Chapter 231

 Peering through the narrow crack in the door, Ye Zheng watched as the young man paced slowly around the room, his eyes roaming restlessly as though searching for something.

He suddenly came to a halt and turned toward a particular spot.

Ye Zheng immediately withdrew her gaze and silently slipped into the memorial hall's cabinet to hide. The image of Aston XIV glancing in her direction moments earlier still lingered vividly in her mind.

He looked remarkably young, his gloomy disposition carrying a trace of fragility that showed through despite himself. He was nothing like the tall, striking figure remembered by later generations.

Curled inside the cabinet, Ye Zheng listened as the heavy bronze door groaned open and someone approached.

Margaret knew about the future. But what about Aston XIV? Why had he suddenly appeared here?

Ye Zheng rested a hand on the sword at her waist. Within the cramped cabinet, the only sound was the quiet rhythm of her breathing.

“Your Majesty, what brings you here?”

A firm, measured set of footsteps entered the chapel, followed almost immediately by a woman's calm inquiry.

“…I heard your younger sister came by to play again, and I simply wished to greet her. That's all.”

“I've already had someone escort her home. The next time she visits, I'll bring her to see you.”

“Someone told me that not long ago you brought her back to your bedchamber, so…”

“Who told you that?” Margaret cut in. “My sister encountered an accident on her way home. I was only rushing to deal with it. I didn't expect someone to twist the situation and feed you such nonsense afterward. It seems the incident wasn't an accident after all. A proper investigation is clearly necessary. What do you think?”

Faced with Margaret's relentless questioning, the young emperor faltered. Even his voice grew noticeably rigid.

“What? She was in an accident? Then... yes, it certainly must be investigated thoroughly…”

Leaning quietly against the cabinet door, Ye Zheng listened to the exchange between them. The longer she listened, the more amusing she found it.

Silence soon settled over the room.

Then the cabinet door was abruptly pulled open.

Ye Zheng, sitting cross-legged inside, and Margaret, standing outside, looked directly into each other's eyes.

Margaret scooped her up once again. Ye Zheng noticed that Margaret performed the motion with effortless familiarity. It wasn't the ease of affection, but the instinctive habit of someone who had done it countless times before.

“Your younger sister is about the same age as I am now.”

“Mm. She's only eight years old too.”

Ye Zheng asked, “What happened just now? Is your younger sister alright?”

Margaret carried the little girl in her arms and casually swept her gaze across the traces left behind in the room, making no comment. She stepped out onto the balcony with Ye Zheng, where the magnificent imperial palace stretched out in full view beneath them.

“She's fine. I made preparations beforehand. He won't be able to lay a hand on her for the time being.”

Margaret's answer only deepened Ye Zheng's confusion. From the way she spoke, it sounded as though Aston XIV intended to target Margaret's eight-year-old younger sister. But why?

“Margaret, who exactly are you?”

Ye Zheng tipped her head back to look at her. Sunlight glimmered in her dark eyes, reflecting bewilderment, along with a faint trace of melancholy that even she herself hadn't noticed.

For some reason, whenever she looked at Margaret's pale brows, light-colored eyes, and vivid crimson hair, she always felt as though she were gazing at the last veil of morning mist before the scarlet sun rose above the horizon.

“Ye Zheng, I don't know how to answer that question either.”

“From the moment I was born, I already knew the fate of the ‘Demonic Dragon.’”

“Am I living as Margaret, or am I living as the Demonic Dragon? I can't tell the difference myself.”

It was an answer Ye Zheng had never imagined.

In every possibility she had considered, Margaret had been someone deceived, framed, and manipulated by the emperor, ultimately sacrificed as part of a conspiracy and forced against her will to transform into the Demonic Dragon.

“…If you don't know who ‘Margaret’ is, then can you tell me... what exactly is the ‘Demonic Dragon’?”

Margaret fell silent, lost in thought. Only after a long pause did she finally speak.

“The Demonic Dragon is me, yet it isn't me. At the very least, the me who stands before you now can't understand the me who is the Demonic Dragon. But regardless of everything else, becoming the Demonic Dragon is the end that awaits me.”

“You call it the ‘Demonic Dragon,’ but that title isn't truly appropriate. If anything, it understates what it actually is. ‘Demon God’ would be a far more fitting name.”

“Demon God…” Ye Zheng murmured under her breath.

The God of Hope had been nothing more than a fabrication. But if that was the case, did genuine gods still exist in this world?

Then, on second thought, wasn't the existence of the system and the readers, from the perspective of the world she lived in, something not unlike deities themselves?

Ye Zheng was still lost in contemplation when her body suddenly grew light. Margaret effortlessly lifted her once more and settled her sideways atop the balcony railing. A warm breeze brushed across her face. Gazing at the palace, bathed in golden sunlight until it seemed to glow, she narrowed her eyes slightly.

One arm encircled little Ye Zheng securely while Margaret raised the other, pointing toward an unassuming palace in the distance. Amid the gentle, comforting breeze, she spoke in a soft voice.

“In three more days, I'll transform into a dragon there and unleash a devastating catastrophe upon this world.”

Ye Zheng's eyes flew wide open. She turned sharply to look at Margaret's profile, its edges washed in warm, golden light.

“Three days?”

“Mm. Vincent can no longer tolerate a world that refuses to bend to his will. He's reached an agreement with a deity from another world. In exchange for sacrificing the lives of everyone in the kingdom, the Aston royal family, along with Vincent Aston himself, will never perish.”

Ye Zheng's pupils contracted.

“The deity from another world... what is it?”

“It is the race you've already seen, the dragon-bodied people. They are an all-female species that reproduces through bones carrying their own genetic inheritance.”

Ye Zheng stared at Margaret, her lips parting only to close again. Too many questions crowded her mind, lodging in her throat until she didn't know which one to ask first.

Sensing her hesitation, Margaret patiently continued.

“I will transform into one of their kind and personally reap the lives of the kingdom's people to complete the sacrifice. But a single catastrophe isn't enough to endlessly prolong the lives of the royal family, and of Vincent, who should've died long ago... That's why the Demonic Dragon will never truly disappear. It won't stop bringing calamity upon the world.”

“The Demonic Dragon is an omniscient and omnipotent existence to this world. Because of that, I know both the past and the future. The moment you obtained the bone that belongs to me, your arrival here became inevitable.”

A faint loneliness lingered beneath Margaret's voice, threaded with quiet self-mockery.

“But don't worry. You'll be the one to end me, to bring this catastrophe spanning several centuries to its conclusion.”

“Perhaps ‘Margaret’ exists for the sole purpose of waiting for you... to atone for the future.”

Her quiet words drifted away on the breeze.

Suddenly, Ye Zheng reached out and gripped Margaret's hand with unexpected force.

Margaret, still lost in memories and emotions of her own, lowered her head in surprise. The instant their eyes met, her heart lurched heavily in her chest.

At that moment, Ye Zheng finally understood the source of the unease Margaret had always given her.

She possessed a fierce, dazzling spirit, yet she had been imprisoned within a future where no light existed.

“Why not try to change all of this?” Ye Zheng asked.

A look of quiet helplessness surfaced in Margaret's eyes.

“My fate is a dead end, Ye Zheng.”

“Of course I have a way to avoid becoming the sacrifice myself. But the moment I prevent my future self from becoming the Demonic Dragon, the me who exists now will lose the ability to foresee the future. And without that knowledge, I'll still fall into his trap...”

“Even if I'm not the one who becomes the Demonic Dragon, someone else will. That's precisely why he's set his sights on my younger sister.”

“Ye Zheng, the Demonic Dragon has a weakness. I'll tell you now... Please make sure you completely destroy the me who exists five hundred years in the future...”

Margaret's voice grew more and more urgent as she planted both hands against the railings on either side of Ye Zheng, effectively trapping her between them. Without warning, Ye Zheng shoved her away, slipping free from the suffocating confinement of her embrace.

“Please, wait a moment!”

Ye Zheng tilted her head. “Why are you so certain Vincent Aston made a wish to the Dragonic people?”

A flicker of confusion crossed Margaret's face. She couldn't understand why Ye Zheng had suddenly steered the conversation in such an unexpected direction.

She could only stare at Ye Zheng as she murmured, “The Demonic Dragon slaughtered so many people and brought about countless disasters... all to fulfill his wish...”

Ye Zheng slowly raised a hand and pointed at Margaret's chest. Her pitch-black eyes were piercing, carrying a weight that felt almost tangible.

“What if I told you the Demonic Dragon was summoned by you, Margaret?”

Margaret stood frozen for a heartbeat before stumbling back an entire step, shock flooding her face. She stared at Ye Zheng in utter disbelief, as though she couldn't even begin to process what she'd just heard.

“Aston XIV may have made a bargain with some deity. I don't know which god it was, but I'm certain the Dragonic people descended because they answered your call.”

Not long ago, Lin Zhixing had told her about the existence of "consciousness frequency." If it was truly a universal principle that transcended worlds, then the people of this world could very well establish connections with beings from other realms through resonating frequencies of consciousness.

Compared with Aston XIV, the Dragonic people, a race from another world, seemed far more likely to be drawn to someone like Margaret. The fact that Margaret herself had become the Demonic Dragon only made that conclusion seem even more convincing.

They probably hadn't been the ones to strike a bargain with Aston XIV. Instead, at some pivotal moment, stirred by a matching frequency of consciousness, they'd chosen Margaret, the young woman who was on the verge of being offered as a sacrifice by the Aston family.

“Margaret, three days from now, you have to take me with you. I want to witness Aston XIV's transaction and ritual with my own eyes.”

“The way to end the disaster... is absolutely not by killing the Demonic Dragon.”