Chapter Three: The Silent Sacrifice

Just like in my previous life, my family greeted me with distant embraces. “Sister,” Bianca offered me a soft smile, though her eyes flashed with caution and scrutiny, “I'm sorry for taking your place. Now that you're back, I'll return everything to you.” I trembled with “emotion,” my eyes instantly welling with tears, as if an orphan who'd wandered for years had finally found a home. I rushed forward, throwing myself into her arms without hesitation. In the instant our cheeks touched, the tiny bottle hidden beneath my fingernails silently released a single drop of “Silent Dew” onto the skin behind her ear. Before returning home, I had tracked down that botanist rumored to make deals with the devil, trading my last pennies for a vial of this colorless, odorless liquid. “Silent Dew”—a drug extracted from moss that thrives only near deep-sea volcanic hydrothermal vents. It instantly destroys the nerve endings in the cochlea. Just one drop on the skin behind the ear, and within three minutes, not even a god could save her. The world gained another case of permanent, unexplained deafness. “No, we are family. Always.” I mustered every ounce of strength to utter this heartfelt truth from my past life. When my words fell, Bianca showed no signs of an allergic reaction. My parents and Leo exhaled in relief, the guardedness in their eyes softening slightly. Yet, in the very next instant, Bianca’s smile froze. She shoved me away violently, clutching her ears tightly as a piercing scream erupted from her throat! “Aaah—! What's that noise! It's so loud!” Her eyes widened in terror as she curled up on the floor in agony. The dining room atmosphere froze instantly. Leo's face drained of color. He rushed over to embrace Bianca, glaring at me furiously: “What did you do to her!” I played the part of the terrified older sister perfectly, retreating with a deathly pale face, my voice trembling: “I... I don't know... How did this happen?” Bianca's scream lasted less than a minute before abruptly stopping. She lifted her head blankly, watching Leo's anxiously moving lips, yet hearing nothing. The entire world fell into a deathly silence. The family doctor rushed over and finally announced, his face ashen: “Miss Bianca's auditory nerves... have suffered irreversible damage from an unknown cause. She... is permanently deaf.” This conclusion struck everyone like a thunderbolt. And I was the first to rush to Bianca's side to “comfort” her. I even learned a few basic sign language gestures overnight, awkwardly gesturing to tell her, “Don't be afraid, I'm here.” My performance of “deep sisterly affection” transformed the suspicion in my parents' and Leo's eyes into guilt. Only Bianca, in the extreme silence and my hollow concern, felt bone-deep terror for the first time. She looked at me as if I were a demon.