Perhaps because she had suppressed her violent and ruthless impulses for too long, the stepmother put on an act every single day when she was around crowds, especially in the presence of the City Lord. Though naturally hot-tempered, vicious, and ruthless, she had forcefully sculpted herself into the likeness of a saintly, aged white lotus. The crux of the matter was that a white lotus was a white lotus—if one didn't bother to define what a white lotus truly was, Li Dai felt she actually liked white lotuses quite a bit. How pure and pristine they were! Such wonderful things—who wouldn't like them?
Yet, as fate would have it, this world was exceptionally cruel. A truly pure white lotus, innocent and lovely inside and out, was like an overprotected rare breed. Left to live by itself on the endless mountain peaks, blooming in a world of pure innocence, it could retain its natural and pristine state. But the world was always cruel; such clean and pure flowers, when placed in a muddy world, would either be cruelly tormented and destroyed, or polluted into other colors until their original appearance could no longer be seen.
There was no help for it. They were too pure and too wonderful; all people in this world were muddy, and none of them were worthy of that beauty.
Chapter 1003