."

"Once is a second time, but I won't make the same educational mistake this time."

Her father raised his head and looked at Phoebe. He reached out his hand and firmly held her shoulder. He put the gun in her palm and said coldly: "Phoebe, as a qualified successor to the family head, you know how to treat betrayers, right?"

Phoebe's chest rose and fell rapidly in the bra that was getting tighter and tighter as she grew. The little space her mother had carefully altered the bra to leave for her was not enough for her to breathe in this extremely tight situation. She subconsciously clenched her gun, and her expression showed a rare bit of suffocation.

"Just like when you were ten years old," her father whispered, "put a gun to your mother's heart."

"Just like popping an apple, pop the dirt out of it."

She looked at her mother, who was smiling at her as always, and just like the heir testing her that day, she mouthed to her: "Shoot."

Phoebe took two deep breaths, then slowly raised the gun without a trembling hand. Then she turned around with lightning speed and subdued her father, who had not yet reacted, and put the muzzle of the gun against his temple with a cold expression.

Almost instantly, all the servants drew their guns and pointed them at Phoebe.

Her father slowly raised his hands, and a crack of fear appeared on his expression, which had been clenched in his hands. "What are you doing, Phoebe? Why dare you point a gun at me?!"

"Why shouldn't I?" Phoebe tilted her head. Her expression was sweet but her tone was cold. "When you taught me to point a gun at my mother, you should have expected that I would have the courage to point a gun at you, my respected father."

"Let her go."

Her father froze for a moment and ordered, "Release her mother."

But at the same time, her father made a very faint downward gesture, which Phoebe quickly saw was the master's signal, meaning to shoot.

So Phoebe took the lead and fired at her father's hand without hesitation. Almost at the same time as her father screamed, the guards froze the guns.

"I said, let her go." Phoebe was almost suffocating because of the bra, but her tone was still calm.

"...You are worthy of being the child I personally taught and raised. You are both brave and quick-witted." Her father actually raised his head while covering his bleeding hand with some admiration. He stared at her viciously, "Maybe if I give you a little more time, you can really succeed in taking power from me."

Phoebe sensed something was wrong. She saw her father take out a round object with an inverted cross symbol on it from his inner lining. The aura emanating from that object made Phoebe feel so uncomfortable that she wanted to step away.

"This is the family's new smuggling business. The scientific name of this thing is [heresy], and it has all kinds of uses you can't imagine." Her father laughed, "For example, this one in front of you, its function is that if you shoot me, the wound caused by the gunshot will be transferred to your most important person."

"And the gunshot wound on my body will heal." Her father raised his intact hand and looked at her with a smile. "Isn't it amazing? I carry many of these [heretics] with me."

Phoebe's pupils shrank and she turned to look at her mother - she was kneeling on the ground with her hands covered, and blood was all over the floor.

"It seems that my teaching to you is still not enough." Her father suddenly grabbed her gun, his expression and tone became gloomy and cold, "Then I will teach you again starting from today's lesson."

Her father grabbed her gun, pointed it at himself and pulled the trigger. At the same time, a loud gunshot was heard behind Phoebe. Her expression and movements were frozen. She turned around and looked away as her father pinched her face.

Her mother was shot in the heart and fell in a pool of blood.

Phoebe tried to breathe hard, but she couldn't muster the strength.

Because she felt that the little space in her bra that could be used for breathing had disappeared.

[System prompt: Detected the player Phoebe's desire, log in to the game. ]

After Phoebe crawls out of her first single-player game covered in blood, she begins a frantic search for items in the game that can heal her wounds.

She knew that as long as she didn't log out of the game now, her mother's time would be frozen shortly after the moment she was injured. Her shot had missed the heart a bit, so maybe she could still be saved!

But Phoebe soon realized that this game that seemed to be omnipotent and could fulfill everyone's wishes actually had no healing items - players could not obtain items that could restore health, and she could not find an item that could instantly heal gunshot wounds.

Phoebe randomly selected a coordinate and logged out of the game in a daze.

Fortunately, her mother did not die.

After sending them off the island, Hong Tao sent people to follow them. After something went wrong, Hong Tao realized that something was wrong and quickly sent people from her guild, or players, to try their best to infiltrate the Sinchimani family, and brought her mother who was shot out and took care of her on the island.

Phoebe saw her unconscious mother on the island.

"I used a lot of props to maintain her vital signs." Hongtao sat next to Phoebe, who remained silent, and said after a while, "But there are no healing props in the game. This is all I can do."

"Feel sorry."

"I fired the shot, and I'm responsible for her current situation." Phoebe said calmly, "I'm sorry, but it's not your turn to say anything."

The two of them looked at each other in silence.

"When we rescued her, she hadn't fallen into a coma yet, but her consciousness was a little fuzzy." Hong Tao paused and said softly, "Her last words were for you."

"She said, Phoebe, you are right, only the strong can have freedom. A weak person like her can only pray and struggle wherever she goes in this world, on an island or off an island. She is not worthy of freedom."

"To you, her being alive may just be a burden of the weak on the strong."

Phoebe's hands clenched on her knees.

It's not like that!!

I am the weak one to you now! I can't do anything!

Red Heart got up and left. Phoebe stood alone at her mother's bedside for a long time. Then she looked at the moonlight outside the window for a while, then put her hands together and slowly knelt down.

"God." She closed her eyes and whispered in a hoarse voice, with an extremely pious attitude, just as her mother had corrected her clumsily before, "If you really exist, I pray to you devoutly."

“I hope she survives.”

"Did you know?" some players whispered, "The little witch who has been the most popular player on the rookie list recently actually has healing skills!"

"Wow, a healing department?! Are all these major guilds going crazy trying to get her?!"

"Yes, the King's Guild has spent more than one million charging points, but she hasn't joined. Moreover, her treatment conditions are very harsh. She never treats players easily. She may not even do it if you come to her. It all depends on her mood. Sometimes she treats more than a dozen players at a time, and sometimes she doesn't treat any of them. Moreover, she can not only treat people, but also poison them. Sometimes you ask for treatment and offend her, and she will poison you directly."

"It's quite dangerous to find her then."

"Yeah, the big guilds are all in trouble, so we low-level players should just watch the fun."

The chatting players walked past Phoebe, and she stared straight at a player covered in a black robe in front of the login entrance - that was the little witch.

Hong Tao's warning was still ringing in her ears - [The little witch is a very dangerous player. You just entered the game and followed the guild to finish the game. Leave the matter of taming the little witch to the guild.]

[Don't get close to the little witch. She only attacks dangerous bases with more than 50 people. If you follow her, you will be killed.]

Her mother was dangerously weak.

In fact, after using so many props, she shouldn't have weakened so quickly, but her mother seemed to have lost the will to live, and she quickly weakened. Every time she got closer, she could feel her breathing getting weaker.

Phoebe finally had to face the question that Red Heart had once asked her: "What would you do if she chose to die?"

She also gave an answer - powerless, nothing can be done.

But she couldn't just sit there and wait for death - Phoebe thought that she had to at least approach the little witch for a gamble.

She was a novice player who had entered the game for less than a week, but she followed the top player on the novice list, the Little Witch, into the most difficult dungeon in the small TV area - a large dungeon with more than 50 players.

And then, as expected, he was beaten to a pulp.

Phoebe didn't know what obsession she was relying on. She dragged her body, which was almost completely corroded by the monster, and held on to the ground with both hands, approaching the witch who was standing on the ground, jumping lightly, spraying poison everywhere to drive away the corroded monster.

The poison mist and the monster's gloomy black aura mixed together and rushed towards Phoebe's face. She looked at the twisted black mist in a trance and almost saw the dark night representing death descending before her.

She seemed to see the chaos and blood in the private prison that night.

...Is this the end for her?

She had never lost since she was born, and ignorantly thought she was the strongest person in the world. However, in this world she was as fragile as an ant, and could no longer get the freedom she wanted.

The black mist was blown away by the shaking cloak, the monster was driven away by the poison, and the forest was filled with dim light.

Phoebe suddenly raised her head and looked at the barefoot person standing in front of her. The little witch in the hood lifted a corner of her eyes, revealing a pair of gray eyes. She seemed to be "looking" in Phoebe's direction, and stretched out her hand to hand her the white bottle in her palm: "Here, for you, the antidote."

——The miracle of this world came before her in the most bizarre way.

The one who gave her light was an invisible guy.

She tightly grasped the antidote that the other party handed to her, and tried to sit up, but she couldn't sit up. She thanked him a little awkwardly: "Thank you."

Phoebe was silent for a moment, then asked weakly, "Why give me the antidote?"

"Because you are too persistent." The little witch squatted down and looked at her curiously. "Other people who wanted to follow me would have scolded me and ran away long ago because they saw that I kept poisoning them and didn't give them the antidote. Only you kept following me no matter how badly you were injured, and you are a girl."

The little witch shrugged: "I am more gentle to girls than to men. I'll give it to you. Here, use it."

"I don't need it." Phoebe shook her head gently and refused. "I want to take it out and give it to someone else."

"Ah?" The little witch asked in confusion, "But my antidote can't be brought into the game."

Phoebe: “…”

The little witch panicked a little: "Hey! Don't cry! I can think of a way!"

"...Is this so..." After clearing all the monsters on the map, the game ended. The little witch and Phoebe did not log out of the game. The little witch sat on the edge of the cliff in the game, thinking, "You are going to bring it to your mother. Let me think about it, there should be a way."

“Oh, I got it.”

The little witch suddenly realized and clapped her hands: "I know that the Gambler's Guild President Charles has a skill that allows you to store skills and take them with you. He has been trying to get me to use his skills to store a bottle of antidote for me so that you can take it with you."

Phoebe was beaten.

It is said that the little witch's intelligence panel shows 90, and it seems to be true. She thought of Charles' skills almost at the same time as the little witch.

but……

"Why are you helping me?" Phoebe asked softly, "I'm just a weakling who can do nothing for you."

"Is it out of sympathy?"

The little witch asked hesitantly, "You just pretended to cry to win my sympathy, why do you seem to mind that I helped you out of sympathy now?"

Phoebe: “…”

It was seen.

Indeed, when she heard the little witch say that she would be more gentle to girls, she quickly pretended to cry and made a scene - she thought the other party might fall for it, but she didn't expect to be seen through.

But she still fell for it, which made Phoebe even more confused.

"You just said that your mother chose to die because she felt she was weak and a burden to you." The little witch held her chin and changed the subject casually, "It's strange that the weak have no freedom."

"Isn't that so strange?" Phoebe asked back, "Only the strong can be free. Isn't that the iron law of this world?"

"Even in games, only the strong can have more."

"You are also weak in front of me now." The little witch shook the antidote in her hand. "Where did you get the antidote from me, or the freedom to save your mother?"

Phoebe paused. "My freedom comes from your blessing."

"The freedom of the weak comes from the charity of the strong."

"No." The little witch calmly refuted her, "I didn't help you because I wanted to give you alms or protect you. I was moved by your faith."

"Your persistence and belief in getting the antidote from me moved me. I know that as long as you're alive, you'll keep following me until I give you the antidote. If I don't give it to you now, you'll probably annoy me to death later, so I gave it to you."

Phoebe was startled.

"The source of freedom for the weak is faith. As long as they believe that the things that imprison them will be defeated by themselves one day, the weak will also be free." The little witch's robe fluttered in the wind on the cliff, and her voice floated in the wind from under her hood. "I was once a weak person who was bullied, but I also protected others in difficult situations. You are also a weak person now, and you are also working hard to protect what you want to protect. We all have this freedom."

"It is not because one is strong that one has freedom, but because one longs for freedom that the weak become strong."

Phoebe got the antidote, and the night her mother woke up, she knelt alone by her bed and prayed devoutly:

"God," she whispered, "Since I was born, I have only seen hell and never heaven."

"If only there really was a place like heaven in this world."

"Then please let the little witch go to heaven."