Blood stained the young man's face, and his sorrow-filled eyes carried both self-mockery and resignation.
"She should not have died nameless and be forgotten. She is a daughter of the Xie family."
The Duke knelt down as well, taking his wife's hand in his own. "Our daughter should not have died so unacknowledged and unremembered."
"I have often thought, if we had a daughter, she would be the apple of our eye, cherished and loved as she grew up."
"No matter what she became—human or ghost—she is still our daughter!"
The Duchess broke into heart-wrenching sobs, curling into the Duke's embrace.
She had been wrong. From the very beginning, she had been gravely mistaken. It was her own hands that had taken the life of her child. It was she who had destroyed their family...
Outside the courtyard, the Night Wanderer chewed on a blade of foxtail grass, staring indifferently at the full moon in the sky.
