Chapter 523: Suicide Note! (16k Words Large Chapter!) (3/5)

Chapter 523: The Suicide Note! (A massive 16k-word chapter!) (3/5)

"Wait a moment."

"What is it, is there something else?"

"I wasn't the one who told my grandmother that you were a piece of trash."

"Oh, haha, I see."

...

"You have grown up, no longer the little Dalys who once knelt before me."

Dalys walked up to Madame Felcher and knelt at her feet. "You do not seem to have aged at all."

"Save your insincere compliments, I have no stomach for them."

"Yes."

"The Norton family is about to fall, isn't it?"

"No, it is about to collapse entirely."

"You truly are a fine child of the Norton family," Madame Felcher remarked with a sigh as she walked forward.

Dalys stood up and followed her closely.

"I still don't know what I was thinking back then, to actually decide to help you. Perhaps it was because your grandfather made me feel quite uncomfortable at the time, haha."

"I believe it must have been a destined convergence of fates."

"Perhaps, fate. Sometimes there is nothing wrong with living a little selfishly, is there?"

"Yes, none at all."

"Even if, because of you, the talent and fortune of your own blood relatives were devoured—turning the Norton family into an anomaly within the entire regional church circle, a family akin to mad dogs—it was still worth it, wasn't it?"

"It was, as long as it brought benefits to me."

"Yes, I remember it clearly now. Why I stopped in front of you back then, why I spoke to you, why I asked if you wanted to do this.

Because at that time, though you were merely a child, beneath your gentle gaze, I saw an exceptionally dense manifestation of selfishness."

Hearing this, a smile graced Dalys's face as he said, "I believe there is nothing in this world that can escape your eyes."

"Now, only the finale remains. The flower that is the Norton family is about to wither, and from it, a brand-new you will be born."

"All of this is thanks to your fulfillment."

"Go and thank your family; they have contributed so much for your sake. Though they may be entirely unaware of it—no, your father must have sensed something, hadn't he?"

"Yes, he sensed it. He said that since I was eight years old, whenever he spent too much time with me, he would feel an uncontrollable irritability. He even said he wanted to kill me.

But how could he truly discover your wisdom and secret arts? He was incapable of it."

"He didn't kill you, not because he failed to notice or was incapable, but because as a father, he could not bring himself to lay a hand on you.

Your grandfather was a scoundrel, and your father was a scoundrel too.

Yet there is one thing in which they were identical: when it came to treating their own family, they truly left no room for reproach.

To make a scoundrel merely sleep with your wife as an act of revenge against you, and have her bear his child, yet still be unable to strike you down—that is truly a love as heavy as a mountain."

"Perhaps so."

"Do you regret it? Even for a fleeting, microscopic moment."

Dalys shook his head, offering a slight smile, and said, "It is all but a dream, why should one care?"

"Good, very good. On this path, the most important thing is to maintain an unwavering resolve to the very end. One day, dream and reality will reverse; the you in the dream will awaken, and the you in reality will return.

Dalys, I am well pleased with you. You are my most outstanding successor."

"Everything I possess is a gift from you. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you."

"There is no need to thank me. I merely used you as an experiment; seeing your success is the ultimate validation for myself."

Madame Felcher produced a scroll and a black stone.

"This is the final scroll of the secret art, and this stone will help you better distinguish between dream and reality during the finale."

"Yes, I will succeed."

"I trust that you will."

"I also hope that you will succeed."

"Of course. To this day, I still believe that the curse lingering over my house was intentionally placed there by him just to help me.

Haha, he is always like that—clearly filled with affection, yet loath to put it into words. But I can feel it; he still cares for me, he still spoils me, he loves me."

Dalys remained silent. When a woman is reminiscing about a past love she never attained, it is best not to break the spell of her sentimentality, for she does not need you to tell her it is an illusion; she is already well aware of it deep within her heart.

Yet Madame Felcher inquired, "Aren't you curious as to who that 'he' I spoke of is?"

"Madame, is that a question I am permitted to ask?"

"You may ask, though I will not tell you. In truth, he once had a connection to your family as well."

"A connection to my family as well?"

"Do you remember where I first met you?"

"At a funeral that remains, in my memory, highly unusual."

"Yes, I had originally come to see him."

"Was that his funeral?"

"Hahaha, hahahaha..."

Upon hearing this, Madame Felcher burst into a fit of laughter so grand that she bent double with the force of it.

Standing beside her, Dalys felt somewhat at a loss before this rather terrifying old woman.

Finally, Madame Felcher ceased her laughter, drew a deep breath, and cast her gaze toward the distant black sky. "Do not tell me such jokes. No one could attend his funeral, because no one could kill him.

He was a dragon soaring through the heavens. Once you have seen his true form, everyone else appears completely devoid of color."

"He was a great man."

"Very well, you may shut your mouth now. I do not particularly enjoy sharing things about him with others; how I wish he belonged entirely to me forever."

It was you who prompted me to ask, I was merely playing along.

Yet Dalys could only offer an apologetic tone. "Forgive me, I spoke out of turn."

"Go now, return and prepare for the finale. I shall await your results; do not disappoint me. Though you lose your family, you shall gain a far more powerful version of yourself.

Sometimes, a family possesses no real meaning; one might even call it a burden.

When you yourself are sufficiently powerful,

you alone

are a family."

"Yes, I understand."

Dalis bowed to Madam Felsher before turning his steps toward home.

Madam Felsher lingered in that spot for a long while, yearning for a glimpse of tonight's moon, yet the oppressive weather kept it securely veiled behind dark clouds, hidden from sight.

"Alas... a rare pretext to venture out, yet even the moon denies me its view; how terribly unkind."

...

A middle-aged man sat by the edge of the beach, busying himself with a barbecue; though his movements betrayed a certain awkward unfamiliarity, his demeanor remained intensely focused and meticulous.

At his side stood a woman draped in a black gown that lent her an air of dignified elegance.

Had Pu'er been present, she would have recognized her instantly as Xidi.

Yet whenever her name passed Pu'er’s lips, it was invariably accompanied by a prefix in the pirate fashion—Faceless Xidi.

By which she meant, quite simply, that the woman possessed no shame at all.

More than a century ago, a bitter grievance had erupted between them, leaving Pu'er to suffer no small disadvantage.

A hundred years later, to avenge Pu'er's slight, Dis had personally hoisted Xidi onto the crucifix at the very peak of the cathedral, leaving her to sway in the wind before a grand assembly of the Cult of Order's pursuing adjudicators.

It was only natural, after all, for a woman who had suffered a grievance abroad to call upon the men of her household to settle the score.

In that bygone game of cat and mouse between Pu'er and Xidi, Xidi herself had summoned the forces