Chapter 8: I want to train a successor
Monday was the collective meeting of the Saintesses.
A perfect chance to test the waters.
Beneath the crystal dome of the Council Chamber, the thirteen Saintess seats formed a semicircle.
Liang Lai sat in the third seat.
Her fingers unconsciously traced the cornflowers embroidered on her sleeves the day before.
“Regarding the newly discovered abandoned infant from the underground sanctuary,” the First Saintess Margaret’s voice echoed through the hall.
“The Triune Council has decided to make it a ‘Living Holy Vessel.’”
Liang Lai’s head snapped up.
Duoluosa, beside her, gripped the hem of her holy robe tightly.
The girl’s nails nearly pierced the fabric.
“Excuse me…”
Liang Lai raised her hand.
The crystal hair ornaments in her silver hair jingled.
“What is a ‘Living Holy Vessel’?”
The council hall fell silent instantly.
The Second Saintess, Yolanda, smirked beneath her mask.
“The Third Saintess doesn’t even know this?”
“They melt the flesh and blood of impure hybrids into crystals to make—”
“Use babies as weapons?”
Liang Lai stood abruptly.
Duoluosa saw her second golden pupils constrict sharply.
“This doesn’t align…”
“What’s wrong with it?” Margaret cut in.
“Is it wrong like your doctrine of ‘God bless bon appétit’?”
Suppressed laughter erupted in the chamber.
“You’re too naive, Third Saintess.”
“God has granted us this right.”
“He tells us this is the correct choice, to save more of us.”
“Why pity babies with impure bloodlines?”
“Why feel pity at all?”
Liang Lai felt Duoluosa’s trembling fingers in her palm.
They were cold as ice.
“I think…”
Liang Lai took a deep breath.
Her silver hair stirred without wind.
“The church should protect the weak, not turn babies into weapons.”
Her voice grew louder.
“If we can’t even protect the most innocent lives, what right do we have to call ourselves holy?”
Margaret’s crystal mask cracked with a click.
“Third Saintess,” her voice was like poisoned ice, “are you questioning the decree approved by His Holiness the Pope?”
Liang Lai realized this was a trap.
She glanced at Duoluosa.
The girl’s blue eyes held emotions she couldn’t decipher.
‘It shouldn’t be like this.’
‘Aren’t we all kind-hearted people who uphold God?’
‘Aren’t we God’s representatives on earth?’
‘That’s what the books of this world say.’
Liang Lai had no idea the trouble her next words would bring.
“What I question,” she said slowly, “is any atrocity committed in the name of holiness.”
The crystal chandeliers in the dome dimmed suddenly.
The silver-robed figures of the Triune Council emerged from the shadows.
The chief disciplinary officer raised a scepter inlaid with black crystal.
“The Third Saintess, Liang Lai, has violated Article 7 of the Record of the Holy Words.”
“She is sentenced to ‘walking barefoot across the Crystalline Road.’”
Duoluosa’s scream was drowned by the priests’ chants.
Liang Lai felt someone roughly yank off her silver-threaded soft shoes.
Cold stone slabs met her bare feet.
She suddenly understood.
The so-called “representatives of God on earth” possessed divinity, not humanity.
Divinity held no mercy or weakness.
It demanded absolute justice and judgment.
Humanity hesitates, sympathizes, and weighs good and evil.
Divinity does not.
A phrase flashed in her mind:
Compassion is a mortal virtue, but a divine flaw—true holiness allows no compromise or tolerance.
Only then did she truly grasp that she had transmigrated.
This was no joke.
She really had crossed worlds.
No kidding.
Not even a dream.
She glanced at Duoluosa one last time.
She mouthed, “Don’t worry,” to the girl.
The Crystalline Road lay in the square before the Confessional.
Paved with countless sharp crystal fragments, it gleamed cruelly in the sun.
As Liang Lai stood barefoot at the starting point, she saw Duoluosa’s pale face in the crowd.
“It’s okay!”
Liang Lai turned and smiled at her.
Her silver hair danced in the wind.
The moment her foot touched the Crystalline Road, she understood why it was a brutal punishment.
Crystal fragments pierced her feet like living creatures.
They sucked her blood like vampires.
She stumbled but quickly regained balance.
“Three hundred steps.”
The Inquisitor announced coldly.
“If you keep your faith, the wounds will heal.”
Liang Lai counted her heartbeats.
She forced herself to take another step.
Blood flowed along the crystal edges, tracing strange patterns on the white ground.
She heard Duoluosa sobbing in the crowd.
She began humming an odd hymn.
“Is she laughing?”
Some onlookers whispered.
Liang Lai was indeed smiling.
She recalled her first Mass, mispronouncing prayers.
The orphanage kids pranking her by salting her food.
She’d known since finding Duoluosa:
The girl was born of a forbidden union between a nun and an adult, unable to bear loneliness.
She could guess the church’s scandals.
But the infants and low-ranking nuns bore the punishment.
The higher-ups who broke rules were spared.
‘Is this really fair?’
Margaret said, “God needs no mercy.”
But if God needs no mercy, why create beings that feel pain, cry, and beg for it?
“We’re all human, aren’t we?”
If justice must be cold as iron, what does it protect—natural principles or the arrogance of the powerful?
You say divinity tolerates no weakness.
But weakness is everywhere in the human world.
A mother’s trembling embrace.
A child’s fearful tears.
The hands of mortals grasping for life.
If these don’t deserve mercy, then “holiness” is just another excuse for cruelty.
True divinity shouldn’t be the power to transcend suffering.
It should be the courage to kneel and touch the wounds.
If you can’t understand human joys and sorrows, then “acting on God’s will” is just tyranny in disguise.
Yes.
Tyranny!
Liang Lai saw through this world.
But she was powerless, just as she’d been powerless watching her orphanage friends suffer.
‘But this world might be saved…’
She looked at Duoluosa.
‘Then let’s raise a successor to the Pope.’
‘I have ten spots, don’t I?’
“I’m human. My blood is warm. My hands will pause for the trembling weak.”
“If that’s a flaw, I’d rather be imperfect.”
By the hundredth step, her feet were unrecognizable.
Crystal fragments pierced her veins like tiny ice snakes.
She heard Margaret from the platform:
“Admit your mistakes. Admit kindness is mere weakness.”
Liang Lai looked toward Duoluosa.
The girl was held by two priests.
Her blue eyes brimmed with tears.