Chapter 365
‧₊˚ ☁️⋅♡𓂃 ࣪ ִֶָ☾.
I understood what had happened only when I lifted my head.
He had gone deathly pale and was shoving his fingers into his mouth. Blood poured from his gaping lips, running down over his fingers.
“…Did I bite his tongue off?”
The moment I realized it, I opened my mouth in shock and the tongue that had still been inside slid out from beneath mine with a soft thud.
The squishy texture of flesh and the metallic taste of blood made my skin crawl.
“Thoo.“
I spat it out immediately, but the revulsion wouldn’t fade.
‘God, that’s disgusting…’
The vivid red chunk of flesh, its ridges unmistakable, made bile surge up my throat.
“Ugh—”
I couldn’t hold it back. I vomited directly onto the severed tongue.
* * *
“The excised tissue was severely damaged by stomach acid, so reattachment was not possible.”
The head of surgery delivered the results to the Marquis after he regained consciousness. The Marquis stared at him with bloodshot eyes, lips tightly sealed. Then suddenly his face twisted as he tried, instinctively, to speak.
“Please refrain from using your tongue for the time being. Bleeding may resume.”
The Marquis scribbled something on the notepad resting on his bedside table. His aide held it up to the doctor.
“We’ll have to see.”
After the surgeon replied, the aide immediately tore the paper in half, dropped it into the ashtray, and set it on fire with a lighter.
“Your vocal cords are unharmed, so you’ll still be able to make sounds. But since the tongue has been shortened, your pronunciation will be unclear.”
One didn’t need to see the question to know what had been written. At the diagnosis—that he would never speak properly again—the Marquis’s already pale face drained of even more color.
‘What on earth did he do to her to end up like this?’
Throughout the surgeon’s report, Phineas had to suppress that question.
The Marquis’s side refused to explain how the tongue had been severed, but Phineas already knew. His daughter had done this.
– Phineas! What are we going to do?! Dana— that mad girl— she bit off the Marquis’s tongue! His tongue!
Earlier that evening, his mother had called, screaming as if she were about to faint. Hearing that the bleeding was severe, he’d told her to get the Marquis to the hospital immediately. There’d been no time to ask what had happened.
Only after the Marquis was taken into surgery did he regain his composure and call home. His mother claimed she didn’t know the details. When he asked to speak to Dana, she said the girl was asleep.
“Where did you bring Dana from, and how?”
There was no way she had returned home of her own will.
– The Marquis said Dana was going to visit that man in prison today, so he told me to go fetch her. So I did.
“Did she come willingly?”
There was no way she had. After a brief silence, his mother answered in a trembling voice.
– Phineas, your mother did the right thing. Surely you don’t think this is my fault?
Hearing the old woman begin to sob through the receiver, Phineas had no choice but to say no.
“Why didn’t you tell me first?”
– You’re a busy man. So many important lives depend on your hands. I didn’t want to bother you over something like this.
She asked about the Marquis’s condition, then urged him again and again to soothe the man so he wouldn’t change his mind and cancel the plan.
“What plan?”
Only then did he hear of it.
– Phineas, this is the right path, for Dana’s sake as well. You know that, don’t you? So make sure the Marquis doesn’t change his mind.
Phineas didn’t know what to think. His head said it was the right thing to do, but his heart kept asking if it truly was.
Just like how his mind insisted his daughter’s exposé was false, yet his heart kept believing it.
Crash!
The Marquis hurled the ashtray to the floor, snapping Phineas back to reality. The young man sitting on the hospital bed was raging, panting with fury. Clearly, he wasn’t satisfied with the surgical outcome.
Since the patient was in no condition to communicate, the surgeon quietly withdrew and whispered to Phineas,
“I did everything I could, Director.”
“I know. You’ve done well. You may go.”
After dismissing the surgeon, Phineas asked that the aide step out as well. Alone at last with the Marquis, he asked,
“How did this happen?”
The Marquis scrawled a reply.
Dana is not sane. She is no better than an animal. She must be taken to a psychiatric hospital.
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