[Matriarchy] Youthful Days

You could call it Fleeting Years, or you could call it Redemption.

Inspired by a passing thought, with no deeper meaning.

She really was beautiful. At first, everyone who saw her said she looked like a white lotus rising from the water.

A lot of boys liked her at first, but later they would rather like someone who was nowhere near as beautiful as she was.

Let her grow wildly, like weeds, then stomp her down, again and again. Finally, burn her to ashes.

She felt like she was about to die.

She might as well think about something else. All those stories about redemption were sickening.

That was all her long first half of life had amounted to, anyway.

Back when she thought that way, her eyes would grow damp, and she would really want to cry.

But now she no longer felt any urge to cry. It was as if she were remembering the life of a stranger.

But she was just lonely.

When she fell into the abyss, when the straw in her hand snapped, she wanted to drag someone else down with her.

As a child, she never imagined that one day she would embody her own name so perfectly: Lian, to restrain and conceal.

At last she saw a glimmer of light, just as her fleeting years were drawing to a close. At last she saw her purpose, and finally stopped tormenting herself over the past. At last she learned to feel neither joy nor sorrow.

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