Chapter 37 The Invitation from the Terrifying Castle: Heinrich is Drugged...

"Heinrich!" Lilith called out Heinrich's name and drew him to her side.

“I’m here.” Heinrich pulled up the hood of his cloak and ran toward her. Before he could get into the carriage, the rain quickly soaked his clothes, so he simply stood outside the carriage.

“It’s raining again,” Lilith said, her brow furrowed. “Have you found anything useful?”

"Not yet. But I noticed there are a few truckloads of goods they haven't taken. I don't know if it's because they're short-handed, or if those wolves in sheep's clothing aren't interested in the value of the goods and are planning to give up..."

“That means they could come back at any time to pick up the goods. Staying here isn’t safe.” Lilith suppressed the pain in her abdomen, trying to remain calm and think about what to do next. “How long would it take to walk to the nearest town from here at the fastest?”

"It will take at least half a day to walk... We deliberately avoided towns to avoid the fleeing rebels. But there might be some unknown villages nearby where we might find people who can help us."

Lilith fell silent. She lowered her head and rubbed her stomach again; the blood continued to flow, and waves of excruciating pain assaulted her nerves. She wasn't sure she could make it out into the rain with Heinrich; given her current physical condition, even staying in the carriage to avoid the rain made her feel like she might faint from the pain at any moment.

If she delayed her departure until daytime, she couldn't predict how much strength she would regain from the combined torment of hunger and cold. Moreover, if she encountered rebels or bandits without aid, they would have no chance of survival. In this situation, she had no choice but to gamble, placing all her bets on Heinrich, hoping he could leave the forest alive and find help to rescue her.

“Heinrich,” Lilith stretched her right hand out the window, grasping Heinrich’s hand tightly, and placed five brand-new Ducat gold coins in his palm. Her voice was weak and soft, yet her tone remained firm, issuing orders to Heinrich with the air of a mistress: “Now take the map and compass, and go alone to find the nearest inhabited place. If you find a village, buy a donkey or mule from them, and ride it to take me away. If you find a town, find a coachman, give him a few grosso, and have him drive here to pick me up. If you find a lord, reveal my identity to him and have them send men to rescue me…”

"...Are you going to stay here alone?" Heinrich asked hesitantly, surprised by Lilith's decision.

“If I encounter any danger, I’ll use this for self-defense.” Lilith shook the dagger Cecilia had left her, forcing a weak, bitter smile. “Go quickly and come back soon. I’ll wait for you here.”

"...Yes, sir."

"Don't go and never come back like the servant in the Decameron, or I won't forgive you. I'll be waiting for you to return."

"I will definitely come back. Please take good care of yourself."

After speaking, Heinrich gently took her hand and solemnly kissed the back of it. Then he opened the map, examined it, and, holding a compass and a lamp, headed deeper into the forest. Lilith watched through the window as the lights in the rain grew smaller and smaller, more and more blurred, until they disappeared completely. She lay weakly on the blood-stained seat of the carriage and fell into a deep sleep.

Heinrich continued onward in the pouring rain. Rainwater repeatedly streamed down his cloak and dripped into his eyes, forcing him to pick up a twig and wave it around like a blind man to guide his way. The rain soaked through his clothes, making his steps incredibly heavy, each step sinking into the wet, muddy puddles.

The last time he was soaking wet and penniless, searching for a way forward in the unknown, seemed like a vivid memory. He couldn't tell whether he would be sold as a slave to a nobleman with a perverse sense of humor, or just keep walking until he died of exhaustion in a remote mountain forest.

But he cannot die now, nor can Lilith. He still has an unfinished mission. He must avenge Lilith, and even more so, his father's killer, his uncle Helmut. If Lilith were to die, everything he has painstakingly built would be destroyed, and all his plans would be disrupted. Heinrich now needs to rely on Lilith's influence to remain in Venice, using her influence to further develop his own power until he reclaims everything that is rightfully his.

He had initially thought that as long as he obeyed Lilith completely, using skillful feigned affection to gain her and everyone around her's trust, and lower her guard, everything would be fine. But he almost forgot that Lilith was always in the eye of the storm. Whether within the Knarro family or among her rivals in Venice, too many people either hated her to the core, avoided her like the plague, or were eager to replace her. Not to mention the indiscriminate attacks on traveling merchants by the wild, ruthless bandits in the wilderness. But he had to find a way to keep Lilith alive; he had to take her back.

He recalled the moments he had shared with Lilith over the past few days: he had served her tirelessly, thoughtfully preparing her favorite snacks, handling all the shipping and customs documents for her, and even borrowing a gentle thoroughbred horse to patiently train her. And what had Lilith done to him? She had ridden him like a horse, taken his bed in the middle of the night forcing him to sleep on the floor, and the next day forced him to read her stories on a bumpy journey, while mocking his accented Italian.

Yes, Lilith is such a selfish, arrogant, and rude person. She promises to set him free later, but in reality, she wants to squeeze every last drop of his labor dry. That alone is enough to make him utterly disgusted with her, not to mention the blood feud she committed with his father's killer, which led to his current predicament… So Lilith absolutely cannot die. It would be too easy for her to die like this; she must pay the price for her sins…

Heinrich suddenly recalled the story he had read to Lilith before setting sail: the kind young man who was robbed but rescued by a kind widow and returned home safely. Both were widows, so how could Lilith be so completely unrelated to the beautiful and kind woman in the story? She was so beautiful, so intelligent, so courageous, so strong, yet so fragile, so pitiful… No, Heinrich, how could you feel sorry for someone who had almost killed you time and time again? If it weren't for helping Lilith open a branch, why would he have to run around so much, risking his life, and now be forced to brave the rain and walk alone through the forest, so exhausted he was almost collapsing on the spot?

Heinrich grew increasingly sorrowful, his clothes feeling as heavy as lead, making it hard to breathe. The kerosene lamp he carried finally burned out, but the boy, now without light, still hadn't escaped the forest. He could only continue groping his way forward in the dark. He didn't know how long he walked, but finally, guided by the dim moonlight, he reached an open plain. He saw a grim and terrifying Gothic castle towering atop a distant mountain peak, its towering towers glowing with an eerie phosphorescence, like the lair of an evil witch from a fairy tale.

Heinrich suddenly recalled Dante's parting words about werewolves and witches. They had just witnessed firsthand that the so-called werewolves were actually bandits in animal skins. Although seeing was believing and debunked the supernatural rumors, those bandits were no less dangerous than the legendary werewolves who devoured people without spitting out bones. If that was the case, did this castle, which seemed to belong to a witch, also harbor some unspeakable danger?

Despite his lingering doubts, Heinrich was simply too tired and exhausted. In this state of utter despair, he had no choice but to drag his overburdened body and forcefully knock on the castle gates.

After a while, a middle-aged woman, around forty or fifty years old, opened the door for him. She was dressed in a pure black high-class maid's uniform, holding a candlestick in her hand. She had platinum blonde hair that was even lighter than Heinrich's, deep-set eyes, a high nose, and an unusually fierce face. She did not seem to have the typical Italian features, but rather resembled a German.

Who goes there?

“I am… Heinrich… This is the crest of the Knarro family of Venice.” Heinrich raised his left hand, showing the other person the silver ring engraved with the family crest that Lilith had given him.

"The Knarro family? Never heard of them. Do they have any titles?" The other person's tone was skeptical.

"Are you German?" Heinrich noticed the German accent in the other person's Italian speech and asked directly in German.

The maid paused, then replied in German, "Yes, my mistress and I are both German."

“Then go and tell your mistress that I am Heinrich Schmidl von Frankfurt Omein, heir to the rank of Viscount Schmidl. I have been robbed by bandits and am lost in the forest. I ask for her help.”

The maid nodded and led him inside, gesturing for Heinrich to wait in the porch for a while. Heinrich looked up and, by the candlelight, saw that the stone walls inside the castle were mottled and covered with moss and rotting mold, not like someone had lived there for a long time.

After a while, the maid returned with a candlestick and told Heinrich, "I will take you to see her."

Damp Heinrich walked through a long, dark corridor, ascending the seemingly endless spiral staircase. Led by a maid, he entered a warm room filled with various bottles and jars, exuding a strange fragrance. In the center of the room stood a huge cauldron, its length equal to his own, bubbling with some kind of medicinal soup. A white-haired woman in a gorgeous black dress stood on a triangular staircase about waist-high, stirring the contents of the cauldron. She was rather short, seemingly half a head shorter than Lilith, and from a distance, she resembled a porcelain doll.

"Honorable guest! I am so sorry for not welcoming you properly. Hilde, please bring him in. Let me take a closer look at him. Oh! You are soaking wet. Please have a bowl of hot soup to warm yourself up!"

The woman's voice was high-pitched and thin, yet carried a faint hoarseness, making it impossible to discern her age. Her face, beneath her white hair, was covered in a ghastly white lead powder, and her lips and eyes were as red as if painted with blood, resembling a terrifying and chilling paper mask.

She scooped a spoonful of the green herbal soup from the pot into a bowl, then hurriedly climbed down the steps and rushed to Heinrich. She affectionately tiptoed and reached out to stroke the wet, stray hairs on Heinrich's forehead, gazing into his pale blue eyes—suddenly, as if startled, she screamed and knocked over the porcelain bowl of green soup, shattering it on the floor.

"Ah! Tristan, it's Tristan!" the woman screamed hysterically as if possessed, completely ignoring the scalding medicine that spilled on her hands. Overwhelmed with emotion, she opened her arms and tightly embraced the bewildered Heinrich, continuing to mutter incoherently, repeating a name Heinrich had never heard before:

"Tristan, Tristan, you're finally back! I am Isolde, I am your Isolde, I've missed you so much, I've been waiting for you here!"

“I am not Tristan, my name is Heinrich.” Heinrich interrupted the other person’s ramblings directly, “You have mistaken me for someone else.”

“No! No! No! You are my Tristan, you look so much like him, so handsome, so lovely… If you drink this… you will become my Tristan…” The white-haired woman, who called herself Isolde, staggered backward until she reached a cupboard piled high with bottles and jars of various colors. She frantically rummaged through the cupboard and pulled out a glass bottle containing a blood-red liquid, pulled out the cork, and approached Heinrich with a grotesque laugh.

"What are you going to do to me?!" Heinrich realized that he had fallen into the witch's trap. Just as he was about to turn and run away, he found that the maid who had led him into the castle had circled behind him and suddenly pulled out her arm, choking him to the ground.

“Don’t be afraid, Tristan, I will never hurt you. I just want you back with me.” Isolde soothed him with a high-pitched, shrill voice, then quickly splashed the blood-red potion on his face. The potion flowed uncontrollably into Heinrich’s mouth, and his consciousness gradually dissipated until he completely passed out.

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Author's Note: A new character has appeared! There won't be any female rivalry, so please don't worry [heart emoji].

I've received 200! I'm so touched... I also want to especially thank Teacher Momo for giving me so much "nutrient solution" lately [please]! But I'm just too busy with my current life and my writing speed is too slow, so I can only maintain the quality of my writing while updating regularly according to the rankings. I can't add extra chapters. Thank you everyone! This is my first time writing, so I don't have much experience. I will definitely try to write more drafts before starting a new story...

The next update will be on Friday.