After experiencing a bit of Kiana's "affection," Kiana had become much more behaved, or at least she didn't dare glare at Kiana anymore.
Kiana sat with her legs crossed and arms folded, her eyes slightly narrowed as she watched the Damselette, who kept her head down, not daring to look at her. She said coolly:
"Now, can you listen to your mother properly?"
"..."
Kiana pursed her lips and gave no answer.
*Snap—*
"I... I can!"
Hearing the snap of fingers, Kiana's face filled with terror, and she hurriedly nodded while sobbing.
"Phew..."
Kiana breathed a sigh of relief, then turned her head toward the doorway. She casually removed the barrier and said to the heartbroken Kiana:
"Come in. She's ready to listen to you now."
"Anna...!"
Kiana hurried over to Kiana's side, looking at her slightly swollen right cheek with heartache.
"Does it hurt? Let Mommy rub it for you..."
"I..."
Just as Kiana was about to glare and refuse, she felt a faint, lingering sense of danger and quickly shut her mouth.
"..."
"I'm sorry, Anna. What you saw earlier wasn't actually how it seemed..."
Kiana rubbed the spot where Kiana had been hit and began to explain the reason.
Blah blah blah~
After listening to her mother's explanation, Kiana fell silent. Her eyes shifted slightly, casting a sidelong glance at Kiana.
This person who looked almost exactly like her mother and even had the same name... was actually a 'Mom' from another world?!
Was she thinking up more strange things to trick her? She didn't believe it!
This must be her mother's sister, it's just that she had never seen her or heard her mother mention her before.
An Heang's mouth hung open to an exaggerated degree as he looked at Kiana.
Is Auntie Nana being driven crazy by Anna?
No matter how you look at it, they're twin sisters, or at the very least, relatives with close blood ties.
They even made up an 'otherworldly counterpart'... But... An Heang looked at the door that had been shattered into pieces, and couldn't help but feel a lingering fear.
Does an ordinary person have the power to shatter a door just by lightly stroking it?
At least An Heang thought it was impossible!
So, this seemed to have some level of credibility...?
"Liar..."
Kiana muttered in a small voice.
She thought that Kiana wouldn't be able to hear such a faint sound, but she clearly underestimated the General Taiyin.
"Why do you keep muttering 'liar'?"
Kiana's brow furrowed slightly as she asked in a calm voice.
"..."
Kiana silently pulled a pocket watch from her chest and opened it; a small photograph was pasted on the inside of the cover.
In the photo, a young and vibrant white-haired girl and a quiet, black-haired girl with long straight hair on the other side were happily kissing the cheeks of a little white-haired girl sandwiched between them.
The little girl looked to be only four or five years old, but from her purple eyes, it was clear that this child was Kiana as a young girl.
"She, and her, are both big liars."
Kiana's voice was raspy and choked with tears as she looked at the photo in the pocket watch, her eyes filled with complex emotions.
"No, Anna, we didn't lie to you..."
Kiana said, her voice trailing off with a lack of confidence.
Had she really not lied to Kiana...?
"Back then, they both clearly promised me they would come back to spend my birthday with me, but in the end, no one came back even when night fell."
"Usually, they would often dump me at the neighbor's house and ask other people's parents to take care of me. They frequently didn't come home, and I spent many nights alone in the house as a child..."
"When I received word that they were coming back to celebrate my fifth birthday and were preparing a surprise gift, do you know how happy and expectant I was...?"
"But I waited the whole day and didn't get any news from them. The next day..."
"The next day, Mommy came back alone and told me that Mother couldn't come back because she was too busy with work. She just said a word of apology."
"That apology extinguished the hope in my heart. As a young child back then, I felt nothing but disappointment."
"But as I grew older, Mommy continued to use the lie that Mother was busy with work to deceive me."
"But I knew in my heart that Mother wasn't coming back..."
"I was waiting for Mommy to tell me the truth, but she always used those clumsy excuses to brush me off!"
"Gradually, I lost all expectation, and I began to hate them..."
"Even though Mommy quit that troublesome-sounding job shortly after to stay with me, I still couldn't forgive them..."
"Especially when I saw Mommy using lies to brush me off, and even when I hurt her with sharp and bitter words, she still wouldn't tell me the truth. It made me feel anger and resentment!"
"Now I no longer expect the truth. I'll just assume that person abandoned us and ran off with another woman..."
Kiana lowered her eyes, quietly revealing a part of her heart.
In fact, every time she secretly saw her mother crying while holding old photos, she felt very distressed as well.
Every time she uncontrollably said those words and saw the pained expression on her mother's face, she also felt terrible.
But... she couldn't say these things normally, and for some reason, she couldn't tell her mother what was really in her heart.
Every verbal injury pushed her and her mother further apart.
Perhaps only if her mother returned could Mommy truly show a smile again.
She had become taciturn, rarely even saying sharp words, and her daily interactions with her mother were cold.
She began to teach herself hacking and other skills.
She wanted to find her mother on her own.
Then she would question her about why she abandoned them, and then bring her back to her mother.
"..."
Kiana opened her mouth but no words came out. Her eyes dimmed, and she lowered her head.
Back then, she and Ayai had already prepared the birthday gift, ready to go home and give Kiana a surprise.
But... an accident happened, and it came very suddenly.
Twelve years ago, on Kiana's fifth birthday.
As national-level research scientists, she and Ayai could rarely go home.
When that research project ended and they thought they could rest for a long time to accompany Kiana, an accident occurred.
That day, they received an emergency notification that there was a problem with the research equipment. She and Ayai hurried over.
However, after arriving, they found that the equipment didn't have any problems, but the person in charge of the inspection insisted there was.
So Ayai entered the interior of the equipment to begin a series of troubleshooting, while she cooperated from the outside.
Just as the troubleshooting was halfway through, someone activated the machine. The surface of the Space-Time Device that she and Ayai had developed together was covered in dazzling, scorching particles.
Accompanied by an explosion, fragments of the equipment flew everywhere, but Ayai alone... disappeared... not even a body was left behind.
Only a blackened, slightly deformed wedding ring remained.
At first, she thought Ayai might have been taken to a parallel world by the machine. When she went home, she not only deceived herself but also lied to Kiana, saying that Mother would be back in a while.
Meanwhile, she continued to study the Space-Time Device, trying to use it to find Ayai.
But because she was alone, and coupled with funding issues, progress was very slow.
Finally, the higher-ups cut off the funding because of the first explosion, and she was forced to give up.
As Kiana grew up bit by bit, she began to accept the fact that Ayai had died in that explosion.
She had known all along that it was impossible for anyone to survive such an explosion... but at this point, telling Kiana the truth would probably be too late, and she feared the girl wouldn't be able to accept it.
"..."
Kiana's mouth twitched slightly. What Kiana and her daughter lacked was effective communication.
Neither of them had ever thought to speak the truth in their hearts.
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