151 - Evil Husband (15th Anniversary Edition) Chapter 151
151
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In the fleeting moment while awaiting Cesare's reply, Aileen desperately hoped. Hoped that he would deny her question.
However, Cesare no longer lied. Or perhaps, he was no longer able to lie.
Aileen felt the world collapsing. Every world that constituted Aileen crumbled like the Pantheon.
Amidst the ruins of the shattered world, Aileen gazed at Cesare. She stared blankly before abruptly pushing him away.
Yet, Cesare did not loosen his grip on Aileen. Held captive by him, Aileen was unable to move.
Trapped in his firm embrace, she struggled to catch her breath for a while. Perhaps it was a small mercy. No tears came. As if even her weeping had dried up from the great shock. After much effort, she finally managed to speak.
"Why… did you lie…?"
The hand clutching his clothes tightened. Aileen asked, gripping his clothes so tightly that her knuckles turned white.
"Why, are you telling me this only now?"
He captured Aileen's torment in his eyes, without avoiding a single bit of it. Cesare, explaining to the trembling Aileen, was composed.
"The collapse of the Pantheon was a warning from the gods that you could die again at any moment."
Cesare hoped that Aileen would no longer go near the temple. That was why he was revealing a part of the truth.
The hand that had been holding Aileen to prevent her from turning away loosened. Aileen immediately broke free from his grasp and lowered her gaze. Irregular breaths fell onto the bedsheets.
"Did you really make a deal with the gods? If it was to revive me…"
Aileen asked in the calmest voice she could muster.
"What did you offer in return?"
"You know. The Immortal body."
"That's a lie!"
For the first time in her life, Aileen interrupted him and shouted. An action she had never done before, nor even imagined doing. The voice that had momentarily feigned composure now trembled wretchedly.
"That can't be all. There's more!"
To some, immortality was considered a lifelong aspiration. Cesare had prayed to the gods for the resurrection of the dead. He had demanded an act against the providence of the gods, so it couldn't have ended with merely offering immortality as a price. Especially if he had sacrificed the lives of countless innocent people…
Aileen clenched her fist and pressed it tightly against his chest. She wanted to strike him resentfully, but she couldn't bring herself to do it, fearing that Cesare might be hurt even a little. She could only sob and mutter.
"Why did you do that? Why, why…!"
"Because I needed you."
Cesare grasped Aileen's hand, which was reddening from being pressed.
"I needed you in my life… That's all, Aileen."
Cesare said that all of this was his terribly selfish choice.
However, Aileen could not understand him. She tried to shake off the hand holding her, but he gripped it firmly and did not let go.
"Let go of me."
"Aileen."
Cesare called her name. It was a call that had always been welcome. A call that had made Aileen's heart flutter and filled her with joy, and sometimes brought her a sense of steadfast stability…
But not now. At this moment, she desperately wished he wouldn't call her. Aileen swallowed the rising sobs and looked at Cesare.
She couldn't know what her eyes looked like. But it certainly wasn't the gaze that had always looked at him as if he were a dream.
Cesare's eyes, which had always been clear, clouded over. Gazing at the crimson eyes shadowed by darkness, Aileen whispered pleadingly.
"Please…"
Cesare's hand loosened. Aileen immediately broke free from his embrace.
The warmth that had been warming Aileen until now vanished in an instant, and a chill covered her entire skin. It was a coldness she hadn't felt when she was held in Cesare's arms.
Aileen trembled slightly. But she did not turn back. Feeling his gaze fixed on her, she did not look back in the end, but left the bedroom and departed alone.
From her childhood until now, Aileen had lived her life thinking with extremely logical reasoning.
If there was a single illogical moment in Aileen's life, it was only when she prayed for Cesare. She prayed more earnestly than ever that all the gods in the world would watch over him.
But the gods did not answer Aileen's prayers.
"Hic, sob…"
Aileen belatedly swallowed the sobs that welled up. But tears rolled down her eyes incessantly. Even if she wiped them away, they would continue to flow anyway, but she couldn't damage the books. Aileen roughly wiped her eyes with her sleeve.
That wasn't enough, so she pressed her sleeve under her eyes and turned the pages of the book one by one. Countless books were piled up next to Aileen. All of them were about the founding myth.
The stories that Cesare had told so far, and the dream she had seen in the Pantheon.
When she put all of those things together and thought about them, she inferred that the current situation seemed similar to what had happened in the founding myth.
'I have to accept the parts that cannot be scientifically proven.'
Many parts had already been distorted unrealistically. In order to know clearly what Cesare had offered as a price and what state Cesare was in now, Aileen also had to jump into the dream.
'You probably didn't want me to find out this way, but anyway, you wanted me to realize the truth someday, so you must have been letting the story slip little by little.'
Cesare hadn't kept it a perfect secret from the beginning. If he had, he wouldn't have said anything in the first place. But the only reason he let the words slip, even knowing that it was a truth that would hurt Aileen, was probably one thing.
'Time is limited.'
In the end, he must have acted that way because there would come a moment when the truth would be revealed, which even Cesare couldn't do anything about.
'Something went wrong again this time, and something like the collapse of the temple happened.'
It must have been an incident that occurred because the deal between the god and Cesare was not going smoothly. Like a warning, as he said. The fact that only she was safe and sound without a single scratch at the terrible accident site was proof of that.
Aileen, who had been obsessively scanning the letters, tightly closed her eyes. She couldn't shake off the thoughts that kept intruding.
'Why, why for someone like me.'
If there was weight in human lives, Cesare's life should be much more important. No matter how good she was, she was just a mere pharmacist, unlike Cesare, who was the sword that protected the empire. Without him, the Traon Empire could not exist.
She couldn't believe that someone who knew his own position more clearly than anyone else had sacrificed himself for her. This was the truth that felt like the most futile dream.
Tears welled up again. Aileen quickly wiped away the blurring vision with her sleeve and forcibly stuffed the contents of the book into her head.
[…In the myth, it is stated that the founding Emperor offered the Winged Lion as a Sacrificial offering, but this part is open to various interpretations.
The Winged Lion is only a symbolic expression, and the main interpretations are that it is the symbol of the Traon Imperial Family, so a member of the Imperial Family was offered as a Sacrificial offering, or that the people of the empire were offered as a Sacrificial offering.
Because the Emperor prayed to the gods that he would offer humans as Sacrificial offerings if they did not grant his request…….]
Aileen recalled the bloody ritual that was held in front of the burning altar. She quickly wrote down the contents on paper with one hand. There was nothing else to gain from the rest of the passage. She was about to move on to the next book.
"Madam…"
Aileen, who had been engrossed in her work without even hearing the knock, finally came to her senses when she heard a voice calling from right next to her. She turned to face the person with swollen eyes.
"Sonio…"
He placed a small tray he was holding on the desk. On the tray was a glass of warm milk.
"I will not ask what you are doing this for."
Sonio took out a handkerchief and placed it on the tray as well. His dry, wrinkled hands were trembling slightly.
"However, wouldn't it be better to take a break, even for a moment? It is an old man's request."
Only after hearing his words did Aileen realize that she hadn't eaten or slept until now. That she had just been crying and digging through books.
"I'm afraid something really bad will happen if you keep doing this."
At his earnest request, Aileen slowly lowered her gaze. He was right. But she wasn't sleepy or hungry. Rather, she was afraid to close her eyes. Aileen muttered in a rough voice.
"I'm sorry…"
"No. What do you have to be sorry for?"
Sonio grimaced in pain. He bent his knees to meet Aileen's eye level as she sat in the chair.
"Then please grant me one other request."
Sonio looked up at Aileen and asked cautiously.
"The knights have come to see you, Madam. Will you meet them?"
