The scroll unfolds like an ink painting, the black-and-white street scene is dyed with color, green shady paths, blue sky, black radiation power plant exterior, and her mother's stern white face.

Children around five or six are playful and carefree, a little girl runs with a pinwheel in hand, the pinwheel whirls.

The air is filled with joyful vibes, the ethereal humming sound resonates in the child's heart.

The little girl is as exquisite as a little fairy, her eyes like crystal clear maelstroms, her little nose wrinkles as she pouts charmingly.

Her mere appearance attracts many glances.

Behind her is a beautiful woman in her twenties, gracefully swaying with each step like a soft breeze caressing the willows. Yet between her brows, there gathers a persistent melancholy.

The little girl often hears others praise her for perfectly inheriting her mother's looks, even surpassing her, always easily winning favor from others.

Beside her mother, there are always men who fancy themselves handsome and dashing, lacking neither power nor money, eager to pursue beauty but never getting her.

"Whir—whir—whir!" The little girl mimics the sound of the wind in her mouth, her steps brisk, but she stumbles and falls to the ground, her knee turning bright red.

She cries loudly, her mother scolds with a frown, "Get up!"

"Mom, Xiyue hurts." The little girl wants to curl up in her mother's arms for a bit of comfort.

But in her memory, her mother's embrace seems distant, at this age she can already distinguish adult emotions.

"Get up!" The mother responds coldly, "You're not dead, are you? What's a bit of pain!"

Suppressing her pain, the little girl gets up, follows her mother in silence, feeling exceedingly aggrieved, clearly other kids get comforted after falling, but not her.

She feels her mother doesn't love her as much as before, especially as her mother sees more of that man in her.

The ink strokes on the scroll gradually blur, leaving only vast blue sky.

...

"Mom, mom, why do others have dads but Xiyue doesn't?" The little girl starts school, surrounded by kids whose parents pick them up, but she only has her mother.

Everyone should have parents, she should too. Though Lin Xiyue is only five or six, she's remarkably smart, able to learn in one day what other kids take ten days to learn about. She already understands her family is different from others.

At a very young age, she cried asking this question, only to be met with scolding and hits. Her mother seems unwilling to hear about a certain someone.

"You don't have a father, he died long ago!" the young woman says with a frosty expression, "I've told you not to ask this question again, so tonight you'll have no dinner. If you ask again, you won't attend school anymore."

"Oh." The little girl says with a face full of grievance.

At a very young age, she understood her home has no father, and that her own mother and that supposed father have a very poor, even deeply resentful relationship.

In the shadow of hatred, her mother's feelings towards her are very subtle, sometimes loving, sometimes hating, she bears her mother's resentment towards her father because she carries that person's blood.

Her birth might have been a mistake.

The little girl thought her father was long dead, but one day a man suddenly burst into her life, her always strong mother's face turned white, that handsome face seemed terrifying to her mother.

The man appeared and disappeared at times, sometimes bringing her toys and snacks, but her mother always threw them away, absolutely forbidding her from accepting them.

She didn't like the man either, every time he appeared, her mother and he would fight in the room, no matter how unwilling her mother was, he would drag her by the hair into the room.

No matter how much she cried as a daughter, the man remained indifferent, even annoyed by her noise, kicking her several times. Once, the man with a dark face got angry, in his unpredictability almost strangling her.

From then on, she held terror towards the role of a father. She no longer harbored any pleasant yearning towards men, no expectations.

The impression of a man in her heart was truly terrible.

She could hear her mother's painful moans from the room, see her mother come out with bruises and bleeding face, blood streaming down her thighs, the mother praised by countless as fairy-like, always ravaged beyond recognition, like a mad wandering woman.

And her mother's attitude towards her grew worse.

The child didn't understand why she was in such a family, she was always uneasy, always scared, always unhappy.

Until one day, the man stopped appearing.

Because her mother carved her own face with a knife, three scars rendering her sinister, further consuming a large amount of high-energy food, making her gain a lot of weight.

"You slut! Used to indulge in living in the mansion ‌Lao-tzu‌ gave you, not wanting the life of a wealthy woman, and go out on your own. Trying to escape me? Fool's dream.

Now even worse, desecrating yourself, being so ugly and fat, even if you recover, imagining your current appearance makes me sick!

But do you think this way you can escape my grasp? I'll tell you whether you're alive or dead, beautiful or ugly, you're still my collection!

Even what ‌Lao-tzu‌ throws away, no one's allowed to touch it with even a finger."

Life returned to peace, her mother, who lost beauty and figure, enjoyed a period of happiness, also letting the little girl experience motherly love, during ordinary days they indulged in sweetness, without disturbances, without a swarm of woman-chasing men entangling them.

But such times didn't last, for a rumor in their community spread out, making their days immediately difficult.

"Did you hear, that woman was raped back then, it spread like wildfire at the time. She looks proud usually, pretending to be pure, yet defiled by a rapist."

"Such a dirty woman doesn't even care about those men chasing her, really don't know where the confidence comes from!"

"Now look at her, no face to speak of, no figure to speak of, not qualified to be a femme fatale."

"Really don't know where she gets the face to give birth to that bastard, mother and daughter both are sluts, now seeing them disgusts me!"

...

These words cut like knives into the mother-daughter duo's hearts, too many people were jealous of them, the venomous words made them constrained at every step.

The friend count, already few for Lin Xiyue, dwindled further, she had no friends at all, at school she played alone, enduring strange looks.

She stopped going to school, stayed home alone, her gifted intelligence letting her learn far beyond what she would at school. Her highly capable mother did some online work, earning far better than average, life didn't face issues.

In the blink of an eye, Lin Xiyue turned seven, her mother taught her cultivation, taught her zither, chess, calligraphy, and painting, taught her to cultivate temperament, because her mother realized this was her child, besides being born in error, having no wrongdoing. She had no reason to bear this, couldn't let her child suffer anymore.

"Xiyue, don't pay attention to others' words, you've never done anything bad, your heart is pure, so long as you haven't done wrong, what others say doesn't concern you."

"Remember the lotus I took you to see? Emerging from mud unsullied, impervious to evil, clean even amidst the mire.

Dust and dirt cling, but with a rinse from rainfall, the lotus remains dignified. Don't let residing in such an environment lead you astray."

"You must understand, beauty is sometimes a disaster, especially when you lack strength to protect yourself.

If beauty is a wealth, then you were born immensely rich. Your mother's beauty brought misfortune, becoming that brute's plaything, on my past appearance I harbor only hatred.

Take heed from my prior misfortune."

...

Not long after, her mother sold all assets, moved with her to Huachen City on Saturn, deliberately making her appear ugly, with few outings, they were at peace.

But such a shining pearl, still often caused trouble, Lin Xiyue finally understood why her mother said her innate beauty was a disaster.

She was unwilling to go out, reluctant to communicate, accustomed to solitude and simplicity, maybe others encaged for long become restless, but she sat for days in serenity.

Gradually, she found herself hard to adjust to city life, unable to communicate, insensitive to the unspoken, clueless in socializing. As habits became traits, traits shaped her life, she became cool and serene as the moon.

"I often despise my birth and family, feel lonely, often loathe the outside chaotic clamor and disorderly hearts, any closeness with others' revels becomes my Hell. No fitting realm for me exists."

Lin Xiyue knew her mother's heart was originally kind, yet fate dealt her poor cards, disrupting half her life, shredding all beauty to pieces.

Seldom going out, having neither friends nor confidantes, keeping company with books and cultivation, she quickly reached fifteen, much of her girlhood gone.

She and the outside world already so out of joint, unable to blend in.

Until one day, even such a life came to its end.