Chapter 793: Aipuli’s Betrayal
Although she didn’t know why, Aipuli could always let down all her defenses here, becoming the little girl in her heart, doing anything without restraint.
Upon arriving at the Academy, she found her favorite instructor and her best friend.
After being led to the Academy by her instructor, she soon met her best friend.
As for classes… entering the Academy was the start of learning, wasn’t it?
Learning how to be happy, learning how to interact with friends, learning how to deal with conflicts, learning how to reconcile with others…
The only reason she looked forward to school ending in this Academy was to see her mother who would take her home and her father waiting for her at home…
Occasionally, she would attend some complex and hard-to-understand classes, but all she needed was to frown a little, and that counted as getting through.
What is this place?
What is this?
This is a kindergarten for the immature heart of someone who hasn’t grown up inside.
Everything here is bizarre yet harmonious; it’s the world where Aipuli can most easily let down her inner guard. She wants to believe this is real, and she is willing to become such a person to experience this kind of life.
Or rather, this is her strongest desire to relive her life once more.
After all, not long ago, she had resolved to prove her final worth and defend her family’s honor at all costs.
But… is this really the family honor?
The family is a selfish monster; it shackles the people Aipuli knows with the name “family,” constantly exploiting everyone’s worth until they ultimately sacrifice their lives.
No one in the family can live an ordinary life. Those who only think about comfort only prove that they lack the value of existence.
In the end, they become the laborers at the bottom of the family.
This doesn’t mean that one can live comfortably in a remote place; the incompetent have no right to comfort. Only those who are close to the core power holders of the family have freedom.
What freedom?
Freedom of power!
And the lowest members of the family have only one kind of freedom, which is the freedom to exploit ordinary people.
Ordinary people think the family members who exploit them are bad, but in fact, they are both tragic and bad; they are merely grasping at the last shred of freedom they perceive.
In contrast, ordinary people also have their own freedom, which is the freedom to live…
Even if it’s ordinary, it’s a resting place deeply embedded in the souls suffering from pain, which they can only hope for but cannot attain.
…
School is over.
Aipuli said goodbye to her friends one by one, looking forward to tomorrow. This time, Aipuli stood at the school gate, gazing around in confusion.
If it were a few days ago, her mother would already be waiting for her there, patting her head and telling her how great she was, taking her through a long corridor while listening to her boldly share the interesting things of the day.
“Little Aipuli, why aren’t you home yet?”
“Instructor Chris… where’s my mom?” Aipuli turned to look at Instructor Chris standing at the gate and instinctively asked.
“Didn’t your mom come? Then I’ll accompany you to look for her,” Chris said as she took Aipuli’s small hand without any hesitation.
Aipuli also didn’t realize there was a problem; she didn’t choose to wait but proactively began to search.
Because deep down in her heart, Aipuli knew her mother wouldn’t come if she waited. Only by actively seeking could she find her. However, the anxious Aipuli could no longer care about this uncomfortable truth she didn’t want to face.
Thus, Aipuli followed Instructor Chris and embarked on the path to find her mother.
For some reason, this path felt strangely familiar to Aipuli.
As she walked on, it was as if a long-buried memory she was unwilling to face began to surface.
Aipuli’s spirit gradually destabilized; the surroundings of the dream began to crumble, but the road they walked on continued to extend.
The absurdity of the dream stimulated Aipuli’s consciousness for the first time, and the emerging memories made her a bit fearful.
She… seemed to have done this before… looking for her mother, alongside her instructor.
But that wasn’t a pleasant memory.
She instinctively turned her head to look at Instructor Chris, a strong and unidentifiable sense of guilt surged within her, making her unable to meet the warm smile of Chris at this moment.
All she remembered was that the road beneath her feet was the way home.
…Really?
Aipuli questioned deep in her heart; this road seemed somewhat unfamiliar.
“Aipuli, we’ve arrived.”
“Hmm?” Aipuli made a questioning sound as everything around her seemed to change greatly from her memories.
But the place she arrived at suddenly turned her expression pale!
Because what was beside her was not her home.
But a grave.
On the tombstone was a photo of her mother.
“No… that’s not right!” Aipuli instinctively pushed Chris away with both hands covering her face, unable to accept the current reality.
“No… that’s not right! This is a dream! A dream! How could my mom be dead?! It’s impossible…”
“The mom I saved with my own hands! How could I possibly forget? She dropped me off at the Academy this morning… Instructor Chris! You saw it!”
But when Aipuli looked at Instructor Chris, the latter remained silent.
Even she hadn’t discovered that she had always known this was a dream, simply because she was willing to believe in its reality.
But when Aipuli saw Chris’s face, strange memories began to resurface…
Those were the memories of Chris personally taking Aipuli back to seek the truth, memories of what had happened in reality.
Memories she was unwilling to acknowledge!
“I don’t want to have children; that’s my bottom line. This will affect my figure a lot… I don’t want to sit at home for a year, and what if an accident happens, and I can’t even come out of the operating room? How bad is that?” The familiar female voice echoed in her mind; it was her mother’s voice.
“I don’t want to take that risk; a child is just mine…” But the things she said were scary.
“…”
“Your mother doesn’t love you as much as you think she does; the same goes for this family. Why cling to these things?”
“Your father is the one who killed your mother. Do you want me to trace some details and reasons for you?”
Memories buried deep in the Earth Vein were unearthed by Instructor Chris, her voice echoing early in Aipuli’s ears.
The intense shock nearly drove Aipuli to madness.
“No… no! This is a dream; dreams are beautiful! Why, why doesn’t that cruel reality spare my dream as well? Why! Tell me why!”
At this moment, the Chris in the dream looked at the frenzied Aipuli and finally grabbed her right hand, trying to harm herself.
“Because… Aipuli, it’s time to wake up from your dream.”
“What?”
Aipuli instinctively spoke, wanting to pull her right hand back but found she couldn’t move at all.
A clear pain not belonging to the dream continuously stimulated her nerves.
“Make one last choice with your instructor.”
“What do you mean?”
Aipuli looked at Instructor Chris in the dream, and at that moment, the Chris in front of her became both familiar and unfamiliar, until she stuffed a crystalline object into her restrained right hand.
“Will you choose to resist… or calmly accept d*ath?”
After Chris said this, everything in the dream seemed to completely shatter, and the image of Chris before Aipuli gradually became blurry.
Then, another person replaced her.
A sudden chill jolted her, and the figure in her eyes became completely clear.
Because the person in front of her was her father.
At this moment, he was angrily restraining her right hand, and she suddenly realized that the hand still held tightly in his grip didn’t hurt as much anymore.
After all… he was just an ordinary person.
“Finally awake, huh? Tell me what’s that on your hand! What is it!”
“What?”
At this moment, Aipuli still hadn’t reacted, but being pulled strongly by her wrist, she still allowed him to manipulate her.
“What is this? Tell me what this is? Didn’t you say you lost it? Tell me what this is!” The man pointed at the object on her hand, and in the next moment, a slap struck her face without holding back at all.
Slap—!
The crisp sound echoed in the bedroom, and Aipuli also clearly saw what she was holding in her hand.
It was… the Frozen World.
The item that Instructor Chris had pressed into her hand… was the Frozen World?
“How is that possible?!”
Aipuli instinctively touched the part of her face that had been slapped, feeling a bit of pain, but compared to the wounds from battle, it was nothing.
However… this slap struck her self-respect hard.
“You rebellious girl! Just as she said, you’re here to ruin our Hothorn Family! You’re truly damned!”
Hearing her father say this about her, Aipuli was a bit stunned; she didn’t understand what had happened, why things had developed like this.
But when she saw her father say this, several figures appeared behind him.
“Take her down! This rebellious girl who betrays the family is just like her mother, a worthless thing. And make sure to take back the Frozen World from her hand.”
“Don’t come over! I’m not!”
Aipuli instinctively retreated, but the several incoming people didn’t give her a chance at all.
Aipuli instinctively fought back but found that the four people coming up were terrifyingly strong.
These people were students from the Extraordinary Academy!
What’s more, they were those intentionally trained in magic by the Wizard Academy!
As soon as she touched them, she knew she had no choice.
And a phrase echoed in her ears.
“Make one last choice with your instructor.”
That was her instructor’s voice… from the dream, but it should be reality now. She heard it again… or perhaps it was a hallucination.
But in this critical moment, she suddenly activated the Frozen World. The crystallized object in her hand erupted with dazzling brilliance!
She was facing four enemies. Even if she had just graduated and was the former teaching assistant, her physical abilities, undying nature, and so on were still at their peak. However, without her most proud means, she wouldn’t have much close-combat skills, and she simply wouldn’t be a match for these four people.
So her only breakthrough was the Frozen World!
However, when the Frozen World was activated, the ice crystal suddenly caused her right hand pain. Without a protection spell, her right hand could only deplete her undying nature within the extreme cold.
Pain was unavoidable.
As she suddenly entered the Frozen World, the four people missed their target.
“Father, listen to me…”
“Aipuli! What are you doing! Are you really going to rebel? Not only are you not admitting your mistake, but you’re even resisting with the Frozen World; is that how I taught you?”
“…”
Just as Aipuli was about to explain, she was interrupted by the man’s angry tone. The emotions she had been brewing were abruptly stifled, and the tone was suffocating.
She suddenly felt that this family was strange, and this world was suffocating; a feeling of being nowhere to go enveloped her entirely.
She suddenly realized that her father was, in fact, such a powerless person.
Rebellion… such an unfamiliar term, is it describing herself?
Admitting mistakes… what mistake have I made?
In the end… what did he teach me?
It all ultimately resulted in shackles of the family tightening around her neck.
“I just want to live ordinarily… isn’t that allowed?”
It seemed like this was the second time she expressed her thoughts, or perhaps her demands, before her father.
The first time she got beaten, so she understood that no one in the family was allowed to have their own ideas, even if one did, it had to be suppressed deep in their heart and could not be expressed.
“You are a member of the family! You have no right to say what you want! Being ordinary… your head! What are you still standing there for? Go up and catch her!”
Crash—!
With a sharp sound of shattering, the simulated bedroom window in the Frozen World was shattered by a figure, and then the figure fell to the ground from the high point of the castle in a free-fall posture.
But the girl showed no fear whatsoever.
In the brief moment of weightlessness in the air, Aipuli thought of so much… complaint? Gratitude? Relief?
She didn’t know, but ultimately she was brought back to reality by the solid ground.
Her body seemed to shatter the icy surface; she “fell” out of the Frozen World, without a single injury.
Even if there were injuries, her strong undying nature and body strength meant that such a height wouldn’t leave her severely injured.
That’s right, Aipuli chose to escape.
She wanted to leave this place… because this was not home.
There was nothing here that she cared about, having tasted the wonderfully ordinary flavor in the dream, how could she tolerate the tragedy of reality?
In this moment, she was like a mouse in a dark corner savoring sweet flavor, squatting in the gutter named reality, longing to once again find her way to the paradise named the dream, enjoying the sweetness that she could hope for but could not attain.
All she wanted was an ordinary life and simple love!
Is that too much to ask?!
…
In the bedroom.
“Sir… Miss… she jumped out of the window and escaped.”
“Stop calling her miss, she’s a traitor… so what are you waiting for! Go chase her! Sound the alarm! Mobilize all family security forces and capture her! And get back the Frozen World in her hand!” The man ordered frantically, exerting the power of his family identity.
To retrieve the Frozen World, this family would not hesitate to use all their strength.
But then he thought it was ridiculous; the thing they desperately wanted to retrieve was eventually going to be given to those players!
“What a shame~ she got away~” At this moment, a female voice sounded from outside the door.
“Don’t make sarcastic comments!” The man was still furious, and seeing this female player only made him angrier.
“You’re still too aggressive~ I clearly helped you get back the most important thing, and this is how you treat me?”
“Anyway, it’s something that will ultimately be given to you players, so I should be grateful or something.” The man snorted coldly.
“Just kidding~ Even if this shard can’t be found, we players are just losing a shard~ But your family’s losses would be much greater~”
