Whitney's POV

But David cut me off coldly.

“Oh,” he said with a chilling smile. “Then you’d better choose the right eggs. I’d hate to crack one open and find some weird organs or lumps of flesh inside.”

He glanced down at the girl in his arms and continued, “Besides, Andrea just returned to secular life. She’s not used to eating raw embryos.”

Suddenly, I doubled over and violently threw up, the pain in my stomach twisting like a knife. I could barely breathe.

He had no idea what I’d done for him.

Night after night, I’d put him into a deep sleep, dragging my sore, exhausted body through the motions just to help him heal. I endured it all, forcing myself to accept him completely, hoping it would strengthen the effect of my gift.

I even forgot to take precautions, so I ended up pregnant with three children.

To hatch them properly, I gave up my ability to shift into my serpent form. Now, I couldn’t even prove who I really was.

“Hey! Whitney! The game’s starting! Where do you think you’re going?!”

I snapped. I tore away from the crowd like a madwoman and ran to the open courtyard. Kneeling on the cold ground, I tried to form a spiritual link with the Eirian clan.

I begged for someone from my bloodline to sense where I was. To come and save my children. They were innocent. They didn’t deserve this.

“There she is! Get her!”

“Don’t let that fraud escape!”

Before I could even whisper a spell, they tackled me to the ground.

Without my scales to protect me, my head, my most vulnerable spot, was slammed against the rough pavement over and over, leaving streaks of blood. I writhed in pain.

“Enough. Don’t kill her for real,” someone muttered.

David tossed a bag of painkillers at me like it meant something.

Then the guests around him howled with laughter.

“Wow, look at her panic. What, was she about to run because her lies are catching up to her?”

“Her precious little eggs are still on the table! Guess they weren’t so precious after all!”

“She always acted like no one could even touch those eggs, and now she just leaves them? What a joke!”

I struggled to lift my head.

A massive screen now showed a live stream of the party. Over 200,000 people were watching online, waiting for the drama to unfold.

Then David spoke, his voice low and demonic, like something straight out of hell.

“Whitney, finish this game with my sister, and I’ll let you leave with whatever eggs remain. Deal?”

I had no way out. Nowhere to run.

I swallowed the blood in my mouth. “Fine. Let’s start.”

All one hundred eggs were lined up neatly along a wall of foam.

The Elledges' butler stepped forward and laid out the rules. “Miss Miller, please choose a number. If you identify an egg correctly, it will be safely returned to you. But if you guess wrong, today’s first dish will be steamed.”

A ripple of conversation spread through the guests.

“Look at her face—pale as a ghost. What if those eggs really have babies inside?”

“What? Steamed human babies? Damn, David isn’t holding back.”

“You don’t get it. Andrea’s a vegetarian since she came back from the monastery. David remembered every detail of her diet. Now that’s love.”

Across the room, Andrea was resting against David’s chest, gently stroking the rosary in her hand.

Just then, the butler reminded me, “Miss Miller, you have thirty seconds to make your selection.”

I locked eyes on the wall of eggs, desperately trying to find the ones that belonged to me.

Eirian clan children are born with a red tint in their hair, and sometimes, that same coloring appears on the shell.

But…

The lights in the room kept changing color, almost like someone had done it on purpose. I couldn’t distinguish anything with just my eyes.

“Miss Miller, ten seconds left.”

“Wait… wait just a moment…”

“Five seconds. If no number is selected, it counts as a failed round.”

“Stop! I choose number 66!”

It was a gamble. Nothing more. Nothing less.

Whitney's POV

I remembered David’s birthday—June 6th. So, he’d always had a thing for the number 66.

As soon as I called out the number, murmurs rippled through the crowd.

“She picked so fast. Did she actually figure it out?”

“Hard to say. Could just be bluffing.”

“Look at David and his wife’s faces. She obviously guessed wrong. Get ready for steamed snake egg, this is too funny!”

Sure enough, David chuckled lazily. He brushed Andrea’s hair back from her ear and whispered something that made her giggle and squirm away, begging him to stop.

Then he glanced sideways at the butler. “Well? What are you standing there for? Smash it.”

Paralyzed, I watched as the butler stepped forward and took an egg off the foam wall. He held it up for everyone to see and announced, “Since Miss Miller guessed incorrectly, we’ll now crack open her first egg. Everyone, watch closely!”

“No! Don’t touch her!” I screamed, my voice shrill and broken like a skinned serpent. “Please… I’m begging you…”

That egg had faint reddish speckles on the back. It was the last one I’d laid. She hadn’t even developed a human shape yet. Barely two weeks old… how could she survive this?

And then, before I could react, the egg shattered in the air, smashed by the butler's throw. Red fluid exploded everywhere.

Gasps and groans filled the room. Some people turned away, covering their noses.

Even David looked stunned for a second, then he laughed.

“Whitney, didn’t you say these were your children?” he said mockingly.

“Then where’s the child? All I see is some sticky, stinking mess.”

My lips turned ghostly pale, my body shaking with pain that mirrored the shattered remains of my baby.

Servants quickly stepped in to clean up what was left, taking the remaining liquid to the kitchen to be steamed, just as they’d said.

Then the butler turned to me again and said, “Time for the second round, Miss Miller. Please choose from the remaining ninety-eight eggs.”

Then he faced the crowd and added, “Oh, and this time, all guests are invited to join in. If anyone guesses correctly, the egg will be handed over to them, along with the right to decide how to cook it.”

The moment he finished speaking, hands shot up all around the room.

“I bet it’s number 97!”

“No way, number 2’s bigger than the rest. Definitely that one.”

“I think it’s 30—just look at the way it’s shaped…”

Then a soft, gentle voice rang out above the noise.

“Can I join too? I’d love to play along.”

It was Andrea. She raised her hand with a sweet smile. “I touched Whitney’s egg before, just out of curiosity, which made her really upset. That was my fault. So, I want to win this round and give the egg back to her myself.”

“Consider it an apology,” she added, looking earnestly at me.

The room erupted in applause.

“Miss Elledge really has such a kind heart. I mean, they’re just a few eggs for a game, but she’s taking it so seriously.”

“Of course she is. If she weren’t so compassionate, would she have shaved her head and gone to live in a shrine for a year just to pray for David’s recovery?”

“Doctors couldn’t help him, but she did. It’s incredible. She deserves all our respect.”

Under all their admiring stares, Andrea took my hand and said, “Whitney, I know you made up the whole ‘laying eggs’ thing just to stay close to my brother. This game… it’s really our way of helping you let go of your bitterness. You can stop now. Let yourself go—”

I slapped the rosary right out of her hand.

That single motion broke whatever calm still lingered in the room.

David stood up immediately and stormed over, pulling Andrea protectively into his arms.

“She was trying to help you out of kindness,” he growled. “Don’t mistake our patience for permission to act like a monster.”

Whitney's POV

Finally, when I looked at David again, all emotion had drained from my eyes.

I bit my lower lip so hard it bled before saying, “A fake nun doesn’t get to put on a show here.”

The moment those words left my mouth, the entire room fell silent.

David’s jaw twitched. “What did you just say?”

Andrea immediately stepped in to hold him back, gently tugging him toward his seat. “Don’t let her get to you, David. Don’t hurt your health over this.” She gave me a sideways glance and sneered, “Let the rabid dog bark. We’ll see where that gets her.”

“This time, I choose number 10,” I calmly said, looking at the butler.

That egg had a distinct pattern on it, and I recognized it as my second child.

The butler raised an eyebrow, a sly smile forming on his lips. “Miss Miller, are you sure? If you're wrong again, you’ll only have one fake egg left.”

The crowd burst into laughter.

“You see that? Mr. Elledge and his wife already figured her out. They were just giving her a way to save face earlier.”

“But Whitney wouldn’t back down. And now she’s insulting the Madam’s religious beliefs. She's not afraid of divine punishment, huh?”

“Descendant of Eirian? Sounds like some fantasy novel nonsense. She’s just lying to everyone, including herself.”

Their taunts hit like steel whips across my back.

Fighting the pain, I slowly lifted my head and said, “Cut the crap. Just tell me the result.”

The butler didn’t answer. Instead of retrieving egg number 10, he picked up the one next to it.

“The answer is..." he trailed off, "wrong again.”

Before I could stop him, he tossed my egg into a silver platter. The shell cracked open with a sickening pop, and a wave of thick, foul-smelling fluid spilled out, along with a blurred, barely-formed piece of flesh.

No… no, this couldn't be real.

I couldn’t breathe. My brain went blank, and my nerves twitched violently beneath my eyelids.

The butler calmly continued, “Fortunately, we had a gentleman guess correctly just now. That means the egg is now his to deal with.”

A man stepped out from behind the crowd, grinning like he’d won the lottery. “Told you! I said it was number 7. Before the game started, Mr. Elledge told me to compare it with 7 and mark a line on number 6. Said it’d be worth it. Sure enough, Whitney got fooled by it, so the victory is mine.”

Holding up the platter proudly, he walked it over to Andrea and asked, “Mrs. Elledge, it looks like the egg’s gone bad. Doesn’t seem edible anymore. How would you like to handle it?”

I started trembling uncontrollably.

It hadn’t gone bad. That was my child’s underdeveloped organs.

Andrea didn’t respond right away. Instead, she calmly took out a strip of yellow prayer cloth from behind her and smiled faintly.

“Miss Miller says I’m a fake nun… well, I guess I’ll have to prove her wrong.”

She looked at the cracked egg with a tilt of her head and continued, “If what you say is true, and this really was your child, then, if I use this, it’ll never find peace in the afterlife.”

I started coughing violently.

It felt like all the air had been sucked from the room, stolen by her words.

I knew Andrea was no real nun, but I wasn’t brave enough to bet against the power of that cloth.

Lifting my head, my mouth already stained with blood, I whispered, “What do you want from me, Andrea?”

She clasped her hands together in false innocence and replied, “All I want is for you to tell the truth.”

“You claim to be a descendant of Eirian. You made some deal with my father, seduced my brother, drugged him night after night, slept with him, and then wormed your way into thier family’s wealth. All of it... just to secure your place, right?” she accused.

Dozens of eyes stabbed into me like knives, their judgment suffocating.

No. That’s not what happened.

I fell for David the moment I met him, and I wanted to heal him. That was all.