Chapter 223-The Manga Pariah's Guide to Self-Salvation
The Imperial Palace had been reduced to rubble. Duke Qin Lu and another member of the imperial family had been tasked with overseeing its repair and reconstruction, while the Emperor and the rest of his retinue had taken up temporary residence in a manor castle somewhere in the upper district.
The manor, nestled partway up a hillside, was grand and imposing — not far behind the Papal Palace in splendor. Ye Zheng followed the escort the Emperor had sent and entered a castle within the grounds. Inside, the windows were all shut, the light dim, the figures sparse — utterly quiet.
The escorting attendant led the Pope into a great hall, then stopped at the foot of the staircase and bowed to Ye Zheng. "His Majesty hopes to meet with Your Eminence alone."
Ye Zheng had her accompanying Knights wait in the hall and climbed the stairs alone.
Her footsteps fell softly as she quietly observed her surroundings. There were no strange paintings here — the walls were a dull, dark red that felt oppressive if you stared at them too long.
This manor was a property belonging to the Aston imperial family. From what she knew, it too had a long history, though its remote location kept it out of the spotlight.
Ye Zheng's mind wandered briefly. She didn't know where Heath was staying. Last time, she had been the one to step in and help Wen De and the others — she wanted to thank Heath in person and also get a sense of how things stood.
Heath was close to the Emperor — or rather, the Emperor placed a certain degree of trust in Heath. That had surprised Ye Zheng.
Thinking back carefully, Heath had always appeared unobtrusively at every critical juncture, her quiet command of the situation catching even Ye Zheng off guard.
Ye Zheng climbed at an unhurried pace. After a while, she finally reached the top of the staircase — the attic at the very peak of the castle.
The attic was not large, but its windows were wide and open. The Emperor stood at the window, gazing out at the view beyond.
The Emperor was evidently a man who cared about his appearance. Every time Ye Zheng had seen him, he was dressed in exquisite, richly adorned clothing — even more fastidious than Sykes. Today he wore a deep blue velvet fitted jacket, and at a glance one might mistake him for a still-youthful man with a graceful figure.
He had clearly heard her enter, yet the middle-aged man remained perfectly still, facing the window. The corner of Ye Zheng's mouth curved with a faint trace of disdain.
Ye Zheng stepped closer. From the window, the sweeping manor grounds, the winding mountain road, and the densely clustered buildings of the upper district in the distance all lay before her. A mountain breeze swept across her face, and a sense of exhilaration rose naturally within her.
"This is a fine place." Ye Zheng broke the silence.
The Emperor turned and looked at her, nodding in approval.
"Indeed. Whenever my heart is troubled, I come here to let the wind clear my mind and take in the view."
"The view is beautiful — but don't you tire of it after five hundred years?"
The Emperor's easy expression faded without him noticing. His heavy eyelids seemed to twitch slightly, but Ye Zheng continued as though she hadn't noticed. "If it were me, I wouldn't have the patience to serve as Pope in the upper district for five hundred years straight. I find myself deeply impressed by you."
Ye Zheng mused, half-sincerely and half-ironically, narrowing her eyes slightly in the mountain breeze.
She had no patience left for the Emperor's air of inscrutable depth, nor for the pleasantries and high-minded pretense. The truth had long since been laid bare — there was no need to keep playing at riddles, and she had no interest in watching his hypocritical performance.
Ye Zheng looked at the Emperor, a flicker of curiosity in her appraising gaze. She had encountered many skilled performers in her time — she herself was one of them.
But this man had spent five hundred years continuously playing his own descendants, cycling through more than a dozen roles… Ye Zheng had seen the long corridor in the Imperial Palace hung with portraits of every Emperor. Each time he walked past that wall of his own faces, didn't he find it absurd?
The two regarded each other in silence. Ye Zheng noticed the fine lines at the corners of the man's eyes creasing faintly — he was smiling.
The Emperor's lips were flat, his golden eyes stern, his serious expression held rigid. But Ye Zheng could see it — the barely perceptible trembling of those lines gave him away. He was smiling.
What was there to be pleased about? Was it that this centuries-long grand deception, this world-spanning performance, had finally found an audience who could appreciate it?
Ye Zheng pulled the corner of her mouth upward — the arc of her smile as cold and sharp as a curved blade.
"My wife's remains are in your possession."
The Emperor spoke, low and unhurried, in a tone that was calm and certain.
Ye Zheng replied, "The wife you speak of — is it the Empress currently residing in this castle, or the former Empress Qin Tian who passed away over a decade ago… ah, come to think of it, there are nearly twenty candidates."
"Ye Zheng, it seems you already know who she is. Truly… remarkable."
"Margaret — my first wife. We supported each other in our youth. Later, she strayed down the wrong path, and now, today… she has ended up in your hands." The Emperor's voice carried a nauseating note of nostalgia.
"Strayed down the wrong path — you mean turning into a demon dragon?" Ye Zheng latched onto the key phrase, her eyes fixed on him.
"In those days, the imperial family and the nobility were in decline. She sought to restore the glory of the great noble houses by any means necessary — even resorting to ancient dark arts. And so the demon dragon was born."
"I concealed her existence and the demon dragon's true identity — not only to protect the imperial family's reputation, but to preserve the last shred of her dignity."
The Emperor — or rather, Vincent Aston — spoke in a smooth, measured tone that gave Ye Zheng a strange feeling, as though he were reciting lines rehearsed countless times.
Ye Zheng's lashes lowered slightly, a cold light passing through her eyes. This old monster was not being honest at all.
From the scattered fragments she had pieced together from old records, Queen Margaret of five hundred years ago had championed embracing and adapting to the changes of a new era, introducing a number of forward-thinking policies. How could someone like that have turned to superstition and dark arts?
Judging one person through another's words was inherently biased — but whether what a person said was truth or lie, the very act of speaking revealed something of the speaker's heart.
The one who had sought to restore the old order and turned to dark arts was far more likely to be Aston XIV himself.
"I don't know what dark arts are — a woman suddenly turning into a demon dragon is dark arts. But what about you?"
"Vincent — the great Aston XIV — you have lingered in this world for centuries, repeatedly seizing the bodies of your own descendants to survive. Where did that power come from?"
At Ye Zheng's sharp words, the man's mask of calm composure twisted for just an instant. The corner of his eye twitched, and he snapped, "Insolent!"
"Ye Zheng, I have indeed used means to survive to this day, and I have wronged many people — but you have absolutely no standing to reproach me!"
"If not for me, the Empire would have been destroyed long ago by the demon dragon and the Demonic Domains. Go ask that old friend of mine who lives inside you — it was I who led the Empire, united as one, through that crisis! Even the so-called God of Hope was someone I recognized and put to good use. Without my judgment, she would have been nothing but a village girl!"
"Without my achievements, you would not have been born into a thriving Empire… you would not have had the right to stand before me and bare your fangs."
The middle-aged man's voice rolled out like one thunderclap after another. The final words were spoken through gritted teeth.
Without waiting for Ye Zheng's reply, he drew a breath, his voice returning to calm, and continued: "Do you think I came here today to ask you to return her remains?"
"No. Even if the remains were back in my hands, there is no time to create another Sykes. Things have come to this point — I no longer need them. Keep them for yourself."
At those words, Ye Zheng's brow furrowed. Aston XIV's phrasing implied that there was more to Sykes's existence than met the eye.
"You killed Sykes, you ruined the Hope Project, you despise me to the core… all of that I can set aside."
"Because time is running out."
The Emperor said slowly, "Within half a year, the true disaster will descend — perhaps in half a year, perhaps tomorrow."
"Ye Zheng, at this critical moment, do you truly intend to disregard the safety of the Empire's people and wage a war against me?"
Ye Zheng blinked slowly, as though turning the Emperor's words over in her mind.
"Then — what you mean is… you wish to cooperate with me?"
Her voice carried a faint smile at the end. She stood at the edge of the window, the half of her face swallowed by shadow unreadable.
Comments
Post a Comment