Chapter 73
Chapter 73
“Right. You just know.”
I gave up on trying to get more out of him and closed my eyes. Fatigue washed over me. Lately, I had been afraid to even fall asleep.
The constant nightmares prevented me from sleeping deeply, leaving me perpetually tired. I found myself nodding off whenever I had a chance to rest my head during the day. But the nightmares didn’t discriminate between day and night, and they were becoming more frequent. At least when he was with me, it was better. The hope that he would wake me brought a measure of comfort.
However, a chilling sensation still lingered in my spine. It stemmed from the weight of what the dreams implied. The recurring nightmares revealed one inescapable truth.
“I was murdered…”
If I wasn’t imagining things. If these dreams, like the one that helped me identify the jewel thief, were showing me the truth…
Perhaps the four previous Empress candidates had been murdered.
The dreams showed me how they died. A hand pressing a pillow over a face. A malicious shove. A head forced underwater in a pond. A hand offering poisoned food.
Death. So many deaths, each one agonizing. Unavoidable deaths, with no chance to escape.
“Who could have done such a thing…?”
They were all around my age. In the same position as me. They must have had so many dreams, so many things they wanted to do. These unfortunate young women, their lives cut short.
I felt their pain, and it was agonizing. They all wanted to live. Their lives were taken by the hand of a single evildoer. Who? Who could have committed such a wicked act? And why?
“There’s probably no evidence left now…”
People had died in the Imperial Palace. If any evidence had existed, the culprit would have been found already.
“But everyone just dismissed it as a curse…”
Even I had believed that. No one had done anything except attribute the deaths to a curse. And so, the truth had been buried.
“If only there had been a witness…”
Suddenly, a realization struck me. There was a witness. Right in front of me.
I quickly looked up at Cesar. He was just gazing at me.
“Um, Cesar?”
“Yes?”
“Do you remember?”
He tilted his head silently. Oops. I had blurted out a cryptic question without any context. I rephrased.
“About…the previous Empress candidates.”
He simply smiled, offering no other response.
But if my dreams were true, the one person who had been present when those women died was Cesar.
“So, um…people died here. People you know. The Empress candidates.”
He slowly spoke.
“Women?”
A chilling sensation, unlike anything I’d felt before, ran down my spine. I hesitantly nodded, confirming.
“Yes, women. Do you remember?”
“Died?”
His way of echoing my words felt no different than usual. But having found this potential clue, I couldn’t give up. I pressed on.
“Yes, they died. Killed by a bad person.”
“Bad?”
“Yes, bad. Very bad.”
Just when I was starting to think this was pointless, he said,
“Splash, splash, into the water.”
A shiver ran down my neck.
“Oh, yes! Into the water!”
I couldn’t stop my voice from rising. Perhaps Cesar knew about the young woman who had drowned in the pond.
“Splash, splash.”
He smiled, his eyes crinkling at the corners. Perhaps he had witnessed her death. My anxiety growing, I grabbed his arm and shook it, urging him to say more.
“The little ducklings splashed and splashed, following their mother and quacking loudly.”
“…What?”
He was reciting a line from a children’s story I had read to him several times.
“Quack, quack.”
He beamed, a perfectly self-satisfied smile on his face. A hollow laugh escaped my lips.
“Haha…ducklings.”
All my anticipation deflated. My voice trembled slightly.
“It was the duckling story.”
How foolish of me. What had I been expecting? But in contrast to my disappointment, Cesar continued reciting lines from the story.
“The ugly duckling looked at his reflection in the river and lamented.”
He had just quoted the first page, and now he was jumping to the middle of the story. It was all jumbled up.
Judging by this, it seemed unlikely I would get a proper answer from him.
Cesar nuzzled his head against my chest.
“Why was I born so ugly?”
His voice was muffled against my clothes. He was just reciting lines from a story, but it felt like I was hearing his inner voice, and it made my heart ache. I couldn’t help but respond.
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