If Cheng Xi could have predicted what would happen later, she probably wouldn’t have used those drawings to force Chen Jiaman’s father into action. Or, at the very least, she would have tried a gentler approach, so as to slowly uncover the past with him.

Just as the nurse had noted, Chen Jiaman was very gifted at drawing. Her drawings were filled with emotion. Cheng Xi had seen one, and just that single picture had made her feel as if her own heart had been dipped in a bitter brine.

The drawings that she had made in the darkness were filled with dark emotion. The main body of the drawing was composed of uneven, messy lines. But in the messiness, you could always see a hint of something else: anger, despair, and a sense of helplessness.

The nurses said that her drawings were likely of ghosts and malicious spirits, but Cheng Xi knew that that interpretation was false. Chen Jiaman was drawing the world as she saw it: ugly, dismal, and corrupt. Compared to a flower by the roadside, even a maggot in a coffin would be cut...