Muzan: My daughter can't be that weak!

After her mother passed away, Xue Nai's world lost a part of its color.

The meals that were delivered became increasingly simple, sometimes even cold, and medicine was often forgotten. The maids looked at her with more pity, but also with more distance.

She doesn't remember what her father looks like.

She had only seen his back in her dreams through her mother's description, but that back never turned to her and never entered her world.

No one allowed her to go to her father's yard.

"Young Master's illness has worsened, alas."

"The new lady is about to enter the family. I heard she is in good health and will surely give birth to a healthy heir this time."

Yukina huddled in her room, listening to the people talking outside, still clutching the only coat her mother had left her.

The clothes smelled of my mother, faint, and the scent was fading.

"Miss, it's time to take your medicine." The maid brought over the medicine bowl.

Xue Nai looked at the bowl of dark, murky medicine and shook her head.

"I won't drink it."

"Miss, how can you get better if you don't take your medicine?"

"So what if I'm better?" Yukina's voice was soft and calm. "Mom's gone. Nobody needs me to get better."

The maid frowned, but didn't try to persuade her further. She took the bowl of medicine and left.

Xue Nai lay back on the bed and closed her eyes.

She thought that maybe if she didn't take the medicine, she could get to that "very far away place" where her mother had gone sooner. That way, she could see her mother.

A few days later, Yuko sneaked into her room. She knelt down beside Yukina's bed, looking at Yukina's pale, almost translucent face, her eyes red-rimmed.

"Miss, you must take your medicine obediently." Yuko's voice was soft, pleading. "Madam wants you to live."

Yukina stood with her back to her, motionless.

Yuko bit her lip, as if making a decision. She leaned closer and lowered her voice, saying, "Miss, you still have your father. Your father... he's in poor health, just like you. How sad he would be if you were gone."

Yukina's eyelashes trembled.

Father……

The person she barely remembers.

Yuko continued, "I heard from the old servant who serves the young master that when you were born, the young master... your father, held you in his arms. Although it was only once, and although he didn't say anything... he held you."

Yukina slowly turned around, her magenta eyes looking at her with a faint light within them.

"Really?"

Yuko nodded vigorously, tears streaming down her face. "It's true. So, Miss, you're not alone. You still have your father. For his sake, you have to live on."

She also has a father.

A father, just like her, trapped in a frail and sickly body.

If she dies, will her father be as sad as she was when she lost her mother?

Would her father want her to live...?

This thought, like a tiny seed, landed on her barren heart.

She slowly sat up and reached out her slender hand to Yuko.

"Give me the medicine..."

Yuko's tears flowed even more fiercely.

She hurriedly brought over the warmed medicine and watched as Xue Nai sipped the bitter medicine slowly, her brows furrowed as she finished the bowl.

From that day on, Xue Nai began to take her medicine and eat on time.

She was still pale and thin, and still spoke very little, but there was a faint but persistent light in her eyes.

She became curious.

I'm curious about what my father, whom I've never met, looks like.

I wonder if he finds the medicine bitter when he takes it.

I wonder if he...would also like to meet her.

This thought grew stronger each day.

She wanted to meet that person, the only person in the world as sickly as she was.

Yuko watched Yukina grow up.

From that frail, kitten-like infant to this pale, thin, yet exceptionally sensible little girl, Yuko has witnessed too much.

She was just a maid, unable to change anything, but she could do her best to give Yukina some warmth.

"Yuko-neechan," Yukina sat on the veranda, hugging her knees, her unusual plum-red eyes gazing at the newly blooming hydrangeas in the courtyard, "What kind of person was Father?"

Yuko, who was mending Yukina's little socks, paused when she heard this.

She looked up at Xue Nai's slender profile and felt a pang of sadness.

After losing her mother, the child longed so much for her blood-related father that it became almost her reason for living.

"Young Master..." Yuko put down her needlework and smiled gently, "You're a very gentle person."

She lied.

She had barely seen the young master more than a few times.

The seriously ill young master rarely left his home, had a gloomy personality, and was cold and distant to everyone.

But she couldn't tell Yukina these things.

"Young Master is unable to visit Miss because of his poor health," Yuko continued, her voice soft, as if telling a beautiful fairy tale. "If Young Master's health permitted, he would surely be an excellent father. He would play with Miss, tell her stories, and hold her hand as they stroll in the courtyard."

Xue Nai's eyes lit up.

"Really?"

"Of course it's true." Yuko patted her head. "So Miss, you need to take your medicine and eat well to get better. Once the young master is feeling better, you'll be able to see him."

Yukina nodded vigorously, a determined look on her face: "Yes! I will!"

Yukina's mother used to say the same thing.

When Seri was still alive, she would always patiently tell Yukina, "Nana's father doesn't not want to see Nana; he's just sick, very sick. Once he gets better, he will definitely come to see Nana."

Xue Nai had never seen other fathers and children interacting in this way.

She didn't know that a normal father would lift his child up high, play games with his child, and rush to his side when his child falls.

The father she knew was just a distant and gentle figure who couldn't come to see her because he was sick.

Although this realization was regrettable, it brought her peace of mind.

At least, she wasn't a child abandoned by her father.

He's just sick.

Just as she could only lie in bed when she was sick, her father was simply sick.

As time went by, Xue Nai gradually sketched out the image of her father in her mind.

She was a gentle person with a pleasant voice who would smile at her like a mother.

Perhaps his eyes were also magenta? Like hers?

This thought filled her with a mixture of anticipation and fear. After all, the servants' often evasive gaze when they saw her, and their pronouncements that it signified impending disaster, all made her uncomfortable.

But if it's her father... if it's her father, he certainly wouldn't find her eyes strange, right?

This imagined father became the driving force that supported her in drinking bowls of bitter medicine and swallowing mouthfuls of tasteless food.