That day, she had ripped off the bandages on her head in a moment of impulsiveness after being provoked by that nurse. She also tore off her patient’s gown before surveying her injured body in a mirror.
Xia Ruya had always taken the most pride in her own appearance. Right from a very young age, she had taken careful measures to prime her looks, which had blossomed enough to rival Wen Xinya’s.
She liked her left profile best. She felt that her left profile was more perfect than her right, and so would always tilt her face to that side when taking photographs, to present her best angle to the camera. And the resulting photos were indeed flawless.
She was also very meticulous about maintaining her jade-like, fair skin, which triggered flights of fancy in men and envy in women. It was the feature which she was the most proud of.
Meanwhile, her physique was delicate and willowy, lithe and graceful. Puberty gifted her with full, perky breasts while maintaining a slender and supple waistline. She also possessed a firm, sexy derrière and a pair of long, lovely legs.
There was not a single part of her that was not beautiful.
Those words exalting her beauty still reverberated in her ears.
“Ruya, you are so beautiful!”
“Ruya, you have such lovely skin. How do you maintain it, can you teach me?”
“Ruya, your figure is so good. I really envy you!”
“Ruya, your…”
Every time she heard those praises and words of adulation, every time she became the center of attention and was surrounded by crowds of admirers—her conceited heart would garner great satisfaction. This was the life she truly loved.
But now, all that had been destroyed in that car accident.
After the accident, she had suffered major head trauma and so her lovely hair, which she had grown and carefully groomed for so many years, had been shaved off. New tufts of hair now sprouted from her smooth scalp, standing straight up like spikes.
On the left side of her face, from the corner of her eye down to her jawline, was one large piece of bumpy, scarred tissue. Some of the more serious burns had carbonized her skin, turning it a burnt yellow color and feeling as tough as leather. There was none of the softness of her original skin.
Meanwhile, the burns on her body were even more widespread. Various degrees of burns covered her lovely collarbone, her full bosom, her lithe waist, and her slender legs. The first-degree burns left behind a bumpy scarring, while the second-degree burns added an orange-yellow sheen to those scars. A charred black and yellowish color marked the third-degree burns, while the worst of her burns had become red-and-brown streaked patches after the erosion carried out as part of the necessary medical treatment.
There was not a single piece of unsullied skin left on her.
Those envious looks and praises she had garnered in the past had now become a mockery to her. However satisfied her conceited heart felt in the past, there was only an intense despondency left behind now.
“Ahhhh!” Xia Ruya couldn’t help shrieking like an insane woman. Her voice was harsh and strident.
The uneven scarring and burnt yellow carbonized skin on the left side of her face contrasted starkly with her smooth, soft right side. One side was as hideous as an evil demon while the other as lovely as a pure angel. Placed side by side, the beauty made the ugliness appear even more vicious and terrifying, while the ugliness made the beauty look strange and startling.
When paired with the grotesque, beauty was not accentuated but instead dragged down by its grisliness.
This type of monstrosity was strange and petrifying. Xia Ruya had only seen such a hideous sight in horror movies. She had not been mentally prepared, and with her already fragile mindset, her own appearance scared her witless.
She couldn’t help shrieking from fright.
“That’s not me, it’s not me. It’s not me at all…” Xia Ruya covered her own face. She had descended into a crazed fit, her mind filled with that demonic image reflected in the mirror. She felt like she had stepped into a terrifying horror flick and personally met the devil himself.
Was that frightful face really hers?
She was unable to believe her own eyes.
The heavens must be playing a joke on her.
“It’s not me, it’s not me. It cannot possibly be me…” Xia Ruya gave a vicious sweep and the mirror crashed onto the floor, shattering into a million pieces.
Shrieking continuously, she had completely fallen into the depths of a wild madness. Even when some of the broken shards had left cuts on her body, she didn’t feel any pain.
The person in the mirror was a ghost! It was not her!
Perhaps she had been hallucinating and her eyes had deceived her.
Perhaps the mirror was faulty and made her look so hideous!
After that fit of insanity passed, Xia Ruya went limp all over. Her chilly body slid down onto the floor and she sat with her back against the wall. It was as if that cold, hard wall was the only support she had left, the only thing that could offer her a sense of security.
Her mental state was still deeply immersed in an indescribable madness.
She murmured to herself. “Haha, how could that be me… how could that be me? It cannot be me. How could I have turned into such a monster…”
Subconsciously, she kept repeating those words—trying to use it as a shield to keep denying that the person she saw in the mirror earlier was how she looked like after the car accident.
There had been countless times when her thoughts ventured to how her appearance was after the crash. But she would instinctively shake her head every time to chase away those thoughts, forcing herself not to think about it.
She thought she could ignore the reality of her disfigurement by avoiding the matter entirely.
But on this very day, she finally realized there was no way she could keep hiding from the fact.
She even came to the conclusion that she would rather have just died if she had known she would look like that after the crash.
“How could I have turned into this…” As if trying to prove that she didn’t look like that, Xia Ruya reached out one trembling finger and gently stroked her cheek. At the touch of those uneven scars and tough, leathery skin, her finger jerked back as if burnt.
She widened her eyes in disbelief. The pupils in her empty, wooden eyes contracted as if she was experiencing the world’s most terrifying thing. The contrast between beauty and ugliness on her face presented a bizarre and twisted sense of monstrosity. At that moment, Xia Ruya experienced fear akin to when one was faced with a demon.
Fear, shock, terror, hatred and venomous thoughts started brewing in her heart.
“Ahhhhh…” Xia Ruya couldn’t hold back her flood of tears anymore.
Wen Xinya, you have completely destroyed me…
You have really completely destroyed me…
Completely destroyed me…