Inside Chunyi Hall.
Behind the Ruyi-patterned mirror and glass screen, a woman, now little more than skin and bone, lay with her eyes tightly shut. Her graying, disheveled hair was matted into the bedding; from a distance, she looked like a dead leaf that had already fallen into the mud, devoid of all vitality.
Xie Mingyue, having been smuggled into the estate by a female guard disguised as a maid, peered through a crack in the window. Seeing her mother—so drastically different from the woman in her memories—she could not help but cover her mouth to stifle a sob.
Chapter 63