Who Did You Say My Father Is? - Chapter 14
“A, an accident happened!”
It was a sudden outburst. Before my mind could catch up, my mouth had already started improvising to avert the crisis. Well, whatever. I’ll just blurt out anything.
“An accident? What kind of accident?”
“Well, um. A carriage accident. I fell from the carriage and…”
“…….”
Carl’s eyes narrowed. It seemed like he was waiting to hear what else I would come up with.
“I hit my head. My memory…”
“You lost your memory? From a head injury?”
“Yes, exactly that.”
The classic drama plot of an accident leading to memory loss. That I thought of it at this moment was probably the limit of my quick thinking.
“So, I lost my previous memories. After the accident and its aftereffects, I came here for a quiet recovery. But then someone suddenly left a child at my doorstep, claiming it was my child… I had no idea what was going on, so the best I could do was call a detective. That’s how it all happened.”
“Ha. You expect me to believe that now.”
“You don’t have to believe it. But that’s the truth.”
What can you do if you don’t believe it? I don’t know, and you can’t ask a baby who can’t even talk if I’m their mother or who their father is.
I glanced at Hannah sitting next to me. She sent me a look that said, ‘Well done, my lord!’
Carl’s eyes moved from his seat to look at the child in my arms. Valery, now comfortably nestled in my embrace, seemed sleepy again and was quietly making cooing sounds, a sign that he was getting sleepy.
Yes, sleep, sleep. Sleeping is helping right now.
I handed Valery back to Hannah and asked her to put him back to bed in the room.
As Hannah started to soothe and lull the child, Carl stood up and spoke.
“We need to verify this.”
Lifting my head to follow Carl’s movement, I noticed the knights’ eyes were fixed on my face.
“What? Why are you… looking at me?”
Then their gazes shifted from the potion on the table to my face again.
I finally grasped the situation. Ah, so they want to use the potion to directly verify whether Valery is truly Celeste’s daughter?
“We need to check if the Countess is lying.”
At Carl’s words, I watched as the knights swiftly grabbed the detective’s arm, laying it on the table, and pointed a knife at him.
Why? If they’re testing Valery and my blood relationship, why…
I couldn’t understand their actions and just blinked in confusion until it hit me.
Carl was suspecting something between me and the detective.
The potion test required blood from the test subjects. They were moving forcefully to extract the blood needed for the test.
A short groan escaped the detective’s lips as his wrist was held immobile by the knight’s grip. Blood welled up in bright red droplets from the back of his hand.
Was it really necessary to use a knife?
The detective’s previous action of pulling out a needle to draw a drop of my blood seemed quite gentle in comparison. The detective, now unnecessarily injured, winced in pain.
A drop of dark red liquid fell onto the clear potion, drawing the knights’ eyes again. There were three potion bottles on the table, all taken from the detective.
Why was the detective carrying so many potions for paternity tests? The more I knew about him, the stranger he seemed.
“Hand over the child.”
“No, wait a minute…”
As soon as the command was issued, the knights surrounding us moved towards Hannah. They took the child from her and pressed down on her arms and shoulders, immobilizing her.
“The child was passed to the tallest knight sitting as Carl’s aide. Unlike the other knights, he had a red medal on his chest, presumably indicating his position as a deputy commander of the knights’ order.
Anyway, the large knight with a sharp gaze that could freeze someone with just a look held the child skillfully. That was somewhat unexpected.
“Abubu.”
Despite likely being in a stranger’s arms, the child seemed fascinated by the epaulettes on the uniform, playing with them contentedly.
“……Anyone who holds you is just fine, huh?”
Just as a strange sense of betrayal was creeping up on me, the knight, speaking emotionlessly as if reading from a textbook, snapped me back to reality.
“We need to put a drop of the child’s blood in as well.”
To prick a baby with a needle? The pain and discomfort from a needle prick is hard enough for an adult, let alone a tiny baby.
Carl nodded at the knight’s words, giving permission.
Are all these men sociopaths? It’s chilling to see them so unfazed about taking a drop of blood from such a small child.
But we were powerless to stop it. We were only two against more than ten, and all of them were knights, significantly outmatching us in strength. When they resorted to force, there was nothing we could do.
But I couldn’t just stand by.
“How are you going to prick such tiny hands with a needle?”
“That’s right. Don’t dare touch Miss Valery’s body carelessly!”
I burst out in protest, and Hannah joined in. However, the knight merely glanced at Hannah and continued his task.
I looked at Carl, hoping he would intervene, but he was unmoved, arms crossed and looking down at me disdainfully.
The child, unaware of the impending pain, remained blissfully ignorant.
A man wiped the tip of the needle with a handkerchief and took the child’s hand, which was being held by the knight. The child, annoyed at being disturbed, began to whimper and twist.
“Uwaaah, uwaaah!”
A needle grazed the tiny fingertip, and a cry erupted. The cheerful laughter vanished in an instant, and tears streamed down the reddened face.
The blood drop was so small from such little hands. Not getting enough blood, the knight pressed hard on the child’s finger, forcing out more drops.
The child’s cries of pain pierced my heart.
I’ll remember your face. Just wait. Feeling a helpless sense of vengeance, I glared at the knight who had made Valery cry.
“……Such sociopaths.”
“Bring the child back here.”
Having completed their task, the knight handed the child back to me. Valery was not easily soothed after the sharp sting of pain.
“There, there. It’s okay, it’s okay.”
Is it really nothing for these men to hear a child cry so pitifully?
I tried to comfort and soothe Valery, but the child continued to cry loudly. It was infuriating to see them upset the child for no good reason.
“Is it just a matter of waiting now?”
“We’ve added blood from both individuals, so now we just need to mix the potion and let it sit for a few minutes.”
The knight shook the bottle a few times, then carefully placed it on the table.
“If the potion turns red when the blood mixes, it means there is no blood relation.”
“And if there is a relation?”
“It will become clear.”
“So, red means no relation, clear means there is a relation.”
“That’s correct.”
The man pulled out a pocket watch and placed it next to the bottle.
Tick, tock. The sound of the second hand seemed to heighten the tension.
I was the only one here not curious about the result. My feelings were complicated.
No matter how twisted the original story was, it was impossible that Celeste had any romantic involvement with a country village detective whose name and face I didn’t even know. In the novel, she was a severe looksist, after all.
So, the most likely candidate here was Duke Albrecht. Unnecessarily, excessively handsome male protagonist.
Tick, tock.
Everyone was holding their breath, watching for any changes in the potion. As the room fell into a tense silence, I suddenly remembered the magic stones I had forgotten about.
The closest of the four magic stones hidden on the first floor… was right under the pillar behind where the knights were standing.
As I was weighing whether this was the right moment to use the magic stone to escape, the potion mixed with the blood of the detective and Valery turned red.
“The color of the potion has changed.”
Of course. How could anyone suspect a relationship between the detective and Celeste? But what was the activation spell for the magic stone again?
Male lead is a Love-Obsessed Merman
When he discovers she has gone, he risks everything to pursue her on land, enduring agonizing pain to transform his tail into human legs…
One-line summary: Male lead chases female lead. The male lead’s love is a bit sick, an invincible love brain.
Synopsis
During a voyage at sea, Jiang Yang accidentally captures a merman.
Servant: I heard that mermen are fierce and brutal.
Jiang Yang looks at the merman obediently rubbing her palm like a puppy: “You call this fierce and brutal?”
Servant: I heard that mermen have no human nature.
Jiang Yang looks at the merman with wet puppy eyes, obsessively calling her ‘A Yang’ like a childish infant: “You call this having no human nature?”
With great difficulty, she releases the merman back into the sea and returns to shore.
Who would have thought that in less than half a month, the merman, who should have been freely wandering in the South China Sea, would shed his scales, endure the pain of losing his tail, transform into human legs, and come ashore to find her?
He kneels at her feet, rubbing her palm, with merman tears rolling down: “A Yang, don’t abandon me.”
_____
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😅 She really is poor at heart. I can feel it 😂.
Yes, yes, good travel and expensive stuff is always good 🙂↕️
😅 She really is a poor person at heart, I can just feel it🥲
Oh! This is exciting! Finally some life and death scenes!