Chapter 51: Breakdown
The night was already very deep.
Adele sat alone on the edge of the bed, her fingers unconsciously twisting her pajamas, her ears catching every sound from the direction of the bathroom.
The sound of flowing water stopped.
Her heart also trembled slightly.
After ten days apart, she felt that Lina had become a little unfamiliar.
She still had many worries—
Since ancient times, meritorious officials who helped a new ruler ascend the throne rarely had a good end. She was afraid that Lina would also repeat the same mistake;
She had always known that there was hatred in Lina’s heart. She was afraid that now that Lina had great power, she would use her position to settle personal scores and go on a killing spree;
She was even more afraid that Lina would no longer need her, that those eyes that had once been filled with ardent love would eventually become cold and distant.
…
Adele’s face was clouded with worry. The lock on the bathroom door made a soft click, interrupting her chaotic thoughts.
Lina wrapped a bathrobe casually around herself and walked out. The billowing steam blurred her increasingly sharp features, but it couldn’t erase the deep weariness in her brows.
The atmosphere was a little subtle.
After ten days apart, a hint of unfamiliarity had sprung up between the two of them.
Adele sat silently on the edge of the bed.
Lina was choosing her words, and casually picked up the warm water on the table.
The temperature of the water was just right. A clear sweetness was mixed in, the floral honey she liked. The amount was also just right, not overly sweet.
This secret, almost childish habit of adding honey, only Adele knew.
Too many things had happened in these ten days. Lina had been navigating a high-pressure environment, not daring to relax for a single moment. After finally getting away, she hadn’t rested for a moment and had rushed straight home.
She was so tired.
This cup of warm, sweet water tore through her cold, hard disguise.
Lina put down the cup and, without another word, threw herself at Adele, who was sitting on the edge of the bed.
“I missed you so much.”
Adele was pushed down onto the bed. The grievance and unease in her heart were still churning, but her body had already reacted instinctively.
She suppressed the questions and fears she wanted to pour out and held Lina steady.
The two of them rolled around on the bed.
Lina buried her head in Adele’s chest.
It was the familiar cool fragrance.
A heavy fatigue washed over her in an instant. She mumbled, “I like you…”
Adele’s heart was scalded by these words.
She didn’t know when it had started, but she also needed to repeatedly confirm Lina’s feelings.
“What did you just say?”
Adele asked cautiously.
She actually wanted to hear it again.
Lina didn’t respond.
Adele looked at her. The person in her arms was breathing long and deep, her eyelashes resting quietly.
Lina was asleep.
For these ten days, she had not closed her eyes peacefully.
The person who had been holding on for so long had finally let down all her defenses in the safest harbor.
But Adele was entangled by a huge sense of powerlessness.
She had so much she wanted to talk to Lina about.
She needed an honest conversation to confirm their feelings for each other, to soothe her panicked and uneasy soul.
But Lina was asleep.
She had fallen asleep in her arms so defenselessly.
All the words were blocked.
The night was long. The unvented emotions made Adele’s chest feel tight. She couldn’t bear to shake Lina awake and question whether she still loved her. She could only hold her tightly, as if that could hold her forever.
Adele could only comfort herself like this.
She lowered her head, her lips lightly touching Lina’s forehead. Before she could feel the warmth of her lover’s skin, a sourness had already welled up in her throat.
…
The next morning.
Adele was woken up by a sudden clamor from downstairs.
She opened her eyes in a daze and subconsciously reached out to the side—
Empty.
The sheet was cold.
Adele was instantly awake and shot up.
She was alone in the bedroom. Lina was gone.
Had she gone to the palace?
Why didn’t she say anything…
Adele’s heart was empty. She didn’t even have the strength to get up. Just as she was about to lie back down, to try and pass the time by sleeping, she suddenly heard the noise from downstairs again.
She perked up her ears.
There was a man’s argument, a maid’s discussion, and it seemed… also Lina’s voice?
She scrambled up and rushed to the window.
The scene in the courtyard made her suck in a sharp breath.
A man in a coachman’s uniform was kneeling on the ground, his body trembling like a sieve.
And Lina was standing in front of him, her back to the castle.
Even without seeing her expression, Adele could feel the almost tangible anger from her back.
The servants were all hiding far away, not daring to get close.
Adele saw Lina call for a guard with a sword and thought, This is not good!
Something bad is about to happen!
She hastily threw on an outer garment and rushed out the door. The closer she got to the ground floor, the clearer the sounds became.
“…I clearly said that the first rule of working here is—” Lina’s voice was as if quenched in ice. “Absolutely, absolutely no believing in the Sacred Cult! Do you take my words for a passing wind?!”
The coachman raised his pale face, his lips trembling, and said in a small voice, “Long live… the Sacred Cult…”
This sentence was like a spark falling into a barrel of oil, instantly igniting Lina’s reason.
Dilys closed her eyes directly. The other servants were as quiet as cicadas in winter.
Everyone knew that the Sacred Cult was Lina’s reverse scale.
“You’re looking for death!” Lina snatched the guard’s longsword. “I’ll grant your wish! I’ll send you to see your god!”
The bright blade flashed a dazzling cold light, reflecting Lina’s slightly twisted features from extreme disgust.
She held the sword with both hands, her arms raised high. It was about to come down!
“No!”
Adele rushed over, shouting to stop her.
Hearing her voice, Lina’s movement abruptly stopped. The raised sword froze in mid-air.
A few moments later, she lowered her hand and turned to look at Adele.
If it had been in the past, if Adele had caught her being violent, she would have been extremely panicked.
She didn’t want her lover to see her disgrace, she didn’t want to be disliked by her lover, because being disliked would lead to being abandoned.
But times had changed.
Lina didn’t think Adele had the ability to leave her.
In just an instant, she had swallowed the panic that had instinctively welled up, replaced by a calm.
The reversal of status brought by her rise in status had finally freed her from the weaker side of this relationship. She no longer needed to please and obey.
At least objectively, it was not necessary.
Subjectively, she was still willing to be Adele’s dog.
Adele had thought that Lina would immediately restrain herself after seeing her, as she had in the past, would show a look of remorse, would be cautious and fawning for fear of being disliked by her.
But none of these conjectures happened.
At this moment, Lina’s eyes were cold, even with a hint of a condescending meaning that Adele found unfamiliar.
Lina put the longsword back into its sheath with a flick of her wrist. She didn’t even look at the coachman again and said in a cold voice, “Throw him out. Never to be used again.”
“Yes, my lord.” Dilys’s form of address for her had also changed.
Lina put down the sword, not because she realized she had done wrong, but simply to save her lover’s face in front of outsiders.
Since Adele didn’t let her kill, she wouldn’t kill.
Lina strode toward Adele, her face deliberately softening into an almost gentle expression, but the lingering coldness in the depths of her eyes had not completely dissipated.
“Why are you up so early?” She walked in front of Adele, wanting to smooth the hair that had been messed up by her running. “The grand meal I had prepared for you isn’t ready yet.”
Adele subconsciously turned her head to dodge.
Lina’s hand once again stopped in mid-air, her gaze sinking slightly.
This was the second time Adele had refused her!
The second time!
Adele’s heart was still pounding. The image of Lina raising her sword to cut someone was still in her mind. She had no appetite and said, “I don’t want to eat any grand meal. We need to talk. Right now.”
Lina maintained that gentleness.
“Okay.” She agreed readily, but the coldness in her gaze had already exposed her dissatisfaction. “Let’s go back to the room.”
…
The moment the door closed, the atmosphere in the room instantly sank.
Adele said bluntly, “You’ve changed.”
Lina stood opposite her with her arms crossed. Hearing this, the corners of her lips curved up ever so slightly.
It was not a smile, but a sneer.
She retorted, “I’ve changed? Just because I wanted to kill a coachman who knowingly broke the rules?”
Adele didn’t respond.
The chirping of birds from outside the window made the silence in the room even more suffocating.
Adele stared at Lina, trying to find a trace of the past in those deep, bottomless blue eyes.
Innocence, brightness, or melancholy.
None of them.
All she saw was indifference.
Complete indifference.
“Lina, you’re becoming more and more extreme. Don’t you feel it yourself? If this goes on, it’s not good.” Adele’s eyes were worried.
“Extreme?”
Lina seemed to have heard a very absurd word. She stood in place, her expression changing slightly. The anger she was trying so hard to suppress instantly thickened the oppressive feeling around her. “Are you accusing me? For a subordinate who believes in the Sacred Cult and defies me, you’re accusing me?”
Her voice suddenly rose. “I thought you understood me! In this world, at least you should understand why I hate!”
Seeing Lina’s agitation, Adele subconsciously wanted to comfort her. She reached out a hand. “No, I…”
“No what?!” Lina cut her off directly. Her emotions were like a bursting dam, instantly washing away all restraint and pretense.
Her breathing became rapid. She pointed at the carpet under her feet and said, “It was right here!”
She gritted her teeth, every word squeezed out, wrapped in immense pain and years of accumulated humiliation. “Right here! Those former instructors stomped my face on the ground! They ground my face with their filthy shoe soles! They laughed at me wantonly! They humiliated me! Said that a sacrificial offering doesn’t need a face! Said that my face was not as clean as the mud on the bottom of their shoes!”
Lina’s chest heaved violently, her eyes already red. She pointed downstairs again. “It was also such a heavy snow, so cold it could crack bones! I knelt in the snow! I knelt for two whole days and two whole nights! Just because I refused to recite that damn doctrine! Refused to admit my identity as a sacrificial offering! My knees, my waist, they’ve been broken ever since! No medicine can cure them! Every rainy day, they ache to the bone!”
The humiliating memories were vivid in her mind. The monstrous hatred had disfigured her. Lina stared at Adele, no longer hiding her thoughts. Her eyes were red, but there were no tears, only a scalding resentment.
“I remember it all! Every second! Every humiliation! Every pain! I remember it all clearly!”
Adele was so shocked by these bloody past events that her face turned pale. Hearing Lina say it herself made her even more pained. Her heart felt as if it had been split in two.
“Lina…”
Adele’s voice softened, tinged with heartache. “I know you’re in a lot of pain, and I know the Sacred Cult has done a lot of harm. I’ve always supported you in resisting the Sacred Cult! But…”
She tried to pull Lina’s reason back. “But that coachman, that kind of person, you can tell at a glance that he’s been brainwashed, been deceived! You can punish him, drive him away, all of that is fine. But don’t… don’t kill… don’t use such an extreme method…”
Lina shook her head and said, “To be bewitched is to be stupid! As stupid as Herte! These fools, if you keep them, they’ll only harm more people! They don’t deserve pity! To eliminate them is to be responsible for this world!”
“Don’t be like this! Lina!” Adele’s voice was almost a plea. She had already sensed Lina’s madness. “Hatred can’t solve the problem.”
There are many such people on the continent of Dezhou. Is Lina going to kill them all!?
That’s too cruel!
“Then you tell me what can solve the problem?!” Lina’s eyes were wild and paranoid. “What right do you have to be so generous on my behalf! The one who was trampled on the ground was not you! It was me!”
Adele was choked by her words, her eyes suddenly turning red. “My heart aches for you! I’m afraid you’ll do something wrong! And then you won’t even have a chance to turn back!”
Lina heard her choked voice. The anger that had rushed to her head was extinguished by eighty percent in an instant.
“You’re right. I am an extreme person. I always have been.” She no longer shouted. “I’ll be very honest with you. The first day you came, I thought about killing you. It’s just that at that time, I had no courage, no strength, and certainly no power. I just couldn’t do it.”
Lina approached her and said, “I could only depend on you, please you. Only then could I have enough to eat, and not be beaten. Do you understand my apprehension? Every day, I was worried about whether you would dislike me. I had to carefully scrutinize all of your expressions… I was so afraid that you would be dissatisfied with me… because once you were unhappy, I would be bullied again.”
As she spoke, tears rolled down her face without warning. “Later, I fell in love with you. I became even more afraid. I was afraid you would leave me, would take this love with you. I don’t want you to leave. I can’t lose this love… I’ve been in so much pain… I’m really in so much pain.”
Adele shook her head and said, “I won’t leave you. You have to believe me.”
Lina gave a self-deprecating curve of her lips and said, “I have bad luck.”
She repeated, “I have bad luck.”
All good things will leave me. I can’t keep anything. My underlying color is destined to be pain. It’s not that I don’t believe you; I just don’t believe this fate.
Lina covered her face. She thought the tears would burst forth, but the tear tracks had already dried.
She couldn’t cry anymore.
In this room alone, she had shed too many tears.
So many days and nights, she had long since cried all her tears.
Lina paused. When she revealed her eyes again, the sadness had receded, replaced by the madness that Adele had sensed.
She had completely gone mad.
“You are the only person I trust completely. I don’t mind telling you that after the situation has completely stabilized, the first thing I’m going to do is to eradicate the Sacred Cult! I want everyone who believes in it, sympathizes with it, or even just knows about it, to all disappear! Not a single one left! Ten years! At most ten years! I want this land to have no trace of the Sacred Cult! I have a lot of people to kill! I don’t care about one more coachman!”
Adele was so angry at these words her whole body trembled. She abruptly raised her hand, wanting to slap the person before her awake!
But her palm, halfway through its swing, could not fall.
She couldn’t bear to.
Lina grabbed Adele’s hand, which was suspended in mid-air, and forcefully, fiercely, slapped her own face with it!
“No!”
Adele resisted her force for the first time. “Let go!”
Her heart, which had just been split open, was now being blasted by a cold wind. She didn’t know what to do! Consolation was useless, and reason was also not working.
Adele’s face showed a breakdown.
Lina was unpredictable. Her emotions came and went quickly. She saw Adele standing there helplessly, and her sharpness instantly retracted. She took half a step closer and said, “You don’t have to worry.”
Adele’s back was against the door. There was nowhere to retreat.
Lina reached out, wanting to touch her face. Adele was worried that she would “go mad” again and stood in place, not daring to move.
“I want power just to get revenge, to return the suffering I’ve endured a hundred, a thousand times over to them.”
“I only love you. Really, I swear.”
“I’m not trying to be a playboy, and I won’t be fickle.”
“You are more important than my life.” She tentatively wrapped her arms around Adele and said in her ear, “I will absolutely not abandon you! Absolutely not!”
Lina held her tightly. Her hypnotic tone was filled with a horrifying “gentleness.”
“You stay by my side obediently. Don’t go anywhere.”
“I will give you the best life. You won’t have to worry about anything. I promise, I’ll make you wealthy and worry-free for the rest of your life.”
“Whatever you want, I will satisfy you. You can do anything to me. I’m willing to be dominated by you.”
The hot breath blew into her ear. Adele trembled uncontrollably.
But Lina misinterpreted it as a struggle. She squeezed Adele’s arm, her slightly rough action no different from a pinch.
A cold desire for control was hidden in her words of love.
“I love you.”
“I only love you. Please don’t ever leave me.”
“Please don’t, okay?”
The problem that needed to be solved was not solved at all. Adele was wrapped in infinite worry, with no mood for romance. What’s more, Lina’s tone was more like a threat.
Adele did not answer.
Lina’s breathing grew heavy. She tried her best to control her fluctuating emotions and asked again, “Okay?”
Adele was being squeezed so tightly she could barely breathe. She could only agree. “Okay.”
The clouds on Lina’s face were swept away. She turned and cupped Adele’s face. “I love you.”
She stood on her tiptoes and kissed her lover’s lips.
Adele stood there numbly, neither avoiding nor cooperating.
