Chapter 91

Chapter 91: The Embroidered Shoe in the Nightmare

“Hello, my name is Jiang Shi Yue.” Jiang Shi Yue smiled at the hesitant Cheng Ye Zi and held out a hand in an open, friendly way.

Cheng Ye Zi looked up at Jiang Shi Yue and quickly shook her hand. To be honest, her first impression of Jiang Shi Yue was really good-sweet and likable, the kind of girl nobody hated.

What was more, the girl in front of her gave off a strange sense of trust and safety.

Thinking that, Cheng Ye Zi suddenly felt less nervous, and she started talking a little more.

“Hi, my name is Cheng Ye Zi. I was worried you wouldn’t be able to get in.”

Jiang Shi Yue pressed her lips into a small smile and asked directly, “Ye Zi, can you tell me exactly what happened to you?”

Cheng Ye Zi nodded. She took a deep breath, like she was trying to steady her racing thoughts, and after a long while she spoke slowly.

“When I was little, I lived in Run Yuan. Something really terrifying happened there. Nobody in my family believed me-they even took me for mental treatment… I really broke down. Only later, when my parents moved out of the Ancestral Residence with me, I finally got away from those horrible things. But I know it was all real.”

This was Cheng Ye Zi’s nightmare-a nightmare she had never woken up from.

Run Yuan was a beautiful Ancestral Residence, but like many old relics, it felt lifeless, with that heavy feeling of a long, long history.

Cheng Ye Zi’s ancestors had been a family of officials. According to the Clan Genealogy, they could be traced back hundreds of years, and an ancestor had even served as a grand chancellor, so compared to ordinary rich families, they had the deeper foundation of an old, established clan.

On top of that, the Cheng Family still kept a century-old Ancestral Residence.

But Cheng Ye Zi did not like the Ancestral Residence at all. By the time it got to her generation, more than a dozen people lived in Run Yuan: besides her family of three, there were her grandfather and grandmother, plus her uncle, his wife, and their family.

For a little girl, an Ancestral Residence like that was obviously old and boring, and even every piece of wood seemed older than she was.

But to Cheng Ye Zi, that still wasn’t the scariest part.

The scariest thing was the Embroidered Shoe that kept appearing in her nightmares, again and again…

Cheng Ye Zi clearly remembered the first time she saw the Embroidered Shoe. She was five then, a mischievous child who could not sleep at night, so she secretly tried to sneak out of her room to play.

The corridor bathed in moonlight felt like it had returned to a hundred years ago.

Everything was so quiet, so beautiful. In the lotus pond, she could even hear frogs calling softly in the peak of summer.

In the distance, there were tiny points of light-she didn’t know if it was starlight or fireflies, but either way, the night was gorgeous.

But then she saw an Embroidered Shoe slowly walking not far away.

It was as if an invisible young lady from the inner chambers was strolling lazily to clear her mind. Two small feet-only one of them wore a shoe.

That Embroidered Shoe was really beautiful. It was made of deep blue satin, and on the tip was an exquisitely embroidered pair of twin lotuses. The leaves were a rich green, and the stamens curved delicately.

When Cheng Ye Zi blinked, the Embroidered Shoe was gone, as if it had all been a dream.

She was young and didn’t know any better, so she quickly forgot it.

But she never expected that this day was when her nightmare truly began.

The next time she saw the Embroidered Shoe, she was already eight. That day, after they came back from her maternal grandfather’s house, Dad went to park the car, and Mother took her through the corridor back to the bedroom.

Cheng Ye Zi suddenly heard someone singing softly. The voice was light, like sleep-talk, but to her ears it was strangely clear.