The Tomb of the Saint (2)
Chapter Summary: The Interrogation of Caesar. Despite trying every possible way to confess, Caesar still couldn't bring himself to express his love for Gratian.
The "Hyysen Massacre" is not found in any official Imperial records. Caligula, the head of the intelligence bureau, who was arrested and interrogated by several other Imperial generals afterward, refused to admit any collusion with the Rose Cult, saying that the Emperor's outburst that day was something he could not have foreseen.
I was also taken to the interrogation site.
“So,” a general asked Caligula, “you saw the Rosicrucians take Ganymede away and drive the emperor mad, and then you suddenly decided to kill the emperor and frame the Rosicrucians?”
"Don't you know this very well?"
“Members of the 14th Fleet were present at the time,” the general glanced at me. “You were in charge of security and vetting the personnel list. How did they get in? We suspect that you and Ganymede conspired to escape, His Majesty lost his composure, and you took advantage of the chaos to strike. We interrogated several of your men, and they confessed that a small group had been repeatedly active in a specific area of the square, every half hour. They noticed something amiss, reported it to you, and you instructed them to ignore it.”
"...You suspect me of secretly aiding the 14th Fleet?" Caligula laughed. "On what grounds? What benefit would I gain?"
"Well, you'll have to ask yourself that." His tone held a hint of sarcasm. "Do you really think we know nothing?" The old general then looked at me. "I really don't understand how something like this could make His Majesty so infatuated, and even allow you to sit here being interrogated by us."
"My loyalty to the Empire is beyond question."
"And what about His Majesty the Emperor? You intend to kill him!"
Caligula stared at the general for a long time. "I admire him."
Dozens of generals burst into laughter at the same time.
"Since things have come to this, I have no choice but to be frank with you all. This is my plan, a plan to wipe out the 14th Fleet, the remnant of the old alliance, in one fell swoop." Caligula sighed. "This plan began a year ago."
The generals stopped laughing.
"What a load of rubbish!" I screamed inwardly. Caligula was going to betray Ye Yuanjun and the others! I jumped up, and Caligula glanced over at us seemingly casually, saying, "Gentlemen, if you don't believe me, hand over Caesar Ganymede to me. I'll interrogate him. Don't worry, I'll get any details you want from him."
The generals did not agree to Caligula's request, saying that the emperor had to make the decision.
After the interrogation, I was released and placed under house arrest. I wanted to know if Ye Yuanjun and the others had escaped. It seemed they had, as no fleet members contacted me again. I felt relieved on one hand, but also very sad on the other, as if a large piece of my heart had been ripped out.
After this, they will probably give up on me completely.
Caligula was imprisoned, and the generals seemed to have reached some kind of tacit agreement to take this opportunity to bring down the head of the intelligence bureau. After Emperor Gratian woke up, he inquired about the situation of Heysen after the massacre and was fairly satisfied with the follow-up handling. He also gave instructions on a few things, mainly to restore order and to make some undisclosed, official imperial records of the incident. Upon learning that the generals had imprisoned Caligula, the emperor did not order his release but adopted a wait-and-see attitude. However, the generals were also punished with a three-month salary deduction.
The door to the room was gently closed, and I woke up with a start.
I dreamt I was in the rain, red shards falling from the sky, dripping onto my face. When they touched my skin, they melted, warm and fresh to the touch, like they had just fallen from a living person. Gratian's breath brushed against my ear. I curled up in the blanket, pretending to be asleep.
"I am very sorry about what happened that day; I'm sorry you were frightened."
"Does it mean I was captured by cult members and almost burned at the stake, or that I saw tens of thousands of people instantly turn into a pool of blood?"
“Yes, I have.” He said, “You shouldn’t have gotten out of the carriage. I was really scared at the time, afraid that something would happen to you.”
"You killed a lot of people. You ran them over with tanks."
"I killed him." He hugged me from behind, lay down on the bed, and buried his face in the nape of my neck. "I'm sorry."
Why are you apologizing to me?
"Because I'm afraid you'll hate yourself."
“I killed them. More than 30,000 people, I killed them all. It has nothing to do with you.”
His voice choked with emotion.
I suddenly felt very sad and said, "Why kill? Those are human lives! Don't they have their own thoughts, interests, joys, and sorrows? Don't they have families? Don't they have friends? They were all so innocent, and you only did it because you wanted to save me... You knew perfectly well that the soldiers only listened to you, yet you still sent them to kill, to stain their skin with blood. You, you..."
He hugged me tighter. "Don't cry, Caesar, don't cry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, it's my fault."
He showered me with soft, wet kisses on the back of my neck, my shoulder blades, and down my spine, gently biting my back. I squirmed. "Stop, stop. I don't want to."
He stopped. The bedside lamp seemed to have been turned up a bit. Gratian released me and said, "The list of Rose Cult members is stored on a very old-fashioned USB drive. The biggest advantage of this old-fashioned information transmission is that it's not easily intercepted by the Imperial security services."
"The 14th Fleet is very meticulous. They first tried to create a file using Hyperion's database, collecting basic information on potential members of the Cult of the Rose and storing it in Hyperion. After more than a year of screening, Hyperion not only identified a group of genuine members of the Cult of the Rose, but also, through big data correlation, found other members hiding in the shadows who did not use data networks much. Ironically, even the leader of the Cult of the Rose himself may not have a complete list of his own members, but Hyperion, or rather the 14th Fleet, did."
My body stiffened. Gratian placed his hand on my waist, flipped me over, looked at me, and said, "Don't even think about escaping. Caesar, hand over the list of Rosicrucians. You have the USB drive, don't you? You wouldn't run away without a plan."
I bit my lip and shook my head.
"You're not giving it to me? You really aren't giving it to me?"
I just shook my head.
“Caesar,” his tone softened, “be good, don’t get involved in these things. Leave the Rose Church, anti-imperial organizations, rallies, demonstrations, and riots to me. You don’t need to overthink it or worry about these things.”
"Are you afraid that if you hand over your trump card, you'll lose your protection? Or are you afraid that if you hand over the USB drive, you'll end up like Caligula, branded as someone who colluded with an anti-imperial religious organization and targeted by the imperial generals? Don't be afraid. With me here, let's see which of those old fogies dares to say a single 'no' to you. You're safe. I will protect you."
"...What do you plan to do to those believers after you've captured them?"
"Do some things that are necessary to maintain the stability of the empire."
"For example, torture and forced confessions?"
He sighed. "Never mind, never mind. Don't hide, you're so scared. It's alright, I don't need the USB drive anymore."
"...Really don't want it anymore?" I asked cautiously.
“Really,” he said. “Anyway, there are plenty of ways to expose the Rose Cult. I’m not in a hurry. Time is on the Empire’s side.”
"Come here, stop looking like a hamster. Look at you, you've gotten so thin since I last visited you. You haven't even washed your face properly."
I wanted to say that I hadn't gained any weight during the year you kept me locked up in the Empire. But I fell silent when I saw his doting smile. I quietly moved closer to him, and he reached out and ruffled my hair, tossing it, combing it, tossing it again, and combing it again, seemingly enjoying it immensely.
"Members of the Church of the Roses..."
"Shh." He reached out and rubbed my shoulder. "Don't mention them. It's a mood killer." He leaned closer, his cheek against my chest, and used his teeth to unbutton my pajamas one button at a time. His lips slid across my lean chest muscles.
My body gradually relaxed. He gently kissed me, holding my wrist and placing my hand on his cheek. My fingers brushed through his hair, brushing strands aside. He bent down, lowered his head, and my legs clamped together, twisting my waist, trying to break free. He enveloped me wetly, my vision blurred, and tears welled in my eyes, soaking the pillow.
“Caesar, I love you…” I felt his warm breath on my sensitive skin, and I couldn’t help but sob, then quickly bit my lip. I thought of many, many years ago, countless hot and humid summers, a blond little boy running through fields of sunflowers, a kite string in his hand, the kite floating in the clear blue sky without a single cloud. I said, “Phaethon, slow down, be careful not to fall.”
Then a thunderstorm came, and the kite fell to the ground. The little boy stood beside the kite's corpse, which lay in the muddy earth, and asked me, "Why can't a kite keep flying? Why does it fall down when there's no wind? Why doesn't lightning just split the kite that can't fly into pieces?"
He looked up at me, his eyes a deep blue. "Brother, I've fallen in love with a girl in the next class. I want to go shopping with her, go on dates with her, hold her hand, kiss her, and even sleep with her. I want to do everything that people allow us to do and everything that people don't allow us to do."
The little boy suddenly looked up, raindrops dripping from the edges of his long, golden eyelashes. He smiled, "You love me just like that, don't you, my brother?"
I felt like I couldn't breathe, and started gasping for air. Gratian didn't let me go; I felt very wet. "Stop...stop, Gratian, I..."
That lingering feeling lasted a long time. My body was out of control; his arms were wrapped around my waist until I was exhausted, my limbs trembling. His hands were still around my waist, one arm around my waist. I was dazed, "...What's wrong?"
He didn't hug me, but held me down with one hand. Then, he lowered his other hand and slowly backed away, creating distance between us. Little by little. "Caesar, I said you can do whatever you want, but don't interfere in the empire's internal affairs."
I sat up in bed. I saw he was clutching a silver USB drive in his hand—the one he'd stolen from me. "Gradius, you shameless bastard! You lied to me..."
He quickly stuffed the USB drive into his clothes, covered my mouth, and injected a sedative into my vein. My struggles weakened, my vision blurred, and in my daze I saw him seemingly shedding tears, but it could also have been my own tears.
Then I lost consciousness.
The night was dark and stormy. I was lost in a pitch-black dream, my body feeling as if it were being sucked into a bottomless swamp, with countless black or dark brown fingers reaching out from the swamp and binding me tightly. A loud knocking on the door woke me up. I dragged myself to open it, and there stood the intelligence chief, Caligula, wearing a scarlet raincoat dripping wetly. He said to me, "Please come with us."
“I remember you should be eating prison food in the Imperial Prison right now.”
“That’s none of your business,” he said, gesturing. A large group of people immediately squeezed through the door.
I held tightly to the doorframe, preventing them from coming in. "Something happened to Gratian, didn't it? What happened to him?"
Caligula looked at me with pity. "His Majesty has fainted. Of course, this is the umpteenth time this year. The bad thing is that half a month has passed and he still hasn't woken up."
“The generals suspect that you poisoned him, and that he will never wake up again,” he said after a pause.
"...They just want to find someone to take the blame, and then find a way to make sure the emperor never wakes up again," I said after a while.
"You are certainly not stupid."
"Who did this?"
“I don’t know. It’s possible His Majesty’s condition has progressed naturally to this point. But in any case, I can’t have done this,” Caligula said.
"Therefore, we can only trouble you, Your Highness."
My arm was suddenly grabbed, and several intelligence officers dragged me into a black car, blindfolding me with a cloth.
The interrogation room was filled with blinding white light. The space was extremely cramped, and the ceiling felt like it was pressing down on my head. My hands were tied behind my back to the back of a chair made of iron frames, my body was leaning back, and I couldn't move my head, so I could only stare straight at the searchlight in front of me. Caligula's figure floated around me, and I felt him getting closer. "Open your eyes wider."
He grabbed my chin, forcing me to face him.
A syringe as thick as a thumb, a whole box of neatly stacked glass vials of medicine—he pulled one out with his fingers, a flash of silver light, and the liquid was injected into the clear plastic syringe. I struggled, "What is this?"
“Confession agent,” he said, staring at the gauge on the syringe. The liquid slowly overflowed the numbers. Caligula tossed the empty vial away.
You won't get anything out of them.
“We’ll have to ask first to know,” Caligula said expressionlessly. The drug was injected into my veins. My mind grew increasingly muddled. I felt nauseous, like I was going to vomit, and it seemed like something was constantly coming out of my mouth, wetting my clothes.
It hurts so much.
"Where are the men of the 14th Fleet? Were they involved in the last and this plan that was detrimental to His Majesty the Emperor?"
"I have no idea……"
"Where are the men from the 14th Fleet?"
"Hai Yingsen. I want to go home. I want to live a normal life."
"Where is Haiyingsen? Is he part of an underground organization? Which underground organization? Are they still planning activities against the emperor?"
"I have no idea……"
I was feeling groggy, but I suddenly laughed. "And what about you? You from the intelligence agency, why didn't you let the footage of the Gratian massacre that day be released? You clearly wanted to be emperor, so why did you suppress information that was detrimental to him? Haha, suppressing information is an imperial tradition, isn't it?"
Caligula frowned. His face contorted. He raised a hand. "Give him another injection."
My toes curled up in pain. "You love Gratian. You don't want to tarnish his reputation. You love the emperor, and you want to kill him," I whispered.
"When did the 14th Fleet receive the list of Rosicrucians?"
"Six months ago."
"Through what means?"
"Hyperion's database."
When did they contact you?
"One year ago."
Caligula paused in his notes. "A year ago, when you first came to the Empire, you were actually in contact with the 14th Fleet."
I remained silent. I noticed the tape recorder on the table was spinning.
“You lied to His Majesty. All along, you said you had no intention of helping the Alliance or the 14th Fleet. His Majesty doubted you many times, but in the end, he chose to believe you.”
How did you contact them?
“I slept with Caligula. He said he was willing to help me.”
Caligula nearly broke his pen; for a moment he seemed to hesitate, wondering if he should tell me to stop talking. But he made a few sharp marks in his notebook and said, "Go on."
I confessed everything about my collusion with Caligula. We were adulterers; I had planned my escape long before the Heysen parade, while Caligula plotted to harm the emperor and usurp the throne amidst the chaos. We each got what we wanted. "Caligula knew all along that the Rose Church was going to cause trouble on the day of the parade, but instead of stopping it, he let it happen. Rather, he was testing Gratian, whether the ailing emperor was capable of continuing to rule such a vast empire. If he couldn't, what would he do? I don't know..."
The hissing of the cassette tape filled the space. Caligula continued recording without looking up. How ridiculous! He was so dedicated to recording his own shameful deeds; truly worthy of being the most competent head of the Galactic Empire's intelligence agency. What was he trying to do? "Your Highness, what are your thoughts on His Majesty the Emperor of our Empire?"
"I……"
He imprisoned me.
"You colluded with Caligula and severely harmed him. Do you feel remorseful?"
"...I feel no guilt."
Do you love him?
I shook my head. "No..." Before me was a bizarre and distorted scene.
"Did you ever love the emperor? Did you love him even a tiny bit, not even a fraction of the love he had for you?"
"I..." I opened my mouth, my gaze unfocused, unable to utter a sound. "I...love, no..."
I heard a very soft sigh. Caligula said, "What number is it? One more."
"Sir, this is the fifth injection. Another injection will cause permanent and irreversible damage to his brain."
"Keep fighting."
"Yes, sir." The man in black walked over, holding up my arm. My face was pressed against something, drooping down—it could be air, my collar, a table, a chair, or a water glass.
"I'll ask you one last time, Caesar Garnimed, do you love Gratian?"
"Why, why are you so fixated on this question? Caligula, ever since you were little, I've always loved Gradian more. You're right, it's Gradian, not you, not you!"
"But did I love him? Was it love? Was it love between a man and a woman, between men, or between women? Was it about sex? About procreation? My brother died, he was only 20! 20! I called his name countless times, in my heart, on my lips, in my dreams, and when I was awake during the day, thinking of him constantly. The better life was, the more painful it was, because I knew Phaethon would never again breathe the same clean air as me, never again live the same wonderful life as me. He was buried in the ground, black, suffocating, unable to make a sound. He died a dull death. Sometimes his soul would drift into my dreams, calling to me, 'Brother, brother, save me, it's so dark here, so dark. I'm so scared...' He was crying. He was an ugly, drowned water ghost, on his last day seeing the sunlight, buried there, I couldn't recognize him at all. My beautiful, confident, healthy, and lively Phaethon. So I created Gratian, I'm not reconciled."
“I said I wanted freedom, but he wouldn’t let me go. I wanted to go back to Haiyingsen, back to my friends, to live a normal life, but he still wouldn’t let me go. And what did he do? He started a war, he killed so many people, he even used tanks to crush unarmed civilians into mincemeat! And then afterwards he told me it was all his fault, and told me not to hate myself… How could I not hate him! There’s a blood wall between us. Seven years of war, the Allies lost 5.7 million soldiers, the Empire lost over 6 million, not even counting the civilians displaced by the war, so many people died on the way to escape! I created him, I raised him, I raised a devil! He should have been a miracle in human history, a glorious and bright symbol, but why did he keep fighting, keep conquering, keep killing? I’m so disappointed in him, so very disappointed…”
"I'm so tired. I don't want to be with him anymore. I used to love him. Maybe, I don't know, maybe I don't love him, not the kind of love he has for me—sex, possessiveness, abuse, and that inappropriate childlike attachment to his mother. I don't like it! Don't force it on me! Does insulting me give him pleasure? I don't understand, how could an ordinary man like me move this new kind of person so much? Or does he just enjoy my despair like a god watching mortals suffer from a mountaintop? I don't understand, I don't understand at all, I'm in so much pain, I want to die..."
I've forgotten how the interrogation ended that day.
The emperor was furious.
I heard these things from Octavian. That day, Octavian went to see His Majesty with his medicine chest, just as His Majesty was about to take his medicine; in the morning, a furious roar echoed from the Emperor's cabinet, "—I am not dead yet!"
Octavian was turning the doorknob; the door wasn't closed, and it opened as soon as he stood by the doorframe. The young doctor was caught in a dilemma, unsure whether to go in or out. Caligula stood stiffly at the round table, alone in the cabinet. After a long while, there was finally no more movement from inside.
Octavian then entered, "Your Majesty...this is your medicine from this morning..."
“Octavian? Oh, could you please take some men to the basement of the building on the west side of the palace? There are people there who need help.”
The head of the intelligence agency had left sometime earlier. The emperor, who had been hurling insults uncontrollably, was now unable to speak. His voice was weak, "Go quickly."
"Yes, Your Majesty." Octavian wondered if there was such a place in the palace. He hurried over, and the medical team rushed over, asking if something had happened to His Majesty the Emperor.
“No, no,” Octavian said somberly, “His Majesty must think it would be better for him to get into trouble himself.”
He found the entrance to the basement and pulled me out, my eyes half-rolled back, vomiting uncontrollably. According to his later description, my limbs were all curled up like a frostbitten child; my hands and feet were stiff, cold, and cyanotic from lack of blood flow, swollen, leaving a dent when pressed. Octavian moved me to a spacious, white room, put me on a ventilator, and was probably still carefully considering what medication to give me, or perhaps just leaving me there? Wouldn't it be even more troublesome if I died? Soon after, Gratian arrived. My festering, swollen toes were facing the doorway he entered, and I struggled to move them. Octavian looked at me, then at the emperor. He closed the door and left.
He walked over, reached out, and touched my face. I twisted away, causing the IV stand to tip over.
He sat on my bed, hugged me, and pressed me even tighter. "Why won't you let me touch you? Because I'm your genetic brother, does my touch disgust you?" His voice was filled with pain. I cried.
He bent down, trying to kiss my lips. I grabbed his throat, using all my strength to hold him tight, my nails digging into his flesh, leaving bloody scratches, but he still wouldn't let go.
Gratian didn't come to see me for half a month after that. I thought he had given up and wouldn't come again. Half a month later, one afternoon, he walked into my ward, holding Yang Luo's hand. I looked away from the sunlight and my eyes fell on the two of them.
"Caesar, I want to marry Yang Luo. I want her to be the Empress of the Galactic Empire." He said to me in a tone that seemed to declare war.
"Oh. Isn't that good?" I paused for a moment. "What about my previous marriage with His Majesty?"
"Although I haven't taken it seriously, Your Majesty, have you resolved the legal issues? What are the ministers saying?"
"Are you only concerned with the law and the ministers?"
I smiled, a little puzzled. "Then what else should I care about? Oh, right, this is your business, I shouldn't have said anything. Sorry."
"I want to have a child with Yang Luo to inherit the throne of the Galactic Empire. The ministers are very happy, believing it shows my responsibility to the empire and its people. They say, 'His Majesty the Emperor is finally not the kind of person who thinks, "What will happen after I die?"'"
A child. I was stunned. Was Gratian going to have a child too?
"Yes. I will get Yang Luo pregnant as soon as possible and finalize the matter of the Crown Prince."
“Congratulations, Your Majesty,” I said.
"That's it? You really have nothing more to say to me?"
"I hope you will treat your future wife well. I hope you will be a good father. Finally, I hope Your Majesty's rule will extend throughout the world, and your fame will reach the outermost reaches of the star field. I hope your reign will last for thousands of years, and that your descendants will enjoy blessings for generations to come. May Your Majesty live a long and prosperous life!"
He almost fainted from anger. He left, and Yang Luo followed behind, lifting her skirt. Before leaving, she glanced at me a couple more times, her expression a mixture of worry and curiosity. I remained expressionless, returning her gaze. She was probably quite satisfied with her current situation.
——tbc——
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