Chapter 1174
She stared intently at the path Serena had taken. “That old woman is already dead. The only reason Serena would travel all this way to the backcountry is that she still cares about her roots, right p>
“Exactly!” Patrick nodded vigorously. “I know that girl. She has a soft heart. If we just say the right things and make her happy, she’ll definitely take us out of this
miserable place p>
Logan clenched his fists tightly. “We’ve been punished enough. She has to be over it by now p>
Marianne wiped at her tears, her eyes gleaming with determination. “You two, go find some decent ingredients immediately. I’m going to cook for her personally. She used to listen to me the most when she was little. If I talk to her properly, she’ll definitely cave p>
This was their one and only ticket out of this living hell.
They silently vowed that no matter how much they had to debase themselves, they were going to butter Serena up and make her take them away from this torment.
Behind the village lay a mountain known as The Ridge.
It wasn’t particularly tall, but it was incredibly desolate.
The terrain was choked with wild weeds and thick thorns, leaving no visible paths.
The locals rarely ever ventured up here.
Serena navigated the overgrown terrain effortlessly until she reached the halfway point and stopped.
There was a solitary grave here.
It wasn’t grand, but it was impeccably clean.
The weeds in the immediate vicinity had been neatly cleared, and the headstone was completely spotless.
She had secretly dispatched people to maintain it over the years.
The ground around the site was entirely undisturbed. There wasn’t a single set of footprints.
There were no floral tributes, no offerings, not even a trace of someone having visited.
It was painfully obvious.
In the entire time the Wynns had been banished back to the backcountry, they hadn’t visited the grave once.
Serena wasn’t surprised in the slightest.
The Wynns only ever cared about themselves; no one else had ever mattered to them.
Her gaze fell softly upon the engraving on the stone-
‘Here lies Aria Wynn p>
Her grandmother.
A woman who had been discarded by the Wynn family and spent decades living a
quiet, impoverished life in the backcountry.
Serena stood silently before the headstone.
A cold breeze swept past, rustling the fallen leaves around her feet.
Like scenes from an old movie, the memories of the sixteen years she had spent surviving alongside a her
ther in this village played
through her mind.
In truth, during those sixteen years, they hadn’t actually spent that much time together.
She had been too busy sneaking out,
hiding her activities from her
grandmother to train under those eccentric old masters-learning
medicine hacking professional racing, lethal combat p>
They were all strange, reclusive men hiding out in this rundown village. She would leave before sunrise and wouldn’t return until well after dark.
Almost all her time was consumed by mastering those brutal skills.
And every time she came home, caked in mud or sometimes bleeding. Her grandmother was always sitting by the door, waiting for her.
When she saw Serena, her grandmother would just smile warmly and say, “You’re back, Serena? Are you hungry? I saved you some food. It’s your favorite.” Serena would constantly offer up the most amateur, clumsy excuses for her injuries. But her grandmother never once exposed her lies, nor did she ever pry.
She simply sat in the warm glow of the porch light, waiting for her to come home.
She would busy herself in the cramped kitchen, cooking the meals Serena loved most.
The year she was expelled from high school because her duties with the Ghost Alliance had taken over her life p>
Everyone in the village called her a worthless failure.
व्री
But her grandmother just stroked her hair, a gentle, knowing smile on her face. “My Serena’s talents are far
be contained in a small
toovast toontent belongs to
place like this.”
Her thoughts churned.
Serena’s mind drifted back to when she was sixteen.
Her grandmother had fallen terribly ill.
She had sat by the bedside, clutching her grandmother’s frail, emaciated hand.
The same hand that used to cook for her, sew her clothes, and hold hers as they
walked down every dirt path in the village.
It had been reduced to skin and bones.
Yet, her grandmother’s eyes had remained so incredibly clear, and so undeniably resolute.