Villefort raised his head in astonishment, and a sudden fire suddenly arose in his heart, which made him unbearable: "Just because I didn't report it immediately? Just because I kept my promise to my friends?"
"Keep your promise...?"
"You are probably still very young..." Villefort tried his best to control his anger. "This world is not black and white, but you don't understand it yet... I won't blame you. I do in this matter. I'm wrong, and I'm willing to use my life to make up for it...Isn't that enough?! How...are you going to do it before you give up!?"
The air seemed to freeze.
The assassin stood there like a statue, the candle burning behind her and casting a shaking shadow on the stone wall in front of her.
Villefort couldn't see the other person's eyes, but he felt a burning gaze. The sudden anger had dissipated. He was like a cooling volcano. His courage and courage flowed away with his body temperature. He felt a wave of pain. cold.
The assassin's head moved at this moment.
"Duke, can killing a person bring the dead back to life?"
Villefort held his head in pain and buried his head between his knees, "... I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I shouldn't make any more demands. The dead can never be resurrected, and I can never make up for what you have suffered. Hurt, no matter how far you want to go, I should-"
"No," the assassin's voice was calm, "How do you know you can't?"
Villefort was stunned. In the trembling light and shadow, he slowly looked at the assassin's face. Behind the mask, Hesta's face was expressionless. She looked coldly at the embarrassed man in front of her.
"Because you tried."
Villefort shuddered like an electric shock.
The assassin turned back to look at the candle on the table. She stretched out her hand towards the flame, and her fingertips quickly cut across the flame. The entire secret room was half dark in an instant, and then quickly recovered.
"Killing one person can't bring the dead back to life," the assassin whispered, "killing twelve people can't either."
Villefort's shoulders shrank, and he looked at his toes, his mandible trembling uncontrollably.
"You have indeed done nothing. I know that you have never thought of actively harming others and have not committed any crime that harms other people's lives. From the beginning to now, you have not even told a lie," Hestad He said softly, "All the ideas came from Lixi and Tanglar. After all, they have coveted your Rohan Palace for a long time. They are cruel and debauched, unlike you, who know restraint and are kind-hearted."
The assassin suddenly bent down. The moment their eyes met, Villefort instinctively dodged aside and fell to the ground.
"Why didn't you say a word, Duke?"
Tears welled up from Villefort's eyes again. His voice was as thin as a mosquito's fly, and he soon began to cry. He pressed his eyes tightly with his hands.
"I...I...was really...I don't know...at the beginning...but then...then one day——"
"On the third day." Hesta said softly, "On the third day of the ceremony, your butler Townsend came to you and said that he found a lot of blood and a broken finger in the dirty clothes that Li Xi changed. Head, you were shocked and went to the sunken dance floor that night. Rishi said that you shocked him when you broke in. He was afraid that you would expose the matter, and then Danglars said to him, "It's okay." , I took you outside to talk.
"Well, Duke, it has been many years. Do you still remember what Danglars talked about with you at that time?"
Everything in the past flooded his mind like a tide, and Villefort did not dare to look up. He bit his lips tightly, his body shaking violently from sobbing. He tried to say sorry, but every syllable he said was stuck with his breathing, and many He hadn't cried like this in years, and it almost made him suffocate.
Hesta smiled and looked up at the ceiling of the secret room.
"Danglar and Lixi have been begging you for many years for this Rohan Palace - they just want to come in and have a look, and have fun in this ancient building that is still standing after the great power outage. As a result, you Not even once did he agree.
"But that year, Tangglar spoke to you again, and you felt that you couldn't refuse, because your child was sick, very sick, almost to death. It was Tangglar who used his connections to help you get in touch. The best doctor sent your child to the core city... Although everything did not get better at all and your first child died, you are still very grateful for his efforts.
"But you didn't expect that they would do such a thing in your palace. You were so angry that you thought they were unreasonable, until Tanglar told you that he did this for you and to save your child.
"It's all a ritual of praying to the true God. At first they tried using animals as sacrifices, but it had no effect. Then they tried human corpses, and things started to improve - of course, living people are the best. . Living people have 'souls', because they bleed and scream, and their fears can please themselves to the greatest extent, and naturally they can also please the true God in their mouths to the greatest extent.
"Can the dead come back? Duke, how come you don't know the answer to this question? If you use these nonsense explanations to coax children, they will be doubtful. How come you believe it all of a sudden?"
"If... if you had a child..." he murmured vaguely, "if... if it could be saved... any price... no matter what crime..."
"Oh, are you being carried away by the grief of losing your son? Or is it that the palace has been loaned out? Rather than letting everyone fall into the same scandal, it is better to just go with the flow and pretend that nothing happened. Anyway, Tanglar also I gave you a suitable step. You are not the mastermind, nor are you the accomplice. You just borrowed a palace from them from beginning to end, right?"
Villefort let out a heart-wrenching sigh.
"Really sorry……"
"Your first child, he was born on November 27, 4615, and passed away in the summer of 4619... Do you miss him very much? Do you always hear him calling daddy in your ear? This kind of grief, It hasn’t subsided since having Joey, right?”
"sorry……"
"Why are each of you apologizing at the end? Is this what I want?"
"Please kill me..." Villefort knelt and touched the upper of the assassin's shoe, "Please kill me... I don't deserve to live in this world..."
"Why should I kill you? I didn't intend to kill you. You didn't do anything wrong. After all, you are just an ordinary person with a little bit of 'ordinary weakness'."
Villefort shook his head vigorously, and his tears fell to the ground in large numbers. He shook his head in vain, feeling that his fate was dragging him down rapidly. This fear originating from the unknown tightly strangled his throat. He longs to hit rock bottom and is willing to pay any price to end the suspense of the moment.
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