Chapter 185 - 21: Scapegoat

Chapter 185: Chapter 21: Scapegoat

Selas’s mind no longer held any concrete memories of what exactly had happened that night, nor what kind of modifications his body had undergone. A bone-piercing pain had instantly seized his consciousness. When he finally woke up, he was already lying on a cold, hard wooden bed.

Only a thin mattress was spread beneath him. The biting wind howled through the gaps between the window and the walls, stripping away the little residual warmth left in his body. A cold, numbing prickle spread through his limbs, feeling as if a thousand needles were stabbing into him all at once. Selas tried to sit up, but even such a simple movement made him break out in a cold sweat from the sheer agony. His thin clothing, soaked with sweat, clung tightly to his skin—freezing and clammy.

Shivering, the frail boy followed his intuition and looked down at his chest.

From the outside, everything appeared normal. But when he pulled his collar open, he discovered that his originally pale skin was now covered by a layer of a ghastly, livid shadow. Right over where his heart should be, there was now an ugly, fist-sized scar. Winding veins, looking like knotted roots, spread outward from the scar as their center. They crept for about ten centimeters before diving back beneath the skin.

Looking at this bizarre sight, Selas’s breathing grew rapid, and the fingers gripping his collar trembled slightly. His mind felt as if it were shrouded in a thick fog, instinctively refusing to believe his own senses. Out of tension and fear, his heartbeat unconsciously sped up.

THUMP THUMP THUMP.

Amidst the heavy thudding, the scar on his chest pulsed in rhythm. Streams of a dark, bluish-black liquid pumped out from within the scar, surging rapidly along the exposed veins before finally merging into the blood vessels beneath his skin. It felt as though his entire body had already been filled with this eerie, bluish-black blood.

Selas abruptly pulled his collar shut. The child, not even six years old, could finally hold on no longer. He opened his mouth, panting heavily as tears began to well up in his eyes.

He thought in despair, "How could this be...

"Why... why did it turn out like this?

"Will I die? Die in this empty attic?

"Will I mutate? Or will a monster crawl out of my heart one day and tear me apart piece by piece with its claws?

"No... please, no... Don’t leave me here all alone... Don’t make me face this by myself...

"Please... anyone... Somebody, save me..."

His small, thin hands covered his face. However, the sob that was about to escape his lips was forced back by a sudden knock on the door.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

Someone was here. Selas forced down the sour lump in his throat and looked up toward the door. Under the child’s hopeful gaze, the door was pushed open just a crack. Through that narrow gap, Selas could faintly make out a middle-aged, average-built servant standing outside. The man didn’t enter, nor did he have any intention of speaking to Selas. He simply shoved the tray in his hands through the crack in the door.

SLAM.

The door was immediately slammed shut again. The servant moved incredibly fast, acting as if there were some highly contagious virus hidden inside the room.

The attic sank back into a dead silence. The child stared blankly at the door. His gaze slowly lowered from the tightly sealed wooden panels until it landed on the cheap wooden tray. A piece of coarse rye bread, a few wilted vegetable leaves, and a cup of cold water that gave off no steam despite the freezing winter. It was a meal that had absolutely nothing to do with the word "hearty." Let alone by the standards of the Earl Mansion, even in Selas’s own memory, he had never eaten such a meager meal.

The image of the Countess suddenly flashed before Selas’s eyes.

"It makes sense," he thought. "With someone living here who hates me that much, the fact that the servants are even willing to bring me food is only because I still have some use to them."

The faint glimmer of hope that had just lit up in his dark eyes slowly extinguished.

He sat on the bed for a while longer, waiting until his stiff, numb limbs had warmed up a bit from his body heat. Only then did Selas slowly crawl up. He swallowed the tasteless food mechanically and placed the cleaned tray by the door. Pacing around the freezing room, Selas eventually stopped in front of the window.

This was the only place in the attic that offered a view of the outside world. However, because it faced north, the sunlight couldn’t penetrate the thick walls to shine directly inside. From Selas’s vantage point, he could only see the overgrown garden below, rampant with weeds due to a lack of maintenance.

Down in the garden, a tiny figure was making his way forward.

It was a boy about his age, sharing the same black hair and black eyes. His handsome face, which still carried a hint of baby fat, was etched with utter seriousness.

"Please be careful, Master Caius!" a maid behind him called out anxiously, wanting to step forward out of concern. "The branches here haven’t been pruned in a long time! You’ll easily get hurt if you just walk in like that!"

"Don’t come over." The boy named Caius had a low voice. "Just stand right there."

His voice wasn’t loud, but it carried an unquestionable authority that belonged to someone accustomed to giving orders. The maid didn’t dare to argue and genuinely stopped in her tracks.

The tiny figure continued to weave through the garden. His target was a champagne-colored rose growing deep within. Its color was quite unique. Perhaps because it bloomed in the shadows, lacking the nourishment of sunlight, it appeared much more understated than its overly vibrant peers. This gave it a captivating, mesmerizing beauty instead.

Caius reached the depths of the garden and plucked the flower. As he turned to leave, the exposed back of his hand inevitably brushed against a nearby blade of grass. The sharp edge of the leaf sliced through his skin, leaving a bloody scratch.

Up in the attic, Selas suddenly felt a sharp sting on the exact same spot on the back of his own hand. He raised his hand in bewilderment, staring at the fresh blood abruptly seeping from a wound that had just appeared.

"Master Caius, you’re hurt!" the maid gasped from below. The teenage girl looked at the scratch, completely at a loss, and babbled in a panic, "Does it hurt? Do you need me to bandage it for you right now? Ah, right, we need to wash it first..."

"I’m fine," Caius said, dodging her touch.

He seemed unaccustomed to physical contact with others. Bypassing the worried maid, he headed in the direction of the main house. The two figures, one large and one small, trailing one after the other, quickly disappeared.

This left Selas standing alone by the window, staring at the wound on the back of his hand, his mind in a turmoil that refused to settle for a long time.

Later on, he heard from a few chore maids responsible for sweeping the courtyard that the reason Master Caius had insisted on going to the abandoned garden to pick flowers that day was because the Countess had been in a bad mood, and he wanted to give her a hand-prepared gift. The Countess had been delighted to receive it. However, because Master Caius had gotten hurt, she still severely disciplined the maid who had accompanied him that day.

Of course, this was done in secret, without letting Caius know.

As luck would have it, perhaps heaven itself had been moved by Master Caius’s actions; the cut on his hand healed so quickly that by the very same day, almost no trace of it could be seen.

The maids praised the heir for his filial piety and maturity, commending how, even at such a young age, he knew how to care for his mother. To have a son like him was truly the Countess’s greatest luck.

No one remembered the maid who had been punished. And even fewer knew that in the abandoned attic next to the abandoned garden, there lived a child destined to be discarded...

A sacrificial lamb.