Chapter 150: The Real Cecilia Caldwell Is a Villainess

Chapter 150: Chapter 150: The Real Cecilia Caldwell Is a Villainess

"Someone wants you dead. Don’t blame us."

The man in the lead raised his knife, about to kill me.

Stella, with her last ounce of strength, lunged forward.

’What ulterior motives could a dog have? All she knew was that she had to protect me...’

"Ah!" My head felt like it was about to explode.

A scene flashed through my mind.

A tiny, dying puppy, just born. Its stray mother had just been stoned to death by a few children.

The mother dog had been dragging her exhausted body, just wanting to find some scraps in the trash to feed her pups.

But those children seemed to have found a cruel sort of fun in it, relentlessly pelting the dog with stones.

’Good and evil are determined from birth. Some people can control their inner evil and live by their goodness. Others abandon goodness and become slaves to evil.’

’Those children didn’t think they were wrong. It was humanity’s primitive, cruel gene.’

’They enjoyed abusing things weaker than themselves, deriving pleasure from it.’

"Get lost!" In the memory, I was just a child myself, holding a brick bigger than my head. I expressionlessly smashed it against the forehead of the boy who was leading the stone-throwing.

Instantly, the child’s forehead started bleeding, and he began to cry.

"Does it hurt?" I asked coldly, grabbing his hair. "Getting hit by stones, does it hurt?"

The other children ran off in fear. The little boy was wailing in pain. "See? You know what pain feels like, too."

The little boy’s parents arrived, berating my mom and dad relentlessly.

In the end, my parents paid them off and took the injured dog to the vet, but she died from her injuries.

My parents adopted the puppies she’d given birth to. Only one of them survived. He was a wolfdog, and I named him Shaun.

From then on, the vicious girl had a vicious hound by her side.

"It’s her! Run!"

Those children seemed terrified of me, running away the moment they saw me.

"Cece can’t go on like this. She’s too cold, what are we going to do?"

"What did we do to deserve this..."

"Was it our fault? I’ll start doing charity work tomorrow. I’ll pray to every god and buddha, just begging for my daughter to become whole..."

In my memory, Mom and Dad were crying secretly in their room.

"Victor Quinn said our daughter has an emotional disorder. It’s treatable. Modern treatments are very well-developed. If you can bear it, we can send Cece to him."

"Caldwell, my daughter is still so young, and you want to send her to a mental hospital?"

"Shh..."

In the memory, my father tried to placate my mother in a panic. "Then what do you suggest we do? She smashed that kid’s head open and didn’t even blink!"

"No preschool will take Cece anymore. At the last one, she bit a male teacher’s finger off! This child is too ruthless."

"Didn’t Cece say that teacher was bullying a little girl? You saw the security footage, there was something wrong with that teacher!" Mom argued forcefully.

"This isn’t about who was in the wrong! It’s about the way Cece handles problems. Her... her solution isn’t something a child should even be able to think of. What kind of kid bites someone’s finger off...?"

This time, my mother fell silent.

"And at the preschool before that, she pushed a little girl straight off the slide. It was so cold-blooded..."

’Even though that little girl had pushed me first, and I just retaliated in kind, it seemed too cold-blooded in the eyes of others.’

’In my memories, the younger me was a vicious girl, the kind that everyone was afraid of.’

"And haven’t you noticed... Cece’s dog, Shaun, only listens to her. It’s too strange, too terrifying..."

"It’s not just Shaun. Even the wild animals at the circus were staring at Cece..."

"Don’t be ridiculous. Our Cece is normal. The animal riot at the circus was because the Beast Tamer was abusing them. What does that have to do with our Cece!"

"That’s exactly what I’m afraid of! Cece was talking to that black bear!"

In the memory, my father seemed to be in great pain and fear.

’As if I were some kind of terrible monster.’

’I had somehow forgotten all of these memories, remembering only the good ones.’

"Caldwell... are we really sending our daughter to a mental hospital?"

"If we don’t send her now, I’m afraid... something much worse will happen later on. What if she kills someone someday..."

"Stop it!"

"And last month, when your best friend brought Julian over, just because we praised him a little and mentioned the childhood engagement, she had Shaun scare him! Julian is only eight years old, just a kid! He was so scared he had a high fever for days, and now he’s terrified of dogs!"

The sound of my parents arguing in that dimly lit room, me standing outside the door watching their backs... it was all becoming clearer and clearer in my mind.

’I really was sent to a mental hospital.’

’I must have been only five years old that year.’

’Back then, I hadn’t met Asher yet...’

’In my memories, my parents said that I had my dog scare Julian Fletcher out of jealousy over the childhood engagement talk. Is that the real reason he’s been afraid of dogs since he was little? It was because of me?’

...

"Silvia!"

"Silvia, are you okay?!"

The sound of police sirens approached, along with Zeke Shaw’s panicked voice.

"Cece!" Madeline Quinn’s tearful cry.

I sat slumped on the ground. When my consciousness returned, my white dress was covered in blood.

Stella lay on the ground, on the brink of death. She was a large, yellowish-brown wolfdog, so much like the Shaun from my memories... My Shaun was a black and brown wolfdog. He was so handsome, just as handsome as Stella.

"Stella..." My voice trembled as I ran over, crying, and hugged the large wolfdog. "Don’t die. Please don’t die."

"Get her to a vet, quick." Zeke Shaw took the large dog from my arms and wrapped his own clothes around her to stanch the bleeding.

Paramedics ran over to check on me. Everyone was afraid I’d been stabbed.

But a nurse discovered, to her surprise, that I had no wounds. "She’s not hurt."

Only then did Zeke Shaw seem to process the scene, looking at the assassins on the ground. Some had fled, others were moaning in agony, on the verge of death.

"I killed someone..." I was trembling all over, staring at the fallen assassin in front of me.

"It was self-defense! They were trying to kill you," Madeline Quinn cried, hugging me.

’But I have no memory of how I did it...’

"Asher..." I snapped back to reality, grabbing Zeke Shaw’s arm anxiously. "Asher fell off the cliff. How is he... Is he okay?"

Zeke Shaw lowered his eyes and shook his head. "The good news is, Asher wasn’t found in the car. The bad news is... we don’t know if he’s alive or dead. The search and rescue team is still looking for him at the base of the cliff."

I stumbled back a step, devastated.

"Ma’am..." Owen Foster rushed back in a panic. He looked at the chaos on the ground and clenched his fists tightly. "I didn’t expect them to find this place."

’This place was supposed to be safe.’

’He must have lost his composure when something happened to Asher.’

’I didn’t blame him.’

"The Old Master... is gone." Owen Foster lowered his head.

It was as if I’d already guessed. Master Lancaster had become ruthless this time, determined to eliminate Sebastian Lancaster, eliminate the Lancaster patriarch, and then get rid of me and the child in my belly.

’So he could inherit everything from the Lancaster family.’

"Find... find Asher..." ’I need to see him, dead or alive.’

"Ma’am... don’t you remember what you did after the master’s accident?" Owen Foster asked tentatively.

I looked at Owen Foster, bewildered and confused.