Chapter 143 "I am the Queen's chosen successor..."
The three-day, three-night funeral, vigil, and burial procession kept me in a daze.
These past few days, it's been raining, almost as if it were the Queen's funeral. Not freezing rain, but the early summer downpour had a chilly feel to it.
Everyone was wearing long black raincoats and stood silently in the rain at the cemetery.
The Queen's tombstone is tall and magnificent, yet it exudes a terrifying gloom.
I couldn't look directly at it, so I turned my head to the side, trying my best to hold back my tears.
He spent a long time with Di Yaruo and had a deep friendship with her. Although their relationship was complicated, it was still a bond of affection.
After returning to the palace from the funeral, before I had even taken off my black raincoat, I unexpectedly encountered a guest. This guest, taking the initiative, sat on a high, ornate throne, looking at me with a half-smile.
King Midian! How did he manage to enter the palace without a warrant? And how did he ascend the throne?
In utter shock, I didn't even take off my raincoat before I immediately raised my hand to summon the guards.
Unexpectedly, as my personal guards surrounded me, an even larger group of guards surrounded us.
I stared coldly at King Midan and pointed to the soft seat below the throne. "King Midan, your seat is over there."
“Your seat is over there,” King Midan chuckled, though the smile couldn’t hide the malice in his eyes. “Of course, my seat isn’t here either; this seat belongs to…him.”
King Midan suddenly pointed to the palace door. I looked quickly and saw Haiya, dressed in a magnificent crimson robe and wearing a golden crown, grinning and gleaming, ignoring me completely.
He walked forward slowly with the graceful steps characteristic of nobles, bowed to King Midan before the throne, and said, "Brother, you can rest assured to entrust the capital to me. I promise I will not let you down."
King Midian laughed heartily and said loudly, "This position was originally yours, but it was occupied by the wicked woman."
Haiya walked up the steps with a grin and sat on the throne. King Midan stood to the side, his smile widening, and he looked at me with a hint of mockery.
“This is illegal robbery,” I said coldly. “I am the heir personally appointed by Queen Diya Ruo.”
"Is this what you mean?" King Midan pulled out a pale yellow silk cloth from his robes, shook it violently, and unfolded it, revealing a line of Western script that had been passed down to me, along with Di Yaruo's clear fingerprints.
I simply couldn't believe that this "will" that I had carefully kept and hidden before attending the funeral had ended up in his hands.
A guard handed a burning tinderbox to King Midian, who held the tinderbox in one hand and a pale yellow silk cloth in the other, and lit it right before my eyes.
And I cannot offer any resistance.
If I take one step forward, countless guards will surround me.
I wanted to shout, but I shut up when I saw King Midian's smug smile.
My loss of control of my emotions will make him the ultimate winner—he will be able to completely control me, my throne, and my identity.
As I watched the pale yellow silk being burned into a ball of fire, I closed my eyes...
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I was placed under house arrest, confined to my room, and unable to leave even for a moment.
The doors and windows were heavily guarded.
I cannot communicate with the outside world; not even a bird is allowed to fly past my window.
But I think Bernard will still come looking for me after he learns about the events in the royal city, but I guess King Midian will also have some kind of response.
I've been sitting on the floor in my pajamas for three or four hours now.
I don't know why it happened so quickly. Have all the nobles, the top nobles of the royal city, sided with King Midan? Are they all willing to be his vassals, paying him exorbitant taxes?!
Perhaps King Midian had made them some kind of promise, such as not having to pay taxes or only paying a low tax.
My head is throbbing with pain, and I don't know what to do.
What happened to Beatrice?! Did she also side with King Midan? Has she gone mad? She was originally the heir to this great royal city! She could have become the queen of the great royal city and its vassal cities as soon as she turned twenty. Why would she pander to King Midan?!
No, she would never pander to King Midian; it would not be in her interest.
She's probably under house arrest now, just like me.
What should I do now?! Run away?! Or sit and wait to die?!
I don't want to die, so I can't just sit and wait to die. If I can escape, how should I escape? It seems that King Midan controls the military and the nobles as well. I seem to have no leverage at all.
No, I do have leverage too. I have three thousand private soldiers, which King Midan gave to me as compensation. Although they were King Midan's army, since they were given to me as compensation, they are mine now.
Earlier, in order to train my troops, I transferred these three thousand private soldiers to the royal city that Bernot gave me as compensation. Yes, I still have my own private royal city. How could I have almost forgotten? I can transfer them there. It is said that the defense there is quite good. It took Bernot several years to conquer it.
But how can I escape there?! I'm under house arrest, surrounded by heavily armed guards; it seems I have no way to escape. The more I think about it, the more my head aches, until I can't think any further.
I pressed my temples, my head throbbing, and started rolling around on the smooth floor. I rolled around and around until I finally rolled under the bed and fell asleep.
I don't know how long I slept, but I was woken up by a pair of small hands. "Sister Lana, wake up, wake up."
“Um, Atrist…” I mumbled.
Beatrice? I awoke with a start. Beatrice?
It really was her! She had rolled under the bed and was pushing me, saying, "Wake up, Lana, now is the best time for us to escape."
"ah?!"
“It’s still dark, but it will be soon. You once told my mother that this is when the defense is most lax.”
"Yes, but how are we supposed to escape? And how did you get into my room?"
"Don't ask so many questions yet, come with me."
Beatrice crawled out from under the bed, and I quickly followed. She walked silently barefoot on the floor of my room. Watching her lips move, I could see she was counting. When she reached fiftieth, she stopped. "Hand me the knife from the fruit basket."
I handed it over, and she quickly and deftly used a knife to pry up the floorboards beneath her feet. She pried out four floorboards in a row, revealing a wooden ladder leading to the underground.
“This is a secret passage that my mother started building shortly after she entered the royal city. You know, she was born with a sense of insecurity, always afraid of being killed or overthrown. So she dug a passage between my room, your room, and her room, leading directly to the outside world.” Beatrice climbed down the wooden ladder first, lit a tinderbox, and led me down.
After I climbed down, I put the planks back together before following her down.
“I came to your room through the underground passage between my rooms,” Beatrice said, having climbed to the bottom with a tinderbox in hand, watching me descend the ladder. “It led right to your bedside, and I was surprised to find you sleeping there.”
Beatrice was an extremely cautious person; she restored the floorboards she had lifted before I even opened my eyes, so I had no idea there was an underground passage under my bed.
"Let's hurry, we can escape to the outskirts of the capital in about half an hour." Beatrice grabbed the tinderbox and practically ran, with me close behind.
"Then how are we going to escape the royal city?" I asked breathlessly.
“My mother taught me to find the group of homeless people who often sleep under the city walls and say that we want to play a game with them. When the city gates open at dawn, we will scatter a bag of gold coins. The homeless people will scramble for them and cause a riot, and we can take advantage of the chaos to escape.”
This mother and daughter, having been imprisoned underground for many years, faced an extremely high level of survival crisis and always remembered to have a way out. And sure enough, this proved invaluable in that crucial moment.
During her escape, Beatrice also displayed the amazing talents she had shown in the Eastern Prison, including her remarkable hearing and judgment.
While the vagrants were frantically grabbing gold coins, she "heard" the loudest noise from a certain direction and led me there, successfully confusing the guards and rushing out of the city. She even "snatched" a black horse that a guard had tied to a tree outside the city gate.
As we leaped onto our horses and rode away, the guards reacted quickly and jumped off to give chase. At that moment, Beatrice accurately judged which way we should flee.
“Go west first, then east,” Beatrice, sitting behind me, commanded.
I did as instructed.
After crossing a river, a bend in the road, and a rugged mountain path, we had clearly left our pursuers far behind.
I breathed a sigh of relief, but at the same time I was amazed. It was as if Beatrice knew the map of this area by heart, which was why she was able to direct me to shake off these guards so accurately.
“We are now on our way to your capital, sister,” said Beatrice, “but your capital is too far away, we have to take the train.”
I turned sharply to look at her. "Are you sure you want to give up everything here? This royal city is yours. Once you leave, you may never be able to come back."
“I will definitely come back, sister. This royal city is mine, no, ours,” Beatrice said with absolute certainty.
Then, we rushed to the train station, stole the coats of two homeless men, disguised ourselves as men, and boarded a train that had just arrived.
King Midan's large number of pursuers had arrived, but this train was no ordinary train; it was a train filled with people both inside and out, comparable to, or even more so than, modern Indian trains densely packed with people.
No matter which carriage Atreus and I fled to, it was always packed with people. We squeezed into the most crowded places, heads down, bodies crouching low, and waged a "guerrilla war" against our pursuers. When they chased us to one end, we'd slip to the other; when they chased us to the other end, we'd slip to this end.
Several times we were almost caught by them, so we climbed onto the roof of the car and crawled forward like snakes. A few times we pretended to be dead and lay on the roof, enduring the pursuers' stomping on us, before we escaped their pursuit.
The next day, the train arrived at the station, and the exit was once again crowded with pursuers. Each person exiting the station had to be carefully checked before they could pass.
I started to panic, but Beatrice remained unusually calm.
She said, "Sister, we don't necessarily have to go through the exit."
"Then where do we go from?"
"Let's take the train back."
But we didn't actually ride back to the Western Kingdom; instead, we jumped off the train midway and escaped via another route.
This escape went much more smoothly; the pursuers hadn't expected this tactic.
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Author's Note: Sorry for the late update, muah~~~
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