Chapter 231-The Manga Pariah's Guide to Self-Salvation
Ye Zheng watched through the narrow gap in the door. The young man outside paced the room, his gaze sweeping about as if searching for something.
He suddenly stopped and turned his head in a certain direction.
Ye Zheng pulled back her gaze just in time, silently moving to hide inside a cabinet in the Memorial Hall. The image of Aston XIV looking her way still lingered before her eyes.
Young in appearance, his gloomy air carried a hint of frailty—completely different from the tall, handsome body of his future self.
Ye Zheng hid in the cabinet, listening to the heavy bronze door creak. Someone was approaching.
Margaret knew about the future. But what about Aston XIV? Why had he suddenly appeared here?
Ye Zheng gripped the sword at her side. Inside the cabinet, only the sound of her breathing rose and fell.
"Your Majesty, what brings you here?"
A pair of steady, powerful footsteps broke into the Chapel, followed immediately by a woman's voice.
"...I heard your sister came to visit again. I wanted to say hello to her. That's all."
"I've already had someone take her home. Next time she comes, I'll bring her to greet you."
"Someone told me you brought her back to the Royal Chambers not long ago, so..."
"Who told you that?" Margaret cut him off. "My sister had an accident on her way home. I just rushed to deal with it—and the moment I turn around, someone is whispering nonsense in your ear. It seems this was no accident at all. A thorough investigation is in order—don't you agree, Your Majesty?"
Under Margaret's relentless questioning, the young Emperor grew somewhat tongue-tied, his tone turning stiff. "What—an accident? Then yes, it certainly needs a proper investigation..."
Ye Zheng leaned against the cabinet door, eavesdropping on their exchange with growing amusement.
It fell quiet outside before long. The cabinet door was suddenly pulled open. Ye Zheng, sitting cross-legged inside, and Margaret, standing outside, stared at each other.
Margaret picked her up once more. Ye Zheng noticed how practiced the motion was—not born of closeness to her, but more of an ingrained habit.
"Your sister is about the same age as I am right now."
"Mm. She's only eight, too."
Ye Zheng asked, "What just happened? Is your sister alright?"
Margaret carried the little girl out, sweeping her gaze across the traces left in the room without taking issue. She brought her to the balcony, where the magnificent Imperial Palace spread out before them.
"She's fine. I was prepared. He won't be able to touch her—not for now."
Margaret's answer only deepened Ye Zheng's confusion. It sounded as though Aston XIV was trying to harm Margaret's eight-year-old sister. But why?
"Margaret, who exactly are you?"
Ye Zheng tilted her head up. Her dark eyes sparkled in the sunlight, brimming with bewilderment—and a trace of sorrow she herself hadn't noticed.
She didn't know why, but gazing at Margaret's pale brows and brilliant red hair, she felt as though Margaret were the last wisp of morning mist before sunrise.
"Ye Zheng, I don't quite know how to answer that question either."
"From the moment I was born, I already knew the fate of 'the demon dragon.'"
"Am I living as Margaret, or am I living as the demon dragon? I can't tell the difference myself."
This was an answer Ye Zheng had never anticipated. In all her guesses and projections, she had assumed Margaret was most likely deceived, entrapped, and exploited by the Emperor—made into a sacrificial pawn of conspiracy, forced against her will into becoming the demon dragon.
"...If you don't know who 'Margaret' is, then can you tell me what 'the demon dragon' is?"
Margaret fell into a kind of contemplation. Only after a moment did she speak.
"The demon dragon is me, and yet it isn't me. At the very least, the me of now cannot comprehend the me that is the demon dragon. But no matter what, becoming the demon dragon is my inevitable fate."
"You call It 'demon dragon,' but that's not quite fitting—or rather, it's an understatement. Demon God—that would be a more accurate title."
"Demon God..." Ye Zheng murmured. The God of Hope was a fabrication, yet true deities still existed in this world?
But then again, System and the readers were, to her world, something akin to gods.
While Ye Zheng was lost in thought, she suddenly felt herself lifted. Margaret had picked her up again, setting her sideways on the balcony railing. Warm wind brushed her face as she gazed at the golden-lit palaces, squinting slightly.
Margaret held little Ye Zheng with one arm and pointed with the other toward an inconspicuous palace in the distance. In the warm, pleasant breeze, she said softly, "In three days, I will transform into the dragon there, and bring catastrophic destruction to this world."
Ye Zheng's eyes flew open. She turned to look at Margaret's sunlit profile.
"Three days?"
"Yes. Vincent can no longer endure a world that is diverging from his wishes. He has struck a deal with a deity from another world—by sacrificing the lives of his people, the Aston Royal Family and Vincent Aston himself will never perish."
Ye Zheng's pupils contracted. "A deity from another world... what does it look like?"
"The Dragon-Bodied Humans you've already seen. An all-female race that reproduces through bones carrying their own genetic material."
Ye Zheng gazed at Margaret. Her lips parted and closed. Too many questions jammed in her throat, and for a moment she didn't know where to begin.
Margaret considerately explained, "I become one of their kind, personally harvesting the lives of the people as an offering. But to endlessly sustain a Royal Family and a man who should have long since perished, a single catastrophe isn't enough... So the demon dragon will never vanish. It will never stop bringing disaster."
"The demon dragon is an omniscient and omnipotent being to this world. That is why I know the past and the future. The moment you obtained the bone that belongs to me, you were destined to come here."
Margaret's voice carried a barely perceptible loneliness and self-mockery. "But rest assured—you will end me. This centuries-long catastrophe."
"Perhaps 'Margaret' exists solely to wait for you—to atone for the future."
Her low voice drifted away on the wind. Suddenly, Ye Zheng seized Margaret's hand. Startled, Margaret looked down, and the instant their eyes met, her heart gave a heavy thud.
Ye Zheng finally understood where the sense of incongruity about Margaret came from. She clearly had a sharp, fierce nature—yet she was imprisoned by a future devoid of light.
"Why not try to change all of this?" Ye Zheng asked.
A helpless emotion surfaced in Margaret's eyes. "My fate is a dead end, Ye Zheng."
"Of course I have ways to avoid becoming the sacrifice. But if I don't become the demon dragon in the future, then the me of now won't possess the power to foresee what's coming—and I'll still fall into his trap..."
"Even if it's not me who becomes the demon dragon, it will be someone else. The reason he's taken notice of my sister is precisely this."
"Ye Zheng, the demon dragon has a weakness. Let me tell you now—please go and kill the me of five hundred years hence, once and for all—"
Margaret's speech grew more urgent, her hands bracing against the railing on either side of Ye Zheng. Then Ye Zheng suddenly pushed her away, breaking free of her heavy embrace.
"Wait a moment!"
Ye Zheng tilted her head. "What makes you think it was Vincent Aston who made a wish to the Dragon-Bodied Humans?"
Margaret looked baffled. She couldn't understand why Ye Zheng's attention had suddenly veered in this strange direction.
She could only look at Ye Zheng and murmur, "The demon dragon killed so many people, creating an endless stream of disasters, fulfilling his wish..."
Ye Zheng raised her hand and pointed at Margaret's heart. Her pitch-black eyes were sharp as a blade.
"What if I told you that the demon dragon was summoned by you, Margaret?"
Margaret froze for a moment, then recoiled a full step in shock, staring at Ye Zheng in disbelief, as if she couldn't comprehend what Ye Zheng was saying.
"Aston XIV may have struck a deal with some deity—I don't know which one—but the Dragon-Bodied Humans were definitely drawn here by you."
Not long ago, Lin Zhixing had told her about the existence of consciousness frequency. If this was a universal law, then people in this world could very well form connections with beings from other worlds through similar consciousness frequencies.
Compared to Aston XIV, the Dragon-Bodied Humans—this otherworldly race—seemed far more likely to have an affinity for Margaret. Margaret's transformation into the demon dragon was proof of that.
They most likely weren't the entity that had made a deal with Aston XIV. Rather, at some point, driven by a resonance in consciousness, they had chosen Margaret—the woman who was about to become Aston's sacrifice.
"Margaret, you must bring me along in three days. I need to see Aston XIV's deal and ritual with my own eyes."
"The way to end the disaster... is absolutely not killing the demon dragon."
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