The alcohol smell intensified. Helena’s head began to ache.
Although they were her family, the only ones she shared blood with in this world, their words felt empty and hollow.
With difficulty, Helena uttered his presence.
“…Father.”
He, like Matilda, scanned her and mumbled in a slurred voice.
“Do you have any money? Or maybe something valuable from the Duke. Surely, you didn’t come empty-handed.”
Hearing the voices downstairs, her stepbrother Eric also came down. Leaning on the railing, he sneered.
“Long time no see, Helen.”
His ungroomed beard couldn’t hide his bleary eyes. His pupils were dilated, and every time he opened his mouth, the smell of stale cigarettes wafted out.
Even this meager gratitude was hard to come by in this life, for Helena had awakened after Basil had already departed, just like in her first life. Basil had been neglected, just as before.
Yet, life, never easy, seemed determined to be difficult until the very end.
Helena, following a sense of foreboding, hurried to Basil’s room. As she opened the door, a cold air hit her, sending a shiver down her spine.
“Ah.”
The room was empty, as if it had always been that way, spotlessly clean.
The dark blue suit she had gotten for Basil on his 16th birthday, the canvas and art supplies she had set up so he wouldn’t be lonely, the pretty wavy-patterned bedding that still smelled of him – everything was gone.
Helena crumbled as if facing ruins. Matilda’s shadow loomed behind her.
“Don’t be too shocked. What’s the use of keeping a dead boy’s things? It only brings gloom to the house. At least we got some money for them.”
That damned money, money. Bile rose in Helena’s throat. She pushed herself up, leaning on the doorpost, her legs trembling.
“You… Are you even human?”
“What?”
“Even animals cherish their offspring, even if all they have are thorns. They still protect their young.”
“Has she gone completely mad, living on her own? Now she doesn’t see anything clearly!”
Turning to face Matilda, Helena’s revulsion grew stronger. It was too bitter to swallow anymore.
So, she spat it out, like a final act of defiance.
“Even if you’ve given up on being human, you shouldn’t be worse than animals! After all, you’ve leeched off that scum your whole lives! And now? You’ll have nothing to leech off anymore.”
“What, what?!”
“You better start looking for a place to starve in. You’ve been too busy shuffling cards.”
Matilda faltered for a moment, her face turning red and blue in anger. Owen and Eric, observing the quarrel, suddenly stared at Helena. Their sunken eyes blazed with anger.
Even their looks seemed steeped in greed.
Helena gasped in disbelief. They were worried about that?
“What’s your bottom line?”
“You, you say that again. What did you say? You won’t send us money anymore? Who do you think got you into Evergale!”
“Even to the very end… If you had an ounce of conscience, this couldn’t happen!”
“How dare you try to teach your parents!”
Slap!
A sharp sound echoed. Helena’s view spun wildly. Her cheek burned.
My skin made that sound? Tears welled up in her eyes.
“Parents. Parents, you say.”
Helena stood still, not even touching her swollen cheek. Blood from her bitten lip tasted bitter.
“You take away my plate, fill your bellies first, make me learn cunning instead of letters, immerse me in filth instead of giving me decent clothes, and you call yourselves parents?”
Suppressing the heat in her eyes, she refused to show weakness in front of these people.
But each word was uttered like a curse.
“If this is what parents are, I wish I had none from the start.”
“I’m not done with you yet…!”
Now Owen was about to strike. Helena stared back, refusing to blink. She felt if she did, tears would fall.
Mother, father, brother.
All of them looked at her as if she were a disgusting insect.
Acknowledging this, she surprisingly began to laugh. Like a deflated balloon, the laughter leaked out.
“People who would crawl out of their graves for money, who spit out blades from their mouths because of their desperate circumstances. I believed that if you became wealthy, at least you’d become human. It seems that even having your bellies full didn’t change your sight.”
Helena continued in a voice that was indistinguishable between crying and laughing.
“To think that I considered such trash as family.”
Male lead is a Love-Obsessed Merman
When he discovers she has gone, he risks everything to pursue her on land, enduring agonizing pain to transform his tail into human legs…
One-line summary: Male lead chases female lead. The male lead’s love is a bit sick, an invincible love brain.
Synopsis
During a voyage at sea, Jiang Yang accidentally captures a merman.
Servant: I heard that mermen are fierce and brutal.
Jiang Yang looks at the merman obediently rubbing her palm like a puppy: “You call this fierce and brutal?”
Servant: I heard that mermen have no human nature.
Jiang Yang looks at the merman with wet puppy eyes, obsessively calling her ‘A Yang’ like a childish infant: “You call this having no human nature?”
With great difficulty, she releases the merman back into the sea and returns to shore.
Who would have thought that in less than half a month, the merman, who should have been freely wandering in the South China Sea, would shed his scales, endure the pain of losing his tail, transform into human legs, and come ashore to find her?
He kneels at her feet, rubbing her palm, with merman tears rolling down: “A Yang, don’t abandon me.”
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