Even If It Means to Break - Chapter 36

At times like that, the child felt happy simply because his mother spoke to him at all, and he would merely nod in response.

The mother, who was constantly working to exhaustion at harsh labor, grew weaker by the day.

Then, one night not long after the child had passed his fourth birthday, she groaned in pain throughout the night before suddenly spilling hot blood beneath her.

Clutching at her abdomen, she muttered incoherent words, barely forcing them out. She did not go to work the following day. For the first time in his life, the child spent more than a full day alone with his mother.

She burned with fever and babbled deliriously. At times she cried; at times she cursed someone unseen. The child quietly wiped the sweat from her brow, pressing every word she uttered deep into his memory.

As the small candle burned low, his mother suddenly seemed to regain her senses and whispered a request.

“W-water… water…”

There was no water in the room. Unsure what to do, the child’s eyes darted anxiously. But when he saw his mother gazing at him with unwavering eyes, he nodded. For the first time, he opened the door and stepped outside the room. He found water without hesitation and returned.

His mother, who had lain as still as the dead, struggled to open her eyes. The child supported her back and helped her drink.

“Son.”

She rasped after a few sips.

“I’ve told you again and again—never reveal what makes you exceptional in front of others.”

Though weak, her voice was clear, without faltering.

“Do you know why that is?”

“…I don’t.”

“Because those without power can only survive by crouching low.”

It was a difficult lesson for a child not yet five years old. Yet instinctively, he grasped its meaning.

His mother gazed quietly into his red eyes and whispered, her voice fading,

“You are the most wretched and powerless prince of all.”

“…”

“So you must crouch. Live as though you were born a fool.”

Kill yourself. Live as though you were dead, as though you did not exist. Endure life in silence and humiliation, hiding your presence—

“And then trample everything beneath you.”

When the opportunity comes, do not hesitate. Use any means necessary. Do not stop until you have crushed everything in your path and stand at the very highest place.

His mother’s words were fragile, as though they might crumble at any moment, yet the child etched them into his mind as clearly as he had etched everything else.

Though he gave no reply, his mother smiled faintly, as if she understood.

Not long after, the fever and pain seized her once more. She writhed across the narrow room, clutching her abdomen. Blood flowing from beneath her made the floor slick and sticky.

After several hours passed, her breathing gradually weakened. It grew fainter and fainter, until it finally stopped in silence.

Only then did the child slowly approach her side. He lifted her still-warm head onto his knees and whispered gently,

“I will do as you say, Mother.”

That final instruction was all the maternal love she could give to the child born of the man who had violated her. The child bowed and pressed a respectful kiss to her cooling forehead.

* * *

The next day, a male servant burst in, shouting that she should stop pretending to be sick. Only to drag out a dead woman instead of a living one.

Even as his entire world was pulled out into the open, the child shed not a single tear.

“So… the b***h is dead. What do we do with that one now?”

“Who knows? Can’t just touch it recklessly.”

Several men whispered, glancing at the child. Referred to as ‘that thing’, the child crouched silently in the corner, gathering everything he saw and heard into his mind as though he understood nothing at all.

Time continued to pass.

The child remained confined to the narrow room, living like a ghost, barely breathing.

He was given just enough food not to starve, and the bare minimum of care, likely because his eyes were red.

Those who had never seen him speak talked freely in front of him. Through them, the child learned that his father still had no interest in him.

“Does His Majesty even know there’s something like that in the Eighth Palace? He should give some kind of order already.”

“When it looks at you with those red eyes, your knees go weak. Even if it’s a halfwit, it’s still giant blood.”

No one called him a prince. The only one who ever had was his mother. Hardly anyone even treated him as a living being. Most referred to him as an object that needed to be disposed of.

Mother, you told me to trample everything beneath my feet when the time comes. But when is that time supposed to be?

He didn’t know. Crouched in the dark room, the child stared blankly ahead. Perhaps he would live his entire life huddled in the corner of this small room, and die there as well.

Was the only thing he could do to rot away like an inanimate object, waiting for a chance that might never come?

Well, perhaps that wouldn’t be so bad. A life that barely counts as existing, if it ended while honoring his mother’s final wish, wouldn’t that be a meaningful life and death?

‘I don’t mind spending my entire life crouched in this darkness.’

It was the moment he accepted that thought calmly, without self-pity or sorrow.

And then—a strange sensation bloomed across his skin.