Chapter Seven: The Girl Raised Within the Tomb

Judging by the magic radiating from Yeye, her mother was certainly no ordinary person. Could it be that she, too, had been ensnared by some nameless commoner, just like those unfortunate grand mages of history?

Thinking about it, the master of the Aldos family did seem like the type of man capable of such a feat. He possessed little knowledge of magic—ignorant, yet reckless enough to attempt the impossible—making it entirely possible that he had stumbled into a success.

Perhaps this very man was hiding somewhere right now, plotting against Zohan.

"Not here. I don't know where she is..." Yeye shook her head, looking somewhat lost.

She was merely a little girl who ran about creating blood-pigs; she understood nothing else.

"Then how did you get here?" Zohan asked, his confusion deepening.

Judging by her attire, she did not look like someone who had traveled a long distance to reach this place. She looked more like someone who had emerged from somewhere nearby, having spent time hiding and scrounging, leaving her in such a dirty, wretched state.

Yeye tilted her head to look at Zohan. His eyes, like hers, held a faint shimmer of blue within their deep darkness.

After a moment of contemplation, having sensed no distressing or repelling aura from him, she ran out of Celiad’s bedroom.

A biting wind whistled into the room, and Zohan hurriedly followed.

Yeye ran across the snow, spreading her arms for balance and waving them occasionally. She kicked the snow into a spray, acting like a child excited to play in the snow for the first time. Just as Zohan was puzzled by her strange behavior, he realized she was actually using her feet to draw something in the snow.

Zohan glanced around. Although the butler had said that no one would come here without the master's orders, for the sake of caution, he cast a barrier spell to shroud the area.

"My mother and I... we were always in this big box."

Yeye stopped and pointed to a square pattern, explaining to Zohan, "A long, long time passed. A very long time. When I grew up, I opened the box and ran out."

What? An uneasy feeling stirred in Zohan. His intuition might not always be accurate, but Yeye’s past was clearly far from a normal life.

Her experiences were likely filled with darkness and misfortune, a cruel and wretched environment unimaginable to ordinary people.

When she said "always," did she mean from the moment she was born?

Zohan pressed his lips together. What kind of inhuman monster would do this to a mother and daughter?

This was undoubtedly imprisonment!

"After I ran out, I could play around the area. Outside is a much, much bigger box than the first one. It’s bigger than..."

Yeye gestured toward the Aldos family manor, spread her arms wide to emphasize, and nodded firmly. "Bigger than this."

"The bigger box you mentioned... is it pitch black, without any light, but filled with paths winding in circles toward many places?" Zohan’s heart skipped a beat. Looking at the diagram Yeye had drawn, he suddenly guessed the truth.

The diagram Yeye had drawn looked exactly like the floor plans of ancient tombs he had seen in his previous life! There were countless images and even physical artifacts in literature and museums.

The "big box" she spoke of was likely a coffin!

As for the box even larger than that, it was the catacomb surrounding the coffin!

There were many famous tombs in this world as well, filled with passages, traps, and even magic arrays. His teacher had explored many such great tombs and had left behind a notebook on the subject.

Could it be that Yeye was born in a coffin, grew up in an underground tomb, and had only recently escaped?

"Yes, how did you know? Have you lived in a box too?" Yeye asked with a touch of sympathy.

After she had run out, she discovered that, unlike her and her mother, everyone else did not live in big boxes.

The places they lived were square as well, but they had windows, doors, and comfortable, warm beds inside. The floors were even covered with wood, so one didn't feel a chilling, stinging cold when walking barefoot!

Yeye desperately wanted to bring her mother out so she wouldn't have to lie in that dark place forever.

"Well... the place I used to live was similar. Only my teacher and I, no one else..."

Zohan was speaking the truth, but primarily to comfort Yeye. The sympathy in her eyes caused his heart to curl with a soft, aching constriction.

Looking at such a fragile, young girl and imagining what she had endured, he felt the same way he used to when treating children who had suffered domestic abuse and were covered in scars.

He looked closely at the diagram again. "Then how did you manage to leave that place?"

"Mother told me that at the end of one of the paths, there was a circle that glowed with light. If I walked to it, I could leave." Yeye was curious—was he running away to resurrect his teacher, too?

If so, she could find a way to help him make a blood-pig. Yeye looked at Zohan with compassion.

"A glowing circle?" Zohan pondered. Could it be a magic teleportation array? He hurried to ask, "Do you remember what that circle looked like?"

Yeye drew the circle from her memory on the snow again.

"It really is a teleportation array..."

Zohan murmured. Yeye had excellent memory and artistic skill; she had replicated the structure and the magic circuits of the array quite accurately.

This was a complex array capable of long-distance teleportation, something an ordinary mage could never hope to master.

It was a pity Yeye couldn't truly replicate it; otherwise, Zohan could have used reverse analysis to uncover more clues.

"Then why didn't your mother leave with you?"

"Mother died... I need to use a blood-pig to save her." Yeye blinked. The faint blue in her clear eyes held a deep, settled sorrow.

She had originally assumed all mothers were like that, but the blood-pig's mother was not.

She wanted her mother to open her eyes, to talk to her, and... if she could touch her, that would be even better.

"I'm sorry." Zohan paused. A sign of high emotional intelligence is the ability to empathize and put oneself in another's shoes, especially in situations that are difficult for anyone to accept. "However... at least your blood-pig is almost finished."

With a wave of his hand, Zohan swept his magic over the snow, erasing the pattern Yeye had drawn. He took her hand and led her back to Celiad’s room.

Could a blood-slave really save her mother?

Zohan did not question her directly. This was her hope, even a pillar of her mental strength.

Setting aside questions like how Yeye learned to create blood-slaves or who her mother actually was—or whether she could truly be resurrected—the priority should be ensuring her blood-slave no longer fed on the blood of innocent people.

Wait. Shouldn't a person like the master of the Aldos family be the perfect raw material to feed a blood-slave?