Tianhe
After Rose left, Mycorft went to the basement of the tower.
As he pushed open the hidden door, Eurus couldn't help but mock, "Look at your ridiculous expression, Mycroft. You should regret not choosing glass for the curtain wall, otherwise you could see your tired face reflected in the glass."
Mycroft pulled out a chair and sat down, looking his sister in the eye. "What I regret more is letting Rose meet you. But it was my mistake; my arrogance made me overlook your explosive nature. Just a brief 'Christmas present' meeting, and you've caused such serious and troublesome consequences."
“Heh,” Eurus’s lips curled up, but there was no smile in his eyes. “But didn’t you also want to use my judgment to confirm her feelings for you? This was our deal, Mycroft, and I did it. I remember after Rose left, I told you clearly: she didn’t love you. It was just a trust and attachment based on a prisoner’s mentality, a Stockholm syndrome-like illusion.”
“But that’s not what you told Rose.” A fleeting glint of anger flashed in Mycroft’s eyes. “Why? Why mislead her own feelings? Why imply anything related to me? Why create unnecessary complications?”
“Because I find this ‘game’ very interesting.” Eurus stood up, stepped over the glass curtain wall, and approached Mycroft: “I like seeing you, such a rational and restrained you, tormented and sinking in this strange, tangled ‘love’.”
"You love her, but you know perfectly well that she doesn't love you. Yet when you want to possess her, the brotherly love for his sister gets in the way. And Sherlock's fragile mental sanctuary won't allow him to accept that Rose isn't Miss Holmes. And what's most interesting is that you also care a lot about Sherlock's safety."
Eurus tucked his dark curly hair behind his ear and giggled, "So, my dear Mycroft, how I look forward to seeing that explosion and destruction when the light tears through the sky. It's such a fun game, isn't it? But I remember telling you when I was five that you would eventually grow up to be a pitiful adult."
Eurus's smile this time was radiant, innocent, and pure.
Mycroft lowered his head, supporting his forehead with his hand. After a long silence, he slowly uttered his final question: "Why?"
“Because you abandoned me, brother,” Eurus replied coldly. “But now it’s me who’s abandoning you.”
He got up to leave. Just as he reached the door, a faint voice came from behind him: "So she's dead, isn't she?"
Mycroft didn't respond, but simply stopped in his tracks, tacitly acknowledging her question.
Eurus suddenly slammed her chair down in a frenzy, the crashing sound echoing through the cellar. She nearly screamed, “Why, why, why! I haven’t even had a chance to avenge my mother, how dare she die! Who killed her! Oh, no, it must have been suicide. Why? Mycroft, why? Sherlock wouldn’t have disappointed her so much, because she had almost no hope for Sherlock, and Rose was even less important to her. It was you,” she stared at Mycroft’s retreating figure, “Mycroft, you’re the one who killed her, aren’t you?”
“Since you hate her, you should thank me.” Mycroft turned and looked Eurus directly into his eyes. “And now, all I see in your eyes is the flame of resentment towards me and the ashes of resentment towards her. Eurus, admit it, you don’t hate the care from family; you crave it desperately.”
"But it doesn't matter if you don't admit it. A person without physical freedom naturally has plenty of time to think it through."
Eurus's eyes widened in disbelief: "Are you going to keep me trapped here? It's only a matter of time before I break free of this cage. Didn't you understand after what happened at the train station last time?"
"So you will be transferred to a more secluded and secure location. It's a prison on a remote island called Sheringford. And your guards will no longer be the manor's servants, but the Empire's elite."
Amidst Eurus's howls and curses, Mycroft left the cellar. As the damp, cold wind swept through, he looked up at the clouds on the horizon.
The night I confronted my mother was also after the rain.
"Your question makes me feel somewhat wronged." I vaguely remember my mother even smiling: "That's a question I should be asking you. What do you take Rose for?"
He was momentarily surprised, followed by a feeling of utter disorientation, unable to utter a word. The windows were closed, the room was stuffy, and his cheeks felt hot.
The lady seemed to be issuing a verdict: "She must marry Owen. I need to rest; you may go back."
She took a few steps toward the fireplace, preparing to ring the bell to call the butler: "I suppose I'm getting old, my energy isn't what it used to be, while you all seem to be growing stronger."
He suddenly grabbed his mother's wrist: "Please wait a moment."
The lady was taken aback and looked at him suspiciously. He paused for a moment, then said, "I am willing to abandon mathematics and, as you expect, dedicate myself to politics. If someone truly has to live a life of unfreedom, then please set Rose free."
In that moment of silence, the lady's pupils dilated with fear. Her gaze locked onto her eldest son, as if she wanted to hold him firmly in her grasp.
She had doubted that Mycroft loved her. But how could Mycroft, the Mycroft she relied on, have such a deep love for Rose? To the point of sacrificing his entire life!
This was no longer a beautiful piece of jade, nor even a flawed rough jade. It was a shattered fragment, cutting her raw and bleeding, a complete mess.
But she still held a sliver of hope: it was just his exaggeration, even though he was never one to exaggerate.
In the afternoon, she went to the mathematics council, still outwardly calm, even her tone provocative: "I have already canceled the engagement as you requested. In exchange, you should say goodbye to your beloved profession forever. This was our agreement, Mycroft."
However, before Mycroft could speak, the chairman sighed regretfully. Under his sleeve was a resignation letter, the ink still wet on it.
In that earth-shattering moment, she didn't see Mycroft's expression. Her ever-rational eldest son stood by the window with his back to her. His tall, slender figure cast a long shadow in the sunlight, and she suddenly realized that, without her noticing, the traces of her childhood had long since faded from him.
Three months ago, Sherlock's open rebellion dealt a heavy blow to her heart, and now Mycroft has shattered her soul.
It wasn't because he fell in love with Rose, but because of his resolute willingness to sacrifice everything for this absurd love—even if it meant ruining his own life.
He had become the flawed child, the one on whom she placed high hopes, and the one who disappointed her the most.
She almost lost her balance for a moment.
But she forced herself to walk over and put her hand on Mycroft's shoulder. Mycroft didn't turn around to look at her, but simply replied, "Mother."
“I hate you, Mycroft.”
Mycroft turned to look at her, as if he wanted to say something. But she didn't want to listen, nor dared to.
So she interrupted, "I will repay you in the most torturous way. After I die, I will leave you everything from the Holmes family, including Miss Holmes."
"You will have the power to control everything. And I will be watching from heaven as you go mad, fall, and go insane in your desperate love, and then head towards hell."
He noticed his hands starting to tremble slightly. Years of habit allowed him to notice and control it in time. However, his pupils were also trembling, though he didn't know it.
The lady smiled with satisfaction.
His throat was dry, but he still said, "Don't die."
“You’ve disappointed me once again, Mycroft,” this time she grabbed his hand, “that you still value family so much.”
Her smile remained radiant, illuminating the otherwise colorless room: "I'm even more eager to see your decision. It's truly—a very difficult decision."
She was smiling as she said this, but tears were streaming down her face. She didn't know it.
He soon received news of his wife's death. She had ended her extraordinary life, but she had also achieved immortality in the lives of her children.
At the funeral, he looked at the distraught Sherlock, the Sherlock filled with hatred and guilt, the Sherlock who mistook the murderer of his mother for himself.
He suddenly remembered the day Rose first arrived at the manor, when he and Sherlock went to greet her. A warm and gentle boy, with curly hair, clear blue eyes like jewels, and a smile revealing his prominent canine teeth. At that time, he was kind to everything, and he immediately embraced his newborn sister.
Years had passed in the blink of an eye. Sherlock had grown into a slender, tall young man, his hair still curly, but much shorter. His once-stunning eyes no longer evoked the image of an endless, clear sky, but rather a desolate, stagnant swamp, whipped by a repressive and rebellious wind. As for his canine teeth… Mycroft's thoughts faltered. Were they still there? He didn't know, because Sherlock no longer smiled brightly at anyone.
Just as he was lost in thought, the family lawyer handed him a thick stack of documents, claiming that his wife had drafted the papers, and that he would inherit everything about Sherlock Holmes.
Is she really still so heartless towards me, Mother? He smiled bitterly to himself, accepting this vicious curse amidst the lawyer's ingratiating affection. "Everything..." He subconsciously repeated the word, the words of his wife echoing in his ears, "Everything in the family, including Miss Holmes."
After that, he deliberately avoided her, but she came looking for him.
She said her theory was that her mother committed suicide. He nodded, confirming her opinion, and made no attempt to hide anything.
She said she was leaving London.
His proud spiritual sanctuary faltered for a moment, as if something had become tangled in a knot. Before he could even think, his heart had already answered: "No."
He stood up from his seat as if possessed, only realizing how out of line he had been when he was almost in front of her.
He saw her eyes well up with emotion… a surge of heat that made him uneasy. That dreamlike, ephemeral attachment, an emotion detached from love, roared, entangled, embraced, and disguised itself as love, driving the girl's senses.
"Even under the iron curtain of reason, are there ripples of emotion?"
She still asked that question.
And he could no longer look directly into those eyes that haunted his dreams. He feared that even for a moment—even just a moment—he would be unable to resist dragging her down with him to drown in this inhuman sea of desire.
That was his beloved, that was Sherlock's hope, that was... his sister.
He could only lower his brows and remain silent until reason prevailed, at which point he slowly said, "Emotion is the appendix of personality."
She was devastated, and he accepted all her questions and accusations because he deserved it. Finally, he added, in a blood-soaked tone, that since his mother was dead, no one had the right to speak to him like that anymore.
She finally lost heart and left this elaborate room, the "heart" of the manor. The housekeeper said that a year ago, he had angered his mother because of the mathematics association, and she had pleaded for him here.
He had personally drawn a transparent celestial river in his world, more powerful than the curtain wall of the tower's cellar. It was not a prison for the body, but a prison for the soul.
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