When the white snake drained my blood until I passed out, all he did was blame me for being too frail.
But now the snake had only been squeezed once, and he looked like someone had carved a hole in his chest.
I stared up at him, blinked, and let my voice go small and wounded:“Didn't you say she understands people? I was just trying to bond with her.”
Sid's throat worked. He looked like he wanted to explode, but he swallowed it down.
Maya glared at me:“Mommy, don't you ever bully her again!”
I crouched down and looked at the daughter I'd spent three days and three nights in labor to bring into this world.
“Maya, she just bit Mommy.”
Maya blinked, then puffed up without a shred of doubt:
“Then it's definitely Mommy's fault. She never bites me, and she never bites Daddy.”
Word for word, the same thing she'd said in my last life.
My heart still went cold. I couldn't help it.
In that life, I'd died without ever understanding.
How could a child I'd carried for ten months and given birth to side so completely with a snake?
I didn't learn the truth until after I was dead, when I heard Maya say it herself.
It was almost laughable. The reason was that I wouldn't let her eat candy because of her cavities.
And Sid had told her that Mama Bianca would buy her a whole roomful of candy.
Just like that, my daughter helped someone else murder me.
She didn't even look sad when she saw my body. She kicked my corpse. Twice. Hard.
The smile on my face faded, bit by bit.
Sid noticed the silence. He pulled Maya behind him immediately.
“She's just a kid. She doesn't know any better. Don't hold it against her.”
I didn't say anything.
I just turned and walked into the closet.
Once the door was shut, I pulled a black cloth bundle from the farthest cabinet.
This was the first thing I'd done after being reborn: gone straight to Clearwater Monastery on the outskirts and asked for what I needed.
I took out a porcelain vial. Through the door, I could hear Sid's low murmur in the bedroom.
“Bianca, just hold on a little longer. Once she's asleep……”
Outside the door, the white snake flicked its tongue.
The sound was eerily close to a woman laughing.
That night, Sid was gentle with me in a way he almost never was.
He said he was worried the bite on my hand would hurt, told me to rest early, and offered to put Maya to bed himself.
I watched him set the Jade Terrarium on the nightstand, and everything behind my eyes turned cold.
It had been exactly the same in my last life.
Every time the white snake bit me, he'd become impossibly tender afterward.
Pouring me hot water. Tucking the blanket around me. Sometimes even pressing a kiss to my forehead.
I used to think it was guilt.
Now I understood.
He was just soothing an animal before slaughter.
The lights went off. I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep.
Before long, a faint scraping sound reached my ears.
The lid of the Jade Terrarium, being pushed open from the inside, inch by inch.
A length of cold, smooth body slipped out.
It didn't drop to the floor.
Instead, it glided down the nightstand and onto the bed without a sound.
A sudden chill against my wrist.
The little white snake coiled around it.
Its movements were practiced.
First around the wrist. Then flush against the pulse point. Then its mouth opened, fangs lining up with the thinnest vein.
This was how it had fed, every night, in my last life.
My lifeblood could nourish a soul.
Every bite drew Bianca's spirit closer to solid form.
The day it drained me dry, she would come back to life for good.
My eyes snapped open.
The tips of the snake's fangs were already touching my skin.
My free hand shot under the pillow, pulled out the Cinnabar Cord, and looped it around the snake's throat in one motion.
The white snake froze.
Its thin body thrashed wildly across the sheets, but every twist only pulled the cord tighter.
It opened its mouth to cry out, but the sound that came wasn't a hiss.
It was the faintest whimper of a woman.
A second later, the master bedroom door flew open and Sid rushed in.
