“May I speak with your daughter for a moment?”

“What for?”

Piotr was at a loss for words for a moment.

“It’s not allowed.”

Aster firmly refused again.

“I’m suffocating. Uncle.”

Charlotte pulled down the tightly wrapped blanket. As she raised her head with a pale face, Aster frowned with an awkward expression.

“I’m fine.”

“What’s fine? Absolutely not. I’ll never see her talking with that guy until dirt gets in my eyes!”

“I’m suffocating.”

“Even if you suffocate, he’s not allowed.”

The servants anxiously observed the situation.

“I’ll call Master Cesar.”

Since the head of the house was away, it would be best to call Master Cesar first.

Some servants were about to leave to find Cesar.

“Aster. Overprotection is not good.”

Cesar found them first.

“If you wrap Charlotte like a threeyearold, won’t she be embarrassed?”

He covered Charlotte with his broad back, and a restrained sense of weight flowed from him.

“What business do you have with our child?”

“… Our child?”

“Is there a problem with my address? We may have left the child alone for a moment, but in front of a child who clearly has a guardian.”

Cesar licked his lips lazily.

“Still acting as if you’re her guardian, we’re starting to feel very uncomfortable.”

Leave and stop hanging around. He dismissed the visitor with a few words.

“Charlotte!”

Piotr shook his head vigorously and asked the girl.

“Is it true that you shot the crossbow at that person?”

“Are you talking about it?”

“You… Are you the child I knew?”

Piotr looked perplexed.

Even though you’ve changed lately.

Human nature doesn’t just change.

“Why?”

“Why isn’t what you should be asking.”

Piotr suddenly stopped speaking. A silence that seemed like breath had stopped went back and forth.

Their eyes were the same.

Nothing had changed; only their feelings towards each other had.

The daughter’s eyes, once yearning for love, were now empty, and something gradually went askew.

Piotr suddenly realized something.

“Is it really you who dug that grave?”

Distrust turned into conviction.

Piotr shivered as a chilling cold swept down his spine.

“You personally did it to your mother…”

Piotr looked into her empty eyes and knew for sure.

“It was true.”

Aster hid Charlotte behind her back and looked at him with a disgusted expression as if looking at a bug.

“Have you babbled enough?”

“This child is my child! Not a child from that house but my child! Even though I had to give her away for my own reasons, I am the father who gave birth to her. I have been protecting her for nearly twenty years…!”

Piotr stopped talking and stepped back.

Something slowly sank down. The earth beneath his feet seemed to be sticking together.

Piotr suddenly looked down at his feet. The ground seemed to be caving in.

Why do you look at me like a bug?

Why do you look at a person like a bug?

The crow cawed loudly.

Aster narrowed his eyes and muttered.

“It’s not even a hunting ground, and the beasts are still barking. Do I have to muzzle the beasts here?”

Piotr felt his soul leave his body at that moment. Something that had risen to the tip of his chin in anger suddenly went out.

“What are you talking about…?”

“The beasts’ howls are disturbing because it’s a hunting ground. The crows must have been attracted by the smell of the dead beasts.”

Cesar looked around the chaotic hunting ground and leaned back.

“How about we split up here today?”

Piotr gritted his teeth and answered.

“I will withdraw first today. I will come back when the time is right. You are my child, and I will come to take you back.”

Piotr said that and left. Cesar turned his head and glanced down at Charlotte.

“Are you okay?”

Aster gently stroked her hair and whispered.

“I find you mother and daughter hard to understand.”

Charlotte gave a faint smile.

“I’m tired today too.”

She was smiling on the outside, but inside, she slowly began to creak.

‘My father dug my mother’s grave.’
Everyone seemed to be going mad. Me too. Father too.

No one understands.

Late at night.

A daughter digging up her biological mother’s grave. What could it mean?

Death was too vivid.

With these hands, I touched death and fumbled it. While burying my mother again, I embraced that death entirely.

The daughter starved of affection died.

Charlotte’s eyes were red.

I’m sorry, Mother. I’ll bury my resentment and frustration for now. Just for a moment. Please wait just a little while.

I’ll surely bring them to your grave.

I gave my flesh.

So I will whittle your bones.

(This is a time marker.)

“It’s like watching another child.”

Pyotr muttered in pain.

“Even if I abandoned her, I’m still her biological father.”

A child who never showed presence. Such a child raises her voice to speak.

I’m here. Look at me.

Even though I knew she matured by nursing her biological mother during illness.

“Is it sane to think of digging up my mother’s grave to take out the urn?”

It’s just like,

The dead crawling out of the underworld, chilling to the bone.

(This is a time marker.)