Lena, who came out of the hallway, swallowed a smile.
She finally met her father. It was the first time since that day, when she was sold as a sacrifice on a peaceful night.
And the reality of her father, that she knew after the reunion, was far more cunning and cold-blooded than she had imagined.
‘Well, a normal person can’t do that.’
She couldn’t believe he poisoned his daughter after six years. It’s great to think about that again.
Her father seemed rather surprised. That Lena already knew about the poisoning attempt, and nevertheless faced himself calmly, it seemed to be completely incomprehensible.
Lena thought it’s funny.
‘Why do you think I don’t know?’
Lena knew from the beginning.
If she revealed her name, her father will attack her with a high probability, or they would hurry up before any strange rumors broke.
“Really…”
Lena burst into laughter, recalling her father, who had moved perfectly as expected.1
Lena knew how the Marquis would react. More precisely, she had no choice but to know.
Because this was not the first time.
‘You probably don’t know that either.‘
Lena had already tried to go home before. But it failed and no one knew the fact. No one but Lena Rubel, the person involved.
🍃🍃🍃
Six years ago, little Lena stood alone on the street at night.
‘I’m back….?’
She looked at the dark night sky full of stars with confused eyes.
‘I’m back.’
Lena found the familiar starlight and cried, biting her lips.
She had been through a dreadful and terrible thing. It wasn’t clear whether it was an illusion or a reality that words couldn’t explain.
She thought she would be trapped there forever, but she returned. In this ordinary world, under a star-lit sky.
Lena, who was sobbing, wiped away her tears and looked around. Only then, she came across a strange scene.
‘Where am I?’
It was a messy and dirty street. The houses that seemed to collapse were a so-called slum with overlapping layers.
Lena found a place to go with fearful eyes. It was cold. She was tired and hungry. She needed a place to rest.
So she picked the most straight and normal house and knocked on the door.
As she saw in the fairy tale books, she thought a poor but good wife would come out and help her.
But the reality was different from fairy tales. The only thing that came back to her was harsh abusive language, and Lena ran away in amazement at the coldness she had received for the first time.
Then she shuddered and wandered for a long time before crouching in a corner of junk.
“Hey, are you alone?”
It was early in the morning, in the dawn when a man approached and asked her. It was a friendly voice.
When Lena answered with a weak nod, he took her with him and saying, “I’ll let you make money.”
He brought Lena at a place deeper than the back alley, it was a brothel of the quayside.
“Where did you pick this up?” The woman with the hookah asked, handing the coin to the man.
Lena was already in a breathless shiver at that time.
She had seen it in a novel. The story of a place where greedy men commit and abuse desperate women with a few coins.
Lena realized where she was and was in great despair. It was embarrassing to get here so quickly than anything else.
Wasn’t this an adults-only place? She’s still young. She’s only 12 years old. Lena thought while her eyes rolled half-doubtfully.
A child of her age was escorting her in a dress with a thin material on this cold day. And there’s a man who’s as good as her father’s age who stumbled to her.
Lena looked at her in a feeling of suffocation. When she came to her senses, Lena was begging the woman who bought her.
“I’m a noble!”
“What the fuck is she saying?”
“Really, I’m the daughter of Viscount Rubel. It’s an accident coming here. Please send me home.”
The women in the streets didn’t believe Lena’s screams. The gangsters cursed at her, saying she didn’t want to work.
However, Madame, who bought Lena, didn’t let it pass, she set Lena in front of the lamp.
“It’s white and clean skin… it’s a little bit burned, but it’s not old.”
“Sister, do you believe her?”
“Shut up and bring paper and ink.”
Madame gave Lena a paper and a pen to write. Lena wrote poetry as beautiful as possible, her hands were shaking.
“You are a cold dream of midsummer. What does this mean?”
“It’s poetry. The first chapter of Vitra’s collections of poetry….”
“Oh my, poetry.”
Madame pretended to be impressed and asked Lena a few more. It was the culture and manners of the upper class, the position and authority of Viscount Rubel, and the number of servants.
“Oh! I was rude, Lady!”
When Lena answered her every question, Madame suddenly changed her attitude.
“He must have been mistaken because he was so bad at it. You seem to have a situation, so relax. I’ll take you home with all my might.”
Madame smiled and hugged Lena. Then she whispered to the hand-picked gangsters.
“Don’t scratch her and keep her well. I’m going to pay the ransom.”
Madame was excited by the unexpected windfall and attempted to contact the House of Rubel.
In the meantime, Lena spent her time in a shabby room, not knowing whether it was protection or imprisonment.
It was a terrible time. She could hear all sorts of sounds over the thin wall. Screaming, crying, and swearing for the first time in her life.
Lena covered her ears and memorized poetry to endure.
But it didn’t calm her down at all. In fact, what scared Lena wasn’t the sounds coming from outside, it’s what was going to happen.
How would her father react if he knew she was back? If the daughter he threw away with his own hands said she was back, would he come and pick her up? Would he be sorry now? Would he regret and apologize?
‘How could you do that to me?’
Tears filled her eyes as she recalled her father.
‘What did I do wrong? Liar. I’m going to take revenge. I told you I loved you. What is the reason? Save me. I hate you. I’m the bad one. Help me.’
‘Please forgive me.’
Lena endured in the narrow room, tearing her heart to pieces.
Days had passed.
Fortunately, Madame was quite a smart person. She didn’t contact the Viscount directly but started looking at the situation. As a result, Lena heard unexpected news.
“Sister, he’s not the Viscount anymore but a Count.”
“What?”
“Not long ago, he was given the title from the Northern Duke. Did she stab you in the back?”
The Dukes of the Empire had more power than the King of a country. Therefore, it was possible to give a title to one’s own servants.
However, when it was already full of aristocrats, it was rare to promote someone.
“Are there any concerns about finding a daughter?”
“Oh, it’s true that there’s a daughter in the house, but…”
“But?”
“She got sick and died. They’ve already had a funeral.”
“What? Then who is she?”
“She is just a young and weak b*tch, a plague.”
Gundal, who picked up the news, spit out the spit as if he was in vain. However, Madame’s eyes glowed from the strange information.
“When did she die?”
“A month ago.”
“When did the Viscount become a Count?”
“Around 15 days ago?”
“Look at the daughter of the house, what disease she died of.”
“Oh, sister. Now you believe in that b*tch….”
“No, No. Let’s just dig the grave. You know some of your friends who do that, don’t you?”
In the end, Madame pressed Gundal and dug Lena Rubel’s grave. As a result, the secret of the Rubel family was treaded too easily.
“Wow ha ha ha! What is this! Sister, isn’t this amazing? Huh!”
The body of the girl who had been buried a month ago was nowhere to be found. Her coffin was only filled with clothes, books, dolls, and violin.
An empty grave and the child was still alive. The Viscount suddenly became Count. It wasn’t all an ordinary event.
“Yeah, this is not going to end with only a reward.”
Madame was also excited at the thought that she had caught the weakness of an aristocrat. It was also caught up with a powerful nobleman who was on the rise.
She couldn’t believe this windfall had come, and her boring life was finally over!
Madame was certainly a smart woman, but she wasn’t very cautious.
She was so full of excitement that she cut Lena’s hair and sent it across to Count Rubel. Then she asked the Count to visit.
“Hide her in the next building. He might try to take her by force.”
Madame locked Lena in the rooftop of the next building with the intention of threatening her. Instead, she made another girl stand in the band and waited for the Count.
On the day of the appointment, Lena sat by the window of the rooftop and looked at the street with nervous eyes.
She was curious.
‘Would you come? Would you like to pick me up? If you came to me again now, then…’
Lena stayed up all night with her heart pounding.
Early in the morning, when the stars were still visible, a strange guest came to the brothel. It was an old gentleman who didn’t fit in with this rough, dirty street.
Lena recognized him at first sight.
‘Butler!’
He was the butler of the House of Rubel who loved Lena very much.
‘The butler is here!’
Lena, who found him, burst into tears again. It wasn’t because she was sad and distressed, but because her heart melted and it was tears of relief.
Lena was happy. She felt finally liberated from a long nightmare. There was no doubt that the butler had come to pick her up.
But the happiness didn’t last long.
The butler and the servants entered the building where Madame was waiting. Lena looked mournfully at the tightly closed door, and suddenly there was a loud noise.
“Aaaah!”
It was the scream of a woman who was full of anger and torn. Lena looked at the street with cold blood.
It wasn’t long before he entered, but the butler came out again. He looked exactly like when he entered. But the servants were all wet with blood.
When the butler ordered something, the servants were scattered. Looking back, there were quite a few other people besides the three or four servants who were moving with the butler.
‘Why are there so many?’
‘Trying to find me?’
Still naive, Lena didn’t give up her faith and hope.
‘They hurt Madame, yes. That’s because she threatened my father. They did that to save me. It must be like that.’
Lena thought so and waited for the butler and servants to come and find her. But Lena’s wait was rewarded in the wrong direction.
Flames began to soar into the clear dawn sky.
Someone’s deliberate fire melted the greedy Madame’s body and burned the streets stained with dirt. The women who barely open their eyes and the snoring men next to them were also swept away by the flames.
The butler and servants stood on the quayside and watched the brothel burn out. If there was anyone who ran out with a fire tail, push it back.
In the silent dawn, the flames danced silently and devoured everything.
When the dawn passed and the flames burned up, the butler and his servants hurried away. It was a quick move that could only be seen from the beginning.
As a result, the brothel, which was digging after the Count, was burned clean. No one survived as someone commanded.
Except for one, a girl who sat and cried on a pileof ashes.
🍃🍃🍃
The Marquis was like that.
After selling his young daughter, he held a fake funeral saying she died of illness. After that, when he heard that his daughter was alive, he burned her to death.
Therefore, Lena wasn’t surprised by his brutality. Because she already had a hard time figuring out what kind of person her father was on the pile of ashes.
But they wouldn’t know. That Lena was there, that she watched it all, and that she was still alive.
”He doesn’t necessarily know it…’
Lena smiled bitterly, recalling the face of her father. Her cunning father didn’t know much more than he thought.
Little did he know about the treason, about his wife, and about his daughter, who had visited him after a long time.
So when Lena offered to give him a chance to be forgiven, he took it as a threat. This too was a misunderstanding.
The Marquis was convinced. There’s no way a child who had been rejected by a father would be a proper human being.
Even if it looked fine, but it would be rotten, burnt, and twisted inside.
So he didn’t believe the word ‘forgiveness’ in Lena’s mouth. He believed Lena would be hiding a knife in her hands and that she would never forgive himself.
This was the Marquis’ biggest miscalculation.
A girl who was abandoned and fell to hell didn’t have to be destroyed.
She might vent her grief in anger, but she didn’t necessarily have to.
Lena could also be a broken girl or a vengeance with a grudge. But she didn’t take that path. Instead, she chose what she would like to be.
Lena paused for a moment and turned to the room where her father was.
What was contained in her gaze was not a burning vengeance or resentment, but a calm resolution.
But the Marquis never realized it.
Perhaps he would never know.
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Comments:
라이사니이다(6270****):
Aaaa Lena… Lena… …you’re such a strong girl… …how could you do that?
고양이아리(grac****):
She gave him the rope of salvation, and he hung himself with it.
6
jinney(reyn****):
That’s cool, Lena. A person who personally shows that pain in the past doesn’t necessarily destroy people, but can make you strong.