One Day My Sister Died - Chapter 70

Yuan stood up as if struck by lightning and even stopped breathing.

The shock she received from the first page continued to overwhelm her on the next pages.

[I sense an energy similar to my ability from the deposed prince. Somehow, he must have received both pain and ability from somewhere. But since he’s not a Peliesse, he can only feel the pain without being able to use the ability.] [The only one who can cure him would be you, Yuan, who can absorb it. But I don’t think you need to bring that terrible ability and pain for someone who has nothing to do with you. So it might be difficult to bring you here. Can you wait a little? Someone has made me a plausible proposal.] [First Prince Boloniko. He’s a strange person, but since I can’t bring you here, I’m going to accept his proposal.]

As these were separate notes rather than a continuous letter, the content was extremely brief without context or explanation.

But with just those four notes, Yuan felt as if all the blood in her body was flowing backwards.

While Boloniko mentioning Louise’s name was shocking, it was equally shocking that Louise had tried to inform her about Boloniko.

After clasping her hands together with a confused expression for a while, Yuan quickly opened her eyes wide to regain her senses and skimmed through the contents again.

As far as Yuan knew, Louise didn’t have any ability like the Peliesse’s.

If she had an ability, her uncle wouldn’t have left Louise alone.

Then it means Louise has been hiding her ability all this time.

And that…

‘An ability to give my pain to others.’

It’s an incomprehensible ability.

Yuan had always thought her own ability to take on others’ pain was fitting for the Peliesse family of “physicians”.

She also thought it was entirely possible that the family’s ancestor, who was said to be a famous doctor, could have become a court noble from a commoner by using this ability to cure the emperor of that time.

In that sense, the ‘ability to give my pain to others’ that Louise claimed to have didn’t suit the Peliesse.

Yet Louise speaks as if it’s natural that the deposed prince can only feel the pain and not manifest the ability because he’s not a Peliesse, from the ability and pain he received from somewhere.

What does this mean?

‘If the Peliesse ability… can absorb pain from others and transfer it to someone else?’

What if the Peliesse ability was those two things?

Yuan rubbed her arms as goosebumps rose.

She had a strong premonition that Louise’s ability might have been a secret unknown not only to Uncle Gerret Peliesse but even to her parents.

After staring at the wet note as if engraving it in her eyes, Yuan focused on the content mentioning Boloniko, apart from Louise’s shocking confession.

‘As expected. He made some proposal to my sister, just as he did to me.’

Louise must have actually come to the Black Mansion instead of Yuan after hearing bad rumors about the deposed prince.

And during the period when Clard was on the brink of death, she must have felt an energy similar to her own ability in the Black Mansion.

At some point, she must have realized that Clard was the owner of that energy.

She must have also had a premonition that if she died or her identity was discovered, and Yuan came to this mansion as originally planned, Yuan might absorb it.

The plan to take Yuan out of the Peliesse mansion and bring her here was probably modified around that time.

But just like Yuan, Louise must have felt she couldn’t leave the mansion and live avoiding her uncle’s pursuit without power to protect herself.

And then.

What if Boloniko approached Louise and made some proposal?

‘Louise didn’t run away.’

Yuan carefully stored the wet note, wrapped it in a handkerchief, and tucked it into her bosom.

And she recalled what Boloniko had said to Marquis Kompani at the imperial palace.

‘The task that Louise Peliesse failed at. I have a strong feeling that Yuan Peliesse might succeed.’

Louise had failed at doing what Boloniko ordered her to do.

That’s when Boloniko must have realized that Louise wasn’t the person he was looking for.

Yuan’s small clenched fist trembled slightly.

So on that day when Marquis Kompani barged into the Peliesse mansion with Louise’s corpse…

‘The real one was here.’
‘I greet the next Deposed Crown Princess.’

He had used the word ‘real’.

[This is the timeline separator]

The butler Gustav delivered welcome news to Clard, who had been standing in the same position since daytime.

“She has arrived safely, don’t worry. Mr. Mazarin says she suffered from severe carriage sickness, so they took several breaks along the way.”

“I can see that too.”

Butler Gustav hesitated, then bowed his head and left.

Silence fell in Clard’s bedroom. In the darkness without a single light lit, Clard was looking down out the window.

With his arms crossed, leaning his tall body askew against the window frame.

Long shadows as lengthy as his eyelashes fell across his firm, pale cheeks.

Under lazily drooped eyelids, his eyes containing a wavering light were fixed on one exact point.

No matter how long he waited, no one came out of the carriage parked at the entrance.

It was the time when the sun was hiding its light and darkness was creeping in.

Originally, this would have been the time when Clard’s pain would also have crept in.

He felt pain swimming through his body, at a level that was hardly ticklish compared to before.

It hurt.

Even if it was incomparable to before.

Pain was still pain.

‘This much is nothing.’

The woman’s habit of speaking flitted gently through his mind.

The sound of the wind, as if mocking whether he couldn’t endure even that much, circled his ear lobes before departing.

The briefly lingering sound of wind was the woman’s quiet laughter.

Clard recalled the sunlight mixed within it.

Was it not laughter?

Yes, eyes.

The sunlight was the black eyes with which the woman sometimes stared up at him.

No, no.

The woman is darkness.

A night that becomes pitch black with each moment he tries to remember, confusing whether it’s truth or lie.

And eventually, a comfortable color of rest that makes one feel it doesn’t matter whether it’s truth or lie.

The tingling pain surged at his feet, then skillfully crept up his shins and thighs, passed over his firm lower abdomen, pounded his chest, and strangled his neck.

As if to assert its presence, always with him even if its force had diminished.

The pain caressed his cheeks and ears and whispered.

You could be free of pain, couldn’t you?

You want to get rid of me so badly, don’t you?

His deeply sunken eyes slowly began to become bloodshot.

Just before complete darkness fell.

At last, the woman stepped weakly out of the carriage.

The pain whispered.

She’s waiting, isn’t she?

His legs moved on their own.

The pain and anxiety that had stayed by his side for the past 10 years enveloped him thickly like fog and urged him on.

At the same time, they clung to his head and kept talking to him.

But is it pain you’re waiting for, or rest?

…Or is it that woman?

[This is the timeline separator]

Hille Hatarun tore at his raised hair as he spun round and round in the dark room.

Though enough time had passed for all warmth to disappear from the long-extinguished fireplace, he couldn’t calm his trembling heart.

He felt a chill even though it wasn’t winter.

He barely managed to unfold the damp note with his hand soaked in cold sweat.

His hand holding the small note was shaking violently.

An order had come from First Prince Boloniko.

[Kill the monster and watch the night.]

The monster was Clard, and the night was Yuan.

[Final order. The choice is free, but the responsibility?]

Hille understood exactly what the meaning of that last sentence was.

Kill orders were familiar, but it was the first time it had been specified as ‘final’.

Now his expiration date had really come.

If he chose not to kill the deposed prince, he would have to take responsibility with his death.

Hille drank one glass, then two glasses of the liquor the maids had prepared on the side table, but finally unable to overcome his anxiety, he rushed out of the annex where his room was and entered the main building.

The Black Mansion, which had fallen into darkness, was quiet according to strict rules even though its master’s face had regained its color.

In a place where not even a mouse scurried by, Hille ran up the central staircase like lightning, paced in front of Yuan’s room on the second floor, and then quickly knocked on the door with trembling hands.

There was no sign of life in the room.

Hille’s face turned pale.

Someone might be hiding in this mansion, watching this scene.

Please. Please-.

Hille knocked on the door several more times with a desperate prayer in his heart.

“What is it at this hour?”

An unfamiliarly cold voice poured onto the back of his head, not from inside the room.

When he quickly turned around, he saw a pale, slender face.

Hille was still not used to Yuan, who had become somewhat cold since his confession.

He swallowed a bitter smile and quickly moved away from in front of Yuan’s door. Though he tried to hide his trembling hands, Yuan seemed completely uninterested in his state.

As Yuan treated him like an invisible person and entered the bedroom, he quickly surveyed the surroundings and swiftly slipped into her bedroom. And before Yuan could even carelessly hang her coat on a chair, he blurted out.

“An order has come from the First Prince.”

Yuan’s gaze, which had paused, fell on him.

No sooner had Hille hurriedly pulled out the order from his bosom than Yuan strode over and snatched it. He didn’t even have time to add any words.

After reading it with a terrifying intensity, Yuan’s expression turned deathly pale and stiffened, then gradually crumbled.

Hille quickly organized a few options he had thought of in his mind and opened his mouth to try to comfort Yuan.

There wasn’t an immediate good solution, but if they put their heads together, there might be a better way.

“Um…”

“Leave.”

Yuan, with eyes full of distrust, coldly ordered Hille.