Chapter 198

Ye Zheng quickly left the laboratory and hurried back toward the Papal Palace.

If she wanted to save those women who had mutated because of the dragon bone, she had to make the Demonic Dragon’s power vanish completely. Once the dragon’s power was thoroughly gone, perhaps then the Aberrant Realms would no longer descend upon this nation, and this land might finally welcome a flourishing, prosperous spring.

At this moment, Ye Zheng desperately wished she possessed the ability to travel through time, so she could witness the truth of that era with her own eyes. Unfortunately, that was nothing more than a futile hope. She could only continue searching for traces through other means.

The sky had already darkened, yet the Papal Palace, dominated by platinum hues, still gleamed with brilliance. After renovations carried out by successive Popes, it contained everything one could possibly desire, from churches and banquet halls to galleries and vast libraries.

It had received countless visitors seeking an audience with the Pope. Many magnificent halls were open to outsiders, fully displaying the Pope’s generosity and prestige. However, deep within the Papal Palace lay numerous restricted areas that only the current Pope was permitted to enter.

Ye Zheng changed into a loose, comfortable white robe and walked along the painted corridor. She had already thoroughly inspected and reorganized the entire Papal Palace, including replacing the serving staff with a new group to ensure no remnants of other factions remained behind.

After the Ye family had been sealed off, all the servants had been dismissed. Several maids had voluntarily severed their worldly ties to become nuns, hoping to continue following her. Ye Zheng accepted them, and they had now become part of the Papal Palace.

Her mother had been placed within the Order of Sacred Conduct’s base in the Lower District. As Papess, she had no justification for bringing her own family into the Papal Palace. Unlike the sidelined Saintess, the Papess, as the representative of the gods on earth, was bound by strict requirements in personal matters. Kinship ties had to be clearly defined so she could fully ascend the altar as the “Holy Mother” of all.

“Good evening, Your Holiness!”

A young nun who had just finished cleaning greeted her with bright enthusiasm. She had once been a maid of the Ye family and used to share all sorts of interesting stories while combing Ye Zheng’s hair. If one ignored her current attire and the formal way she addressed her, Ye Zheng would almost feel as though she had returned to the Ye household.

Ye Zheng smiled and exchanged a few casual words with her, just like she used to back at the Ye family.

But unlike in the Ye family, their daily duties now included not only cleaning but also studying finance, resource management, and other administrative knowledge. This was a responsibility Ye Zheng had personally assigned. Maintaining the operations of such an enormous Papal Palace wasn’t any simple task.

The moment the conversation shifted to studying, the other girl’s eyebrows drooped. She no longer reminded Her Holiness to eat on time or rest early, and instead left with a slightly embarrassed expression.

Ye Zheng shook her head with a faint, amused smile and continued walking deeper inside. She wasn’t the kind of strict teacher or leader who demanded perfection. As long as they showed some initiative toward learning, that was enough.

She remembered that the young maid used to secretly confide in her about the kind of men she liked. Yet after the Ye family was disbanded, the girl had chosen to become a nun and remained by her side.

Perhaps she’d been young, swayed by the older maids around her when she made that choice, but Ye Zheng wouldn’t let her come to regret it.

Stopping before a tightly shut door, Ye Zheng tightened her grip on the key in front of her and unlocked it.

She lifted her gaze. The dim lighting made the books inside look even more ancient. The mingled scent of wood and paper pulp felt like stepping onto herb-laced soil, filling the entire room with a faint, timeworn fragrance.

This was the private collection room of the successive Popes. It also housed the Church’s most confidential archives and was said to contain many unique and irreplaceable books.

In the past, her status had been too low to access the Church’s classified materials. To uncover the Church’s secrets, she’d only been able to search the royal family’s library. Now, in order to investigate the secrets linking the royal family and the Demonic Dragon, she could finally open this private study that belonged exclusively to the position of Pope.

What Ye Zheng was searching for was the 『Imperial History』, a book published once every fifty years. It recorded in detailed fashion the major events of each era within the empire, including every emperor, key members of the royal family, Popes, archbishops, and other notable figures who’d made outstanding contributions.

She wanted to uncover the true identity of the Demonic Dragon from five hundred years ago.

There were twelve editions of the 『Imperial History』 in total. Ye Zheng was searching for the third edition, which had been published during the reign of Aston XIV.

Although the current twelfth edition also covered the history of Aston XIV’s era, because that period was too distant and too complicated, the twelfth edition appeared to have either deliberately or unintentionally omitted many details. Even the empress of that time was only mentioned by name, with no further records at all.

There were twenty-one rows of bookshelves in the room. Each Pope had left behind a single row, and every book had been meticulously preserved and carefully protected. This was a tradition that had been started by the first Pope.

Mercè had been a teacher who loved reading, so she’d established this place to gather books she considered especially valuable at the time. She had hoped this hobby would be passed down to future Popes. In her view, people who loved books were rarely too evil or too foolish.

Although later Popes had erased her name, this tradition had still been preserved. Whether they genuinely loved reading or not, the rumor that the Pope possessed such a scholarly and book-loving collection room was still extremely beneficial to their reputation.

『You don’t need to search for the third edition of the Imperial History. I already read it back then. Everything recorded in it is something I knew during my reign.』

Mercè stirred awake once more in her mind. Ye Zheng had already found the third edition of the 『Imperial History』 and was carefully turning its fragile pages. She nodded at Mercè’s words, yet still finished reading the entire book before reluctantly placing it back with a faint sigh of disappointment.

Even with Mercè, the first-generation Papess, assisting her, Ye Zheng still preferred to trust her own search and her own judgment.

The Demonic Dragon was definitely a woman connected to the royal family. She was most likely not a commoner, but someone with a certain degree of fame. However, she wouldn’t have been too famous or too powerful, because that would’ve made it inconvenient to experiment on her and to conceal her true identity.

Suddenly, Mercè spoke within her mind: 『I’m very familiar with all the royal women recorded in the Imperial History you’re holding. To you, they’re history, but to me, some were friends, some were enemies, and I personally presided over some of their funerals.』

Mercè’s tone carried both regret and nostalgia, yet she said nothing further.

“None of them match the time when the Demonic Dragon appeared.”

The Demonic Dragon had been born before the descent of the Aberrant Realms. Although this Imperial History also covered that period, the royal women recorded in it were mostly those who had stood out during the dragon crisis or had close relatives in extremely high positions, added as supplementary records.

The women of that era had been dazzling, but the Demonic Dragon was definitely not any one of them. She was a monster and a villain in the epic, with no known origin.

“Then let’s push the timeline even further back.”

Ye Zheng returned the third edition of the Imperial History to the shelf and began searching for the even earlier second edition.

According to the dates, the second edition of the Imperial History recorded events up to five years before the descent of the Aberrant Realms.

The appearance of the Demonic Dragon and the descent of the Aberrant Realms had destroyed countless cultural treasures of the empire. The second edition, published before the descent, was extremely difficult to find. Even Mercè back then had failed to collect a copy. Ye Zheng could only hope that some previous Pope had, by chance, acquired one from the public.

The room had no windows. Under the dim lighting, Ye Zheng’s dark eyes remained fixed as she meticulously searched every bookshelf, forgetting both time and exhaustion. Bloodshot veins slowly crept into her eyes.

Until, on the fifteenth bookshelf, she suddenly spotted a book with a severely damaged and incomplete cover. Only half of the character “帝” (Imperial) remained.

Her heartbeat suddenly sped up. Instinct urged her to pull out this unremarkable book without a moment’s hesitation.

The instant she opened it, Ye Zheng confirmed it. This was the long-lost second edition of 『Imperial History』!

She skipped over the earlier historical records and started reading from the time Aston XIV ascended the throne. At this point, there were still seven years remaining until the birth of the Aberrant Dragon and the descent of the Aberrant Realms.

“Vincent Aston… ascended the throne at thirteen… married Margaret, the daughter of Duke Henry, at fourteen?”

Ye Zheng slowly lifted her gaze from the page and stared at the dull gray-white wall.

“Mercè, have you ever heard of Empress Margaret?”

『No....』

Mercè thought for a moment before replying.

『When Aston got married at fourteen, I was twelve and living in a remote small town… Now that you mention it, I do have a vague impression of the young emperor’s marriage, but back then, people weren’t very interested in the royal family. A factory with better working conditions mattered far more.』

In the later historical records, the empress of Aston XIV wasn’t named Margaret.

From Mercè’s memories, Ye Zheng saw the familiar empress from that era. She came from a great noble family, yet she was approachable and graceful in her bearing. She had been deeply loved by the people of her time. When she passed away, the entire nation mourned, and her funeral had been personally presided over by the Pope of that time, Mercè.

But she wasn’t Margaret, the one recorded in the second edition of Imperial History, the Margaret who had married Aston XIV at the age of fifteen.

“So Margaret was… the previous late empress?” Ye Zheng murmured. She subconsciously thought of another former empress from the Aston line.