The Tomb of the Saint (3)

Chapter Summary: Yang Luo is truly pitiful. She's now just a tool between the Emperor and Caesar.

From the perspective of "the emperor has gone mad," Caligula's idea of ​​usurping the throne is correct. Unfortunately, Caligula, like Caesar, still loves this mad emperor, and loves a part of the past that still remains in the gradually degenerating emperor.

Caligula is in jail!

The nobles and ministers who learned of this news were mostly shocked. They didn't particularly like this intelligence agent. Caligula had handed over to the Emperor everything he had interrogated me, including our affair, without alteration. He claimed that he had always acted in the Empire's best interests, striving to eliminate the 14th Fleet and the Rose Cult members, and that his deceptions and attempts to seduce me were all a facade to gain my trust. The people believed Caligula's loyalty; the Director of Intelligence had devoted himself to the Empire's interests, even unto death. They simply couldn't understand why His Majesty the Emperor was still so angry. Had the scales of imperial power lost their impartiality? They worried about their own future, and the future of the Galactic Empire, which had been established less than two years prior.

Caligula seemed to be pleading for me in court, but unfortunately, this only further enraged the emperor.

A dispute erupted in the court. I don't know what Caligula said to the emperor. That evening, Gratian came to me; I had just gotten out of bed. Octavian gave me a cane and told me to try walking, saying I could be discharged. In my former residence, I opened the suitcase I had salvaged from the hospital room and carefully placed my belongings back in their original places. Gratian suddenly burst in and slapped over the odds and ends I had placed on the coffee table and bookshelves.

I turned to look at him. He grabbed my wrist and yanked my body downwards violently. My knee slammed against the corner of the desk, and it hurt terribly. He pressed me against the desk, my body leaning forward, my chest rubbing against the surface. He tightened his grip, and I felt like the air was being squeezed out of my chest; I couldn't breathe. I screamed in pain. The desk creaked and groaned, and the table in front of me shook.

How many times did you have sex with him?

I was trembling violently. "How many times did he take you?"

"I...I can't remember..."

"You don't remember?" The emperor's voice was filled with shock.

"You can accept Caligula, whom you also raised, but you won't accept me! Why..."

"Caesar, Caesar, call my name."

I bit my lip hard. "Gradien, Gradien...stop."

He really stopped. After I called his name, he almost turned me inside out. I trembled, unable to stand upright, only able to lean forward. Then he left. I slid off the table, and he came over with a riding crop. I tried to back away, but he grabbed me, pressed me against the table, this time face up. The riding crop cracked against my body, each strike a burning sensation. He grabbed my chin, opened my mouth, and forced a large mouthful of sweet, greasy liquid into my throat. I vomited violently, but I couldn't get rid of what he had just forced down my throat.

"This is a little trinket that Caligula once ordered in my bedchamber. I only found out about it today in court. Did he use it on you too? Caesar, look at yourself now, you're really shameless."

I felt alternating chills and fever. I tried to relieve the discomfort, but it was agonizing. I rubbed myself until my skin was red and swollen, but the sensation inside kept rising; I felt like I was going to explode.

Gratian walked towards me with a smile. I had never seen him so terrifying. He pounded the whip hard, and liquid dripped onto the tiled floor, initially a glistening white, then tinged with pink, and finally blood oozed out. He spun the whip forcefully. Ouch! My face was completely wet. My vision blurred; the brightly lit ceiling seemed about to collapse, but it didn't; it remained suspended in the air. The curtains were drawn, and the emperor was humiliating me in the room. His guards stood ramrod straight, their backs to the house, rows of them watching outwards.

"I have something else to tell you. Your 14th Fleet, those republicans who deserve to go to hell, I have captured them. Thanks to the USB drive you gave me last time with the list of Rose Cult members, I have finally wiped out the rebellious forces within the Alliance territory."

"What rebellious forces? You bastard! What crimes have they committed? Saving people from a tyrant?"

"Tyrant? You dare call me a tyrant?"

"Aren't you one of them?"

"Caesar, tell me, have I ever wronged you in any way? Why did you betray me? Why did you sleep with Caligula? Why did you desperately try to escape from me? I need you! I love you so, so much... Did you even consider my feelings a little bit when you did all these things?"

"Have you even considered me, Gratian!"

"Considering you? Considering what? Considering that as soon as you return to the Alliance and your identity is discovered, you will be immediately murdered by politicians from your former allies? They don't want you to live. You can only live well by my side. Why don't you understand?"

"You're the one who made me end up in this half-dead state!"

The whip was gone. I curled up by the table, my teeth chattering. My arms were wrapped around my chest, my front still shamefully feeling. Liquid mixed with blood seeped from my lower body. "I've always been protecting you. You have nowhere else to go but here with me. Why do you always disregard your own survival? Do you think it doesn't matter if you die? Caesar, if you die, I..."

“I don’t need you to worry about whether I can live or how I will live,” the drugs churned in my blood, my body sweating profusely like a boiled shrimp. “My life is my own. I am a free man. I have the right to choose the life I want to live, I have my own beliefs and my own future. I don’t need you to choose for me. I am an Allied, I will die as an Allied. For Allied, it is better to die than live without liberty. What do you Imperials know?”

"The Alliance," the Emperor laughed angrily, "the Earth Republic Alliance. Didn't I grow up in that country? Insects roamed, mobs ruled, a nation that chose to freely degenerate in its own free spirit. Freedom is indeed a good thing, but do you think everyone deserves it? What the people want is not freedom, but selfishness, pleasure, and exemption from responsibility. They want the greatest freedom while making others bear the greatest responsibility. What right do such people have to have freedom? Because of their weakness and pitifulness? What has the Alliance of Freedom given you? Was it a group of jealous people voting to kill your brother?"

"The spirit of the Alliance is not wrong. The problem lies with a small group of politicians. You are the victor, so of course you can say that the Alliance is no good here or there, that you cannot tolerate anything that is different from your ideals, and that anything that is different must be destroyed. Besides, Gratian, have you forgotten that you, the master of the entire galaxy and the emperor of the Empire, are yourself nothing more than a creation of Alliance technology?"

Gratian's face instantly turned ugly.

"Do you think you're so noble? You look down on the alliance, you desperately want to destroy the freedom, you think you can find nourishment to build your empire from the opposite of the alliance's spirit. Your foundation is rooted in the alliance. How far do you think you can go..."

“I will make you regret it,” Gratian said softly. “You will regret saying such things to me.”

I laughed out loud. "What's wrong? Has something agitated you, Your Majesty?"

He threw the bloodstained riding whip on the ground. The door opened and closed, and he tossed me into his bedchamber, the sweet incense filling every cell of my body.

For the next three days, I was enveloped in a terrible heat and torrential downpour of sweat. Gratian lit that purple, creamy incense and watched indifferently as I struggled on the sheets. He came every day, bringing food and water, and wiping my body clean with a towel; my body was always soaking wet. He never touched me once. "Just beg me, beg me to take you, Caesar."

I responded with a cold laugh. He wasn't annoyed; he turned and plucked a large, oily grease from the candlestick. Drops of oil fell onto my sweat-soaked skin. I braced myself to avoid it, but stumbled and fell after just one step. He smeared the grease all over me. A burning, numbing sensation shot straight to my head, and my voice trembled with tears.

"And now? Do you want me?"

I gritted my teeth. "Get out..."

He paused. His smile was almost sinister. "Very good."

The palace door opened and remained open for a long time, letting in a gust of cold wind from the corridor. I felt the tiny pores on my skin contract, and I frantically waved my handcuffed hands, trying to put something on. I heard a woman crying, her breath coming in short gasps. A pair of pretty little leather shoes suddenly appeared in front of me, and the woman's entire body was pressed to the ground. Gratian's hands tightened around her waist, and the woman twisted. I turned my face away, not wanting to look anymore. But he grabbed my chin, forcing me to turn my head. The woman was positioned in a strange way, her cheeks streaked with tears. At first, she screamed and wailed, but then, with the man's movements, a look of ecstasy and dazed pleasure gradually appeared on her face. That woman was Yang Luo. Her cheeks were burning, and her clothes were soaked with sweat.

I couldn't take it anymore. My hands were cuffed, and I almost whimpered in pain, finding no relief. "Gradian! Stop..." I screamed. I thought to myself that it was Gradian touching me; I had never hated myself so much.

My shouts jolted the emperor awake. Yang Luo was nearly fainting. But the emperor didn't look at me; he tilted his head back, his Adam's apple glistening with a thin layer of sweat. He kept his eyes closed the entire time.

I remembered something that happened a long time ago.

"Are you serious? You really like me?" It would be a lie to say he wasn't curious, having just boarded the Emperor's flagship, Odysseus. "When did it start?"

"Let me make this clear beforehand, my devotion to you will always be unwavering. Although..."

"It started when I was very young. But, Caesar, I admire you more. Like a child respecting an ancient sage's icon, respecting an elder, a mother."

“I don’t want to be some kind of statue of a sage,” I said. “My love for you is probably not the same as what you would have hoped for.”

The Emperor smiled. “In any case, General Ganymede, why don’t we give it a try? The Empire welcomes you, and you can stay in the Empire as you wish. What the Alliance cannot give, I can give you; what the Alliance gives you, I will give double.”

The emperor left Yang Luo. She lay there, her hand on her forehead. Her clothes were scattered on the ground, along with the torn sash of her skirt. She touched her lower abdomen blankly. Gratian walked towards me.

I collapsed to the ground like a dead fish. Gratian touched me. "Do you need me to hold you?"

I didn't resist. After he took me once, my body still wouldn't fully return to normal. He kissed my cheek, and I shifted uncomfortably, avoiding him. He looked at me, stroking my sweaty cheeks. "This won't do. The drug's effects haven't worn off, and your body can't take it."

He pressed the bell in the palace, and after a moment, Octavian opened the door a crack. "Your Majesty?"

Gratian took a box of medicine from the doctor, opened the capsules, and dissolved the white powder inside in water. He brought the cup to me and fed it to me with a small spoon. I turned my face away, bit the spoon, and spat out the medicine. This action enraged him again. He first forced down a large gulp of medicine, then grabbed my neck, pressing hard on my jawbone, forcing my mouth open. He kissed my lips, filling my mouth with a large mouthful of bitter medicine. His grip didn't loosen at all, two mouthfuls, three mouthfuls. Until I pushed him away, coughed violently, and then gagged. "Cesare, is the medicine I'm feeding you really that disgusting?" the emperor asked, gripping the glass.

"Let me die..."

The emperor was stunned.

"Let me die! Please, Your Majesty, Gratian, let me die! I'm in so much pain, so much pain..."

The emperor remained silent for a long time. Then he smashed the glass. I banged my head against the ground, the bedpost, and the wall, my wrists bleeding. Gratian grabbed me and slapped me hard across the face. My face swelled up instantly. "Remember the men of the 14th Fleet? Those allied soldiers are still in my hands. Your friends..."

I kicked over a candlestick in the emperor's bedchamber, spilling oil everywhere. Flames spread, and I lunged towards the raging inferno. He grabbed my head, lifted it up, and looking at him, tears streamed down my face. Half my cheek was burning, perhaps from burns. He roared at me, "You dare to die! You dare to die, and I'll slaughter them all—!"

I saw Phaethon standing in the deep, dark lake. His golden hair shone like sunlight, his eyes were light blue, and he was barefoot, his two slender, strong legs sticking out of his trousers. His hands hung limply, but when he saw me approaching, the boy's eyes suddenly lit up. He raised his arms and waved them, mimicking a bird flapping its wings. Countless messy feathers fluttered and circled around his small body, creating a magnificent white storm.

He shouted excitedly, "Brother, brother, look, I can fly! I can fly!" His small golden shadow was at the end of the deep, black lake, like a swamp.

I ran towards him, and as I reached him, the blond, blue-eyed boy suddenly vanished. A golden feather fell from the sky, landing in my hand. I unfolded it, and the feather transformed into a golden strand of hair, coiled around a peach wood comb. The black swamp transformed into amniotic fluid within the artificial womb in the laboratory—warm, moist, floating with turbid organic matter and a pale yellow, clear liquid. Proteins, carbohydrates, fats, and DNA floated in the amniotic fluid, shimmering like stars in the sky, like sand in the sea. The water surged and roared, heading towards the Milky Way.

I felt myself float up, my body slowly rising. Billions of stars slipped through my fingers as I walked in the vast emptiness of the universe. The current grew ever stronger, filling the sky with countless stars. The starlight converged, revealing a young man with icy eyes. He smiled at me, and I hugged him tightly, crying out, "Phaethon, Phaethon, is that you? I missed you, I missed you so much..."

“Caesar, I loved you with my life. Why, why did you do this to me?” The young man’s eyes became two dark, bloody holes, from which blood continuously flowed. The light went out. Cold, sticky water soaked my legs, waist, chest, neck, chin, mouth, and nostrils. I felt it getting harder and harder to breathe. Finally, the water went over my head.

——tbc——