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The chill was so intense that even Lilith felt an indescribable numbness crawl across her scalp.

“Is… this your mother?” Lilith turned back in disbelief and asked. She still clung to a faint sliver of hope, thinking that what she saw before her was nothing more than a tasteless joke Liana had played.

But Liana nodded seriously and replied, “Yes. Why? Is something wrong?”

Lilith stared at her for a long while, searching her eyes for even the slightest hint of deceit. Yet there was none. Those eyes were so clear and sincere that they resembled those of an innocent child.

And the more genuine they appeared, the more absurd everything felt to Lilith.

“What the hell…” Lilith cursed under her breath and looked again at the figure lying on the bed, wrapped beneath the blanket—Liana’s *mother.*

It was not a person at all. It was a doll. A doll with delicately painted features, whose face bore a faint resemblance to Liana’s. The corners of its lips held a gentle smile, yet it did not move, did not speak, and possessed no warmth whatsoever… a lifeless doll.

Liana’s supposedly ill *mother* was, unbelievably, a doll.

“Liana, are you absolutely certain she is the mother who gave birth to you and shares your blood?” Lilith asked again, seeking confirmation.

“Of course! Don’t we look alike?” Liana leaned closer and gestured between her own face and her *mother’s*. “Hehe, my mother is very beautiful, isn’t she?”

Liana said shyly, “Everyone says my nose and eyes were inherited from my mother.”

“……”

So that was how it was. Lilith slowly calmed down.

Looking at Liana, who showed no sign of finding anything strange and firmly believed that the figure lying on the bed was truly her mother, many of the earlier inconsistencies suddenly began to make sense.

Why would the third daughter of a prominent family wander alone into the forest in search of a flower she only knew by name? Why did she think her father disliked her, yet that same father provided her with a rare phone and even a tractor in this world, while clearly worrying about her?

Why had both the woman named Lauren and Liana’s father shown such strange expressions when they learned that Lilith had come to treat her mother’s illness? And why did the ordinary townsfolk in the city look at Liana with unmistakable pity?

Yes, she was indeed a useless girl who could not cultivate, but her noble birth alone meant ordinary people would never pity her. At most, they would mock her as a joke. Unless…

Liana, the third daughter of the Ye family—one of the three great families of Maplefall Town—was not only incapable of training. She was also mentally ill. A lunatic who treated a doll as her own mother and desperately tried to cure it.

Which raised another problem. Even if Lilith possessed the confidence to cure any illness, how was she supposed to cure a doll? This was completely ridiculous.

“Huh? Mountain Ghost, why haven’t you started yet?” Seeing that Lilith had not moved for a long time, Liana asked in confusion. But almost immediately she slapped her forehead, suddenly realizing something.

“Oh, I get it! Observation, listening, questioning, and pulse-taking—you’re observing Mother’s symptoms first, right?” She suddenly pulled out a small notebook from the drawer beside her.

“I already wrote down Mother’s symptoms a long time ago, so you don’t have to look again.” Flipping through the small notebook packed with dense notes, she began reading out the *symptoms* of her mother one by one. “Let me see… Body temperature too low, loss of speech, loss of appetite, lifeless eyes, and a little bit of dementia… yes, that’s about it.”

After finishing, she looked at Lilith with hopeful eyes. “So, Mountain Ghost, can you cure her?”

“……” Lilith remained silent for a long time before finally letting out a quiet sigh.

“Sixteen grams of angelica root, nine grams of clove, thirty-one grams of salvia…” Lilith listed a string of ordinary medicinal herbs. “Buy them and boil them into a decoction. Take it three times a day. One course lasts three days. It will begin working after three courses.”

“Oh, oh, I understand.” Liana scribbled in her notebook, carefully recording the names of the herbs. But soon she frowned in confusion. “Wait… I’ve already tried these herbs before, but they didn’t work.”

Lilith paused, her gaze drifting toward the piles of jars and medicine pots scattered across the floor.

“I see.” Lilith thought for a moment, then suddenly clenched her teeth and plucked a single strand of hair from her head. “Take this as well. Boil it together with the medicine.”

“This… hair… will it really work?” Liana asked, half doubtful.

“Have you forgotten who I am?” Lilith said, “I am the Mountain Ghost. I have always absorbed the essence of the sun and moon, feeding on Moonfall Flowers. If the Moonfall Flower can serve as a medicinal catalyst, then my hair certainly can as well.”

“Oh, oh, I get it!” Liana suddenly realized, and her eyes immediately lit up as she looked at Lilith. “So that means Mountain Ghost is basically a giant Moonfall Flower, right?”

“…You could think of it that way.”

“That’s wonderful!” Liana was so delighted she nearly jumped up. “I’ll go buy the herbs right now. Mountain Ghost, just wander around for a bit. When I come back, I’ll take you out for lunch.”

With that, Liana dashed off in high spirits, disappearing in a flash and leaving Lilith standing there alone. After Liana left, Lilith silently turned her gaze back to the doll lying on the bed.

“Alright… this should stall things for a few days. But what happens after that? It seems I’ll have to find someone who knows the details and ask them. I can’t keep stumbling around in the dark forever.”

***

Lilith had barely stepped out of the room when she found someone already waiting outside. “You are… Liana’s father, correct?”

“Yes.” The refined middle-aged man, who had apparently been standing outside for some time, nodded. “I am the head of the Ye family and Liana’s father, Landon.”

“Hello, my name is Jasmine.” Lilith briefly introduced herself before asking, “You were waiting here specifically for me. Is there something you wanted?”

“I was not specifically waiting for you. I was…”
“You were worried about Liana, right?”
“……”

Landon did not answer, but the fact that the dignified head of an entire family was willing to spend his time standing here was already answer enough.

“I will not harm Liana.” Lilith let out a soft sigh and said, “She is a very pitiful girl.”

“I could see that.” There was little hostility in Landon’s expression. Instead, there was even a hint of relief. “In all this time, among the doctors who have gone inside, you are the first who did not feel mocked and storm out in anger.”

“…She must have brought quite a lot of people here over the years.”

“Yes. Nearly every physician in the city who could be persuaded has been brought here by her. As for those who refused to come, she used threats and bribes. She has caused quite a bit of chaos in the city’s major clinics.”

“And the Moonfall Flower…”

“I made that up,” Landon said with a helpless shake of his head. “I thought that if I named a flower that did not exist, she would give up the idea. But I never expected…”

“So it was as I thought.” A flower that bloomed under moonlight… how could it possibly be called Moonfall Flower?

“So what exactly happened to Liana?” Since someone who clearly knew everything was standing before her, Lilith began asking questions without hesitation. “Judging by the way you all treat her, she could not have been like this since birth.”

“Of course not.” On Landon’s weathered face, which did not quite match his refined demeanor, a bitter expression surfaced that was difficult to put into words. “Five years ago, Liana was the pride of our Ye family. Her talent was extraordinary. From a young age she displayed astonishing gifts and was deeply valued by the elders of the clan. How could she possibly have been like this?”