Ye Tang had no memories of her childhood, but the story of Snow White was common knowledge to her, so she always remembered the questions she had about Snow White:
Why did the Queen believe the Magic Mirror so unquestioningly? What if the Magic Mirror was lying to her? Why did the Magic Mirror’s word on who was the most beautiful make that person the most beautiful in the world? And on what basis did the Magic Mirror judge who was the most beautiful woman? If it claimed a little girl was more beautiful than an adult woman, was the Magic Mirror a pedophile?
After traversing to this world, Ye Tang’s questions became even clearer—why did Marinfield trust the Magic Mirror to an irrational degree?
Even modern people who blindly trusted science and technology wouldn’t fully believe conclusions from Siri or any search engine. Most would check multiple search results, and cautious ones would compare across different engines to piece together a likely truth.
Yet Marinfield’s trust in the Magic Mirror was unconditional and total. She not only failed to ask what standards the Magic Mirror used for its judgments but harbored no doubts about its conclusions at all. This was not the behavior of a mentally sound adult.
During dinner, Ye Tang reviewed Marinfield’s memories. To be honest, Marinfield’s memories were a complete mess. They were filled with fear, sorrow, violent tendencies born from being pushed to the brink, obsessive self-brainwashing like OCD, twisted jealousy, and inexplicable inferiority.
Yes, that’s right. Marinfield, who married into Castellion at twenty, envied five-year-old Snow White to the point of wishing she would disappear. Now, at twenty-two, Marinfield not only hated seven-year-old Snow White but felt deep inferiority toward the seven-year-old girl.
This was utterly abnormal.
A five-year-old girl hadn’t even developed her facial features fully, let alone any “figure.” Even if Snow White was unusually beautiful, a normal twenty-year-old woman wouldn’t see herself as comparable to a five-year-old child—instead, the typical reaction to a pretty five-year-old would be to coo “What an angel!” and try to smother the child with kisses, hugs, and lifts.
Everyone loves beauty, and women are especially indulgent about it. Many let their values follow their taste in looks, total face-cons. The idea that women envy prettier women is a one-sided myth—female celebrities always have more female fans than male ones, girls love befriending pretty girls, female bosses and teachers don’t harass pretty female students but often give them extra care.
People who haven’t faced looks-based discrimination hold only pure goodwill toward the beautiful. In other words, when women envy those more beautiful than themselves, it’s really anger at unequal treatment they’ve suffered.
The reason some women blame prettier girls for their unfair treatment is often subtle brainwashing, making them believe the inequality stems from those prettier people existing, thus directing their “hatred” at them.
Why hadn’t twenty-year-old Marinfield realized she could eliminate Snow White but not the late Freya? After all, even without Snow White, she still couldn’t compare to Freya in Osborne I’s eyes?
Twenty-two-year-old Marinfield feeling deep inferiority toward seven-year-old Snow White was even more inexplicable.
Seven-year-old Snow White hadn’t even begun developing secondary sexual characteristics; her beauty was more the fragile, delicate charm of youth than “feminine” beauty.
Hadn’t Marinfield herself gone through that phase?
If Marinfield had experienced it, why feel inferior toward Snow White because of it?
Aging didn’t make women inferior—unless they merely grew older without gaining knowledge, experience, perspective, decisiveness, physical strength, martial prowess, or any other abilities.
Marinfield truly hadn’t grown in other areas these past two years, but she had at least learned some simple witchcraft from the Magic Mirror, like crafting a poisoned apple toxic on one side and harmless on the other.
If Ye Tang were Marinfield, with witchcraft—a rare skill most lacked—she wouldn’t feel inferior to Snow White’s beauty or think herself lesser; she’d be too busy to even remember the child existed. Why not use witchcraft to take down Osborne I and rule as Queen alone?
Think about it carefully: Would Marinfield really blame her husband’s cold violence and unhappy marriage on Snow White’s exceptional beauty? Did Marinfield truly not see comparing an adult woman to a seven-year-old without secondary characteristics as perverse?
As a princess from a great nation, why did Marinfield take to heart words debasing her, never faulting those who said them, and never consider eliminating the ministers and castle servants who claimed “the Queen is less beautiful than the Princess”?
Ye Tang could think of only one reason—
“Argh…!!!”
The boy in the Magic Mirror screamed in agony. He clutched his eyes, shaking his head wildly and frantically as if trying to fling something from his mind.
“Are you the spirit of the Magic Mirror? Or something else?”
Ye Tang asked, without setting down the copper mirror in her hand.
“I am the spirit of the Magic Mirror! A Demon Clan soul sealed into the Magic Mirror! Please set down the mirror in your hand! Mirrors are the Demon Clan’s greatest weakness! I beg you, I beg you—”
The boy wailed pitifully, and blood tears seemed to seep from his covered eyes due to injury.
“I’ll answer anything you ask! So, so please… s-spare me…!”
Ye Tang pursed her lips, appearing hesitant. The boy pleaded a few more times, using his hand over his eyes to touch the transparent mirror surface, leaving bloody fingerprints.
“This… alright.”
Staring at the boy’s bloody fingerprints, Ye Tang finally relented. She slowly moved the copper mirror away from in front of her eyes—and the instant she set it down, the boy snapped his eyes open, the two crimson points in them expanding again.
However, Ye Tang did not meet the boy’s gaze.
She had two hands; the one she lowered was her right. Now, her left—which she hadn’t opened her eyes with at all—lifted the copper mirror again, reflecting the boy’s gaze back at him, forcing him to see the crimson in his own eyes.
The boy screamed again. But this scream differed from the previous pure agony; at the end, it carried a hint of a flirtatious moan.
Yes, the boy had let out a coquettish moan.
Ye Tang, sitting casually on the bed with her legs crossed, had expected as much.
Marinfield’s abnormal trust in the Magic Mirror stemmed from her love for the boy within it.
As for why she loved the boy… Marinfield’s chaotic memories held no trace of that.
Though it was normal for Marinfield—subjected to her husband’s cold violence and ignored or bullied by those around her—to depend on the Magic Mirror’s spirit, and possible to develop feelings to fill her emotional void. The issue was that Marinfield before marrying into Castellion wasn’t the lovesick type.
Her royal education in Saint Ruby made it clear she married for her nation’s sake, and as royalty, she was destined to have no part in “love.”
Yet she accepted falling for the Magic Mirror’s spirit with abnormal speed—no struggle, no hesitation, just obsessive belief: she loved the boy in the mirror.
Considering all the inexplicable contradictions in Marinfield, Ye Tang deduced: the Magic Mirror’s spirit had hypnotic abilities. Marinfield’s “love,” blind trust, dependence, and lack of doubt were all due to hypnosis.
Her abnormal hatred toward Snow White, the inferiority of feeling “old and fading” before Snow White, and her complete submission to appearance-based woes—believing beauty was her only weapon—were all brainwashing from the Magic Mirror’s spirit.
Having guessed the spirit’s ability as “hypnotic brainwashing,” Ye Tang naturally didn’t believe it could be physically harmed by the copper mirror’s reflection. Nor did she buy claims of being a Demon Clan soul with mirrors as a weakness.
Thus, whether blood tears or bloody fingerprints on the mirror, Ye Tang’s attitude was: Keep acting, let’s see what else you can pull.
She had anticipated the boy would try to ambush her again.
Though she knew no magic or witchcraft, she wasn’t afraid of the spirit in the Magic Mirror at all.
“Hah… hah… hah—”
The boy’s cheeks flushed red, he panted heavily, and tears streamed down. Black goat horns sprouted from the sides of his head, sharp little fangs grew in his mouth.
Ye Tang saw bat-like wings emerge from his back, and a thin tail whipped wildly behind him. When the pointed tip of his tail touched the mirror surface, leaving a sticky, transparent trail, she saw it was heart-shaped.
“You are… an incubus?”
“Yes, yes, forgive me, my love… I hid my incubus identity…”
A sickly sweet voice came from the boy, and Ye Tang felt bombarded by countless hearts to her face and body.
“‘My love’?”
“This is our incubus ability… to hypnotize women into captives who see us as their love—”
The pitiful little nightmare plastered himself fully against the mirror surface. This was his second attempt to hypnotize Ye Tang, with full power.
What he hadn’t expected was that on the second ambush, Ye Tang was still prepared. He ended up hypnotized by his own ability, brainwashed into seeing the woman before him as his love…
Now, a single word from his love would send him through fire and blade, dying without regret.
He was already her captive.