Time/Date: TC1853.01.20 – Midday

Location: Metropolitan Police Station, 4th Ring – Official Meeting Room & Observation Area

The charged atmosphere in the interview room crackled with spiritual pressure that made the air itself feel heavier. Raven stood in the doorway, her presence commanding attention despite her small frame, violet eyes—phoenix-shaped and tilted like a cat’s—fixed on the woman who’d orchestrated seventeen years of systematic torture.

Caelia’s carefully maintained composure shattered for a heartbeat. Those violet eyes, that delicate bone structure, the way she held herself with quiet authority—it was like watching Lady Lian Zhao materialize from beyond death itself. The resemblance struck Caelia with physical force, flooding her with a visceral fear that threatened to overwhelm carefully constructed control.

No. Caelia’s mind raced, grasping for equilibrium. The dead stay dead. This is just the girl. Just a frightened child playing at power she doesn’t understand.

Darian’s jade-green eyes widened as he truly looked at Raven for the first time. The girl who stepped into this room bore no resemblance to the timid, broken victim his intelligence reports had described. This was someone who moved with the confidence of a predator, who released cultivation pressure with casual ease—Peak Essence Gathering, his cultivator’s instincts confirmed—and whose features...

By the Thirteen Stars, he thought, mind reeling. She looks exactly like Mother.

Caelia went pale, violet eyes fixed on Raven with an expression Commissioner Wu couldn’t quite read from the observation room. Recognition? Fear? Guilt?

For one terrible heartbeat, Caelia thought she was seeing a ghost. Those eyes—those damned Zhao phoenix eyes that had looked through her lies for years—staring at her from a face that shouldn’t exist. Lady Lian, back from the grave to finally expose everything.

No. Caelia forced the panic down through sheer willpower. The dead can’t come back. This is just the girl. Just a child who happens to have inherited unfortunate features.

But even as she regained control, Caelia immediately started strategizing. The resemblance to Lady Zhao was dangerous—it would make Darian more sympathetic to the girl automatically. She’d have to counter that, twist it, use emotional manipulation to make Raven see her as the victim here.

Get the girl on my side, Caelia thought with desperate calculation. Make her believe I love her, that I’m the mother she’s always wanted. Turn her against Selene before she can be used as a weapon.

Serenya simply stared, all practiced composure crumbling as she faced the girl she’d helped torture for years. This was the frightened servant who’d flinched at shadows? The broken creature they’d mocked and beaten? That timid child now radiated power that made the air itself feel heavier.

Advocate Liang—for the first time since entering the station—looked uncertain. Because the momentum Raven had just released carried something beyond simple spiritual pressure. It carried authority. The kind that suggested she had every right to be here, and they were the ones who needed to explain themselves.

In the observation room behind the one-way glass, Commissioner Wu stood with Morrison, Selene, and the two SIS agents. All eyes fixed on the interview room as the confrontation they’d been building toward finally began.

"Mara." Caelia’s voice broke with perfect maternal grief, tears already beginning to well in violet eyes. "My daughter. My precious daughter..."

She rose from her chair with deliberate fragility, one hand pressed against her chest as if trying to contain a heart too full of feeling. "All these years... all these endless, terrible years... I’ve thought about you every single day."

The tears spilled over, rolling down her cheeks with remarkable authenticity. "Wondered where you were. If you were safe. If you were suffering. If you even remembered that somewhere out there, your real mother was searching for you..."

Darian’s expression softened, his jade eyes filling with sympathy as he watched his wife’s emotional display.

Behind the observation glass, Wu noted every micro-expression. Selene stood rigid beside him, hands clenched into fists so tight her knuckles had gone white.

"When they took you from me—" Caelia’s voice trembled with artistic precision, "—when that woman stole you away, I thought I would die from the grief. Your father had to physically restrain me. I would have gone after her myself, would have torn the city apart to find you..."

Her voice dropped to a wounded whisper. "But how could I? She was my twin. The person I’d shared the womb with. We’d barely been apart for thirty years. If I’d told anyone what she’d done, she would have died. The Long family would have called for her execution. The Lin family would have followed suit."

Caelia’s hands twisted together—the picture of someone torn apart by impossible choices. "You don’t understand just how torn I was. Knowing my real daughter was out there somewhere, suffering, while I raised another woman’s child. But if I spoke the truth—if I told anyone about the baby swap—Selene would have been killed."

She looked at Raven with eyes full of agonized love. "Losing Selene would have been like tearing out my own heart. This was my twin sister. The person who’d been with me since before birth. How could I choose between my sister’s life and finding my daughter?"

In the observation room, Selene made a gagging sound.

"Lying bloodless wretch," she muttered under her breath. She took a step toward the door, ready to storm into the interview room right then and there.

Wu grabbed her arm and shook his head firmly. Not now.

Caelia continued, her voice strengthening with conviction. "For years, I searched in secret. Hired investigators. Spent fortunes trying to find even the smallest clue about where Selene might have taken you. I tried everything I could think of while keeping it quiet enough that Selene wouldn’t be discovered and executed..."

"Oh really," Raven interrupted, her tone showing slight amusement. "But wasn’t that your whole plan? Wasn’t that why you told everyone that you’d all been drugged with Amber Kiss eighteen years ago? The whole meticulous scheme—wasn’t it just to get your husband to kill Selene?"

Darian looked up sharply, shocked. "No, you don’t understand—we were drugged, the evidence—"

Caelia was startled, a brief flash of fear crossing her violet eyes. Wu and Raven both caught it—that moment of naked panic before control reasserted itself.

"Is that what she told you?" Caelia’s voice rose with perfect wounded dignity. She became indignant, tears of hurt mixing with righteous anger. "She’s lying, just like she’s always lied! Surely after living with her for seventeen years, you should know what type of woman Selene is."

She looked at Raven with an expression of betrayed confusion. "You’ve been brainwashed by that woman. How can you judge me—your own mother—based only on her side of things, without even giving me a chance to explain?" The tears flowed more freely now, her voice cracking with hurt. "How can you be so cruel?"

Raven’s smile didn’t reach her eyes. "Oh, then please—tell me your side. I’m really interested to know." 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Caelia drew a shaking breath, dabbing at her eyes with trembling fingers as she prepared to tell the story she’d been crafting in her mind for five decades. The version where Selene was the villain, and she was merely a tragic victim of circumstance.

"I was born sickly and weak," Caelia began, her voice carrying the weight of childhood pain that still felt fresh after all these years. "Even in the womb, Selene had sapped away all my strength, all my health. I was barely clinging to life when we were born."

She looked down at her hands—pale, delicate, the hands of a healer who’d spent decades saving lives. "When I was six years old, I overheard the doctor talking to my parents. He said the only reason I was so frail, so constantly ill, was because Selene had taken more than her share of blood and nutrients while we were still in the womb."

Her voice took on a bitter edge. "That even before we were born, Selene was a thief. Taking what should have been mine by right."

In the observation room, Selene’s mouth dropped open in shock. "No... no, that’s not..." she whispered, shaking her head in denial.

"Selene mocked me for being so sickly," Caelia continued, building her narrative with the skill of someone who’d told this version so many times in her own mind that she believed it herself. "She would run and play while I lay in bed, too weak to even sit up some days. She’d show off her strength, her health, rubbing it in my face that she could do all the things I couldn’t."

"That’s not true!" Selene said more forcefully in the observation room, though her voice couldn’t penetrate the soundproofed glass. "I never—"

"And when things went wrong—when something broke or went missing—" Caelia’s voice trembled with remembered hurt, "—Selene would blame it on me. Make me out to be the bad twin. The troublemaker. Even though I was too sick to cause half the problems she accused me of."

Caelia’s expression shifted to something sad and wistful. "She used to bring me trinkets from outside. Pretty stones, interesting leaves, little things she’d found. At first, I thought she was being kind..." Her voice hardened. "But then I realized she was just showing off. Rubbing it in my face that she could go outside and I couldn’t. That she was healthy and strong while I was bedridden and weak. Every gift was just another reminder of everything I was missing."

"No!" Selene’s voice cracked in the observation room. "No, that’s not right at all! I brought them for her because she begged me to! She said they made her feel less lonely, like she could see the world through my eyes! She loved those gifts—she would ask me every day if I’d found anything new..."

Wu kept his hand on Selene’s arm, both grounding and restraining her. But he was taking careful mental notes of the contradictions between the two versions of the same childhood.

Morrison, standing beside them, observed both performances with the practiced eye of someone who’d interviewed countless liars. Caelia’s story was polished, consistent, and delivered with perfect emotional timing. But Selene’s reactions—her spontaneous corrections, her specific memories, her genuine distress—those had the ring of truth.

"When our parents hired private tutors for me," Caelia said, "because I was too ill to attend regular school like other children—Selene was jealous. She begged our parents to let her stay home with me instead of going to the academy."

Caelia’s sad smile carried decades of martyred suffering. "She said she wanted to help me learn, wanted to keep me company. But really, she just couldn’t stand the thought of me getting special attention. Of me having tutors all to myself. She had to insert herself into even that small mercy."

In the observation room, Selene was shaking her head violently, tears streaming down her face. "You were the one who begged me to stay! You threatened to stop eating! You said you’d die of loneliness if I left you alone all day! I gave up going to school because you made me feel like I’d be killing you if I left!"

"Our mother bought us identical dresses once," Caelia continued, her voice soft with remembered pain. "Beautiful matching outfits in violet silk. I was so happy—it made me feel pretty for the first time in my life. Like maybe I could be as lovely as Selene, even if I was sickly."

Her expression twisted with remembered hurt. "But Selene refused to wear hers. Said she hated it. That it was ugly. And when Mother insisted..." Caelia’s voice broke. "She destroyed it. Cut it to ribbons rather than be seen wearing the same dress as her weak, pathetic twin sister."

"You’re lying!" Selene shouted at the glass, her composure completely shattered. "You were the one who threw the tantrum! You destroyed everything in your room, and threatened to kill yourself! You said everyone would see how ugly you were if we dressed the same, that you’d look like a pale shadow next to me!"

Her voice cracked with old pain. "I loved that dress. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever owned. But you were crying and screaming and threatening to hurt yourself, so I—I cut it up and told Mother I hated it. I lied to protect you!"

Wu and Morrison exchanged significant glances. Same event. Completely opposite interpretations. But Selene’s version—specific, painful, filled with the kind of humiliating detail people rarely invented—sounded far more truthful than Caelia’s polished narrative.

In the interview room, Caelia pressed on with her story. "When my healing talent finally manifested despite my weak constitution," she said, "the Lin Celestial family became interested in adopting me. It was my one chance—my only chance—to escape living in Selene’s shadow. To have a life where I wasn’t constantly compared to her and found wanting."

Tears welled up again. "But Selene said she would die if I left her. Threatened to harm herself if we were separated. She couldn’t bear the thought of me having something of my own—a family that wanted me for my own merit, not because I came as a package deal with the ’perfect’ twin."

Caelia looked directly at Raven, her voice trembling with martyred love. "So I begged the Lin patriarch to bring Selene with me. I put her needs before my own happiness, before my one chance at a better life. Because I loved my sister more than I loved myself."

Her expression became one of tragic acceptance. "But because Selene came with me, the adoption fell through. The Lin family wanted one daughter—a healer they could train and nurture. They didn’t want to take on two children, especially not when one was constantly demanding attention and causing problems."

A heartbreaking smile touched her lips. "So we were only fostered instead of truly adopted. But I didn’t mind. I told myself it was enough. That making Selene happy was worth more than my own future. I would have sacrificed anything for her."

"Liar!" Selene breathed in the observation room. "You wanted me there because you’d already started stealing my alchemy work! You needed me to keep producing potions you could submit under your own name!"

Darian, in the interview room, had been listening to his wife’s story with growing sympathy. He moved to Caelia’s side and gently took her hand, jade eyes soft with understanding.

"I knew that she was horribly jealous of you," he said quietly to Caelia. "But darling, I never realized just how deeply you’d suffered. How much you’d sacrificed." His voice hardened with protective anger. "How many times have I told you—just because you’re twins doesn’t mean you owe her everything. You’ve been too forgiving. Too selfless. You’ve given up so much, and for what? Misplaced loyalty to someone who never appreciated it?"

He turned to face Raven, his expression stern. "Can’t you see how much your mother has suffered? For decades, that woman tried to take everything from her. Tried to overshadow her, diminish her, make her feel small and worthless. And no matter how many times Selene hurt her, gouged out her heart with cruelty and jealousy—Caelia still forgave her. Still tried to help her. Still loved her despite everything."

Darian’s voice carried righteous anger now. "And this is the thanks she gets? Her own daughter, poisoned against her by the very woman who stole her away?"

Raven looked at them both calmly, her expression unreadable. Those phoenix-shaped eyes—so like his mother’s—showed no emotion whatsoever.

In the observation room, Selene was having what could only be described as a breakdown. "I stole from her?" Her voice rose with desperate, hysterical laughter. "I stole from HER?!"

She pointed at the glass with shaking fingers, all pretense of adult composure gone. She looked like a child again—a hurt, bewildered child who couldn’t understand why no one believed her. "She’s taken everything! My health, my work, my talent, my future, my love—everything!—and she’s convinced everyone that I’m the thief?!"

Wu and the SIS officers looked at Selene with a mixture of professional observation and unexpected sympathy. This broken woman, pointing excitedly at the glass like a desperate child, was a far cry from the cold manipulator they’d been interrogating just days ago.

In the interview room, Raven let the silence stretch for a long moment. Then she spoke, her tone conversational and almost casual—which somehow made the question more devastating.

"Interesting," she said. "Then can you explain how Selene’s potions ended up with your name on them at the Alchemy Guild?"

The question landed like a physical blow.

Caelia’s carefully constructed narrative stumbled. Her violet eyes widened with genuine confusion—not performed shock, but real surprise that caught her off guard. "W-what?"

Shouldn’t her daughter be showing some sympathy for her now? Caelia thought desperately, trying to regroup. Why is she so cold-hearted? Why does she look at me with those eyes—exactly like that damned Zhao woman looked at me for eighteen years? That same expression that saw through everything...

In the observation room, Selene had transformed. She practically bounced on her toes, pointing at Caelia through the mirror with childlike excitement. "Yes! Yes! You ask her, Raven! Let’s see what lies she tells now!"

Wu and Morrison exchanged glances. The SIS agents were taking notes, their expressions professionally neutral but eyes sharp with interest.

Darian tried to interrupt, his military bearing asserting itself with command authority. "This is becoming unnecessarily hostile. My wife is clearly distraught—"

"Lord Long," Raven cut him off smoothly, "I’m just interested in the truth. Surely you’re curious as well." She turned her full attention back to Caelia, those Zhao eyes pinning her like an insect to a board. "Ms. Lin has gone to such lengths to paint Selene as a liar and a thief. But the strange thing is—the only actual proof we have says directly otherwise."

She let that sink in for a heartbeat. "It was you, Caelia Lin, who stole Selene Lin’s alchemy potions and submitted them under your own name."