Chapter 750: Long-Awaited Reunion

Lausanne the Second was silent, expressionless, giving no response to Belicia's mockery and belittlement.

Only after Belicia adjusted her emotions did she slowly rise and leave the killer's side.

"In the past, did I ever tell you about my past?"

She looked toward the weak lamp in the corner, leaving the captive only a graceful back.

Her past...

Lausanne the Second frowned slightly.

"Yes."

More than once.

"I just do not know..."

Lausanne the Second raised his gaze and examined the back that had once been so familiar.

"Which sentence inside was true."

For an instant, Belicia's eyes flashed with a daze.

"Of course..."

She immediately smiled, folded her arms, and turned her head.

"All of it was false."

All of it was made up.

Lausanne the Second was silent in the darkness for a long while.

"No wonder."

He said in release,

"No wonder every sentence sounded so reasonable."

Belicia laughed.

For an instant, Lausanne the Second seemed to see again the girl who had sat with him on the rooftop, silent across from him.

"My name is not Belicia. At least, it was not at first."

Belicia looked into the dark corner the lamp could not illuminate, as if gazing toward a distant past.

"This was only, how should I put it, a stage name?"

Her tone was teasing.

Lausanne the Second said nothing.

"When I was little, Blade Edge Territory first suffered disaster, then famine. By the time my family fled all the way to Jade City, most of my family were already dead," Belicia snorted softly. "My uncle sent me into the relief home run by the Sunset Temple. Do not look down on that spot. Back then, even that required connections."

But she soon turned around, blocking the lamp in the corner.

"Until I finally discovered that old pig of a priest did not agree to take me in because my uncle 'found connections.'"

Belicia was expressionless.

"Do you know what it feels like when a venerable elder whom you normally respect deeply, a person of high virtue and prestige, smiles and says, 'You are like my daughter, you make me feel close,' while putting his hand into your clothes?"

Lausanne the Second's eyes moved.

He looked at Belicia again.

"Then did you... resist him?"

Belicia scoffed, her face full of disdain.

"Heh. That was what they asked too."

"Who?"

"Them. After the incident, the people the matrons found to 'uphold justice,'" Belicia's gaze was deep. "Seven or eight equally venerable male priests sat in a room, faces serious, wording severe, with a clerk beside them, requiring me to confront that pig face-to-face and prove my innocence."

Innocence?

Lausanne the Second heard the emotion hidden in these words.

He fell silent at the right time and said no more.

Belicia took out a new cigarette and laughed mockingly.

"And their first sentence, compared with yours, could not be said to be exactly the same. It could only be said to be..."

Did you resist?

She shook her head and sneered.

"'Why did you not run?' 'Why did you not resist?' 'Why did you not tell anyone?' 'Why did you accept his benefits?' 'Why did you only come forward after so long?' 'Do you not have problems yourself?' 'Was it voluntary after all?' 'What exactly is your purpose?' And finally, with awe-inspiring righteousness, 'What exactly will satisfy you?'"

Lausanne the Second remained silent.

He should not speak at this time.

Even if it was an old matter from many years ago.

At least, he could not speak like those priests who interrogated her.

He could not.

"Resist. Hmph. Yes, resist," Belicia seemed immersed in the past, her tone sarcastic. "You say it, they say it, as if you truly care."

The woman's gaze gradually blurred.

As if by moving your upper and lower lips and saying, resist, you could easily block all harm in this world.

Like workers resisting bosses, subordinates resisting superiors, apprentices resisting masters, sons resisting fathers, wives resisting husbands, slaves resisting owners, the people resisting officials, subjects resisting kings...

So easy. So simple.

So...

Did you resist?

If not...

Were you willing?

If not... at least not obviously...

Then did you not deserve it?

Belicia took a deep breath and returned to the present.

"Putting aside that pig's position in the home, his connections in the upper levels, his identity, his power, his... everything."

Her gaze was cold, her cheek twitching.

"Every time afterward, that pig would comfort me, saying he would protect and care for me, speaking gently and softly, just like the day he took me in..."

She clutched the cigarette tightly but did not light it.

"And the benefits he used to promise, tempt, and reward me: better meals, lighter work, more rest, and... care and concern showing that among all the apprentices, he valued you more... all the things you dreamed of on the road while fleeing famine..."

And when she first discovered that as long as she submitted, she could receive rewards, could stop starving and freezing, could escape her situation, and could even stand above others...

Belicia paused, as if she had suddenly choked.

She took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. The motion was so difficult it was as if she had used all the strength of her life to struggle free of this suffocating air.

"So by the end, when they questioned me, even I could not understand it anymore. Was I truly willing? Did my failure to resist violently count as consent? Did receiving his care mean I had tacitly agreed?"

"You were not."

Lausanne the Second suddenly spoke.

Belicia smiled.

"Then what about you, killer?"

She raised her head and looked coldly at the captive.

"Were you also not willing to kill? Not willing to walk the path of an assassin?"

"I..."

Lausanne the Second wanted to speak, but found himself without words.

On this battlefield he did not understand, and had never cared about,

the blade he took pride in was not as sharp as he imagined.

"For a while before the incident, the girl in the lower bunk in my room sensed something," Belicia ignored him and continued by herself. "That fierce girl was probably a refugee from the north. Strong and bold. She said nothing, but during morning lessons, secretly stuffed a blade into my hand."

Lausanne the Second's eyes lit up.

"But she thought too easily."

Belicia's gaze was still as dead water.

"That pig was very strong, not something a skinny little girl who never had enough to eat could compare with. He knocked the blade from my hand in one blow. It only scratched a little skin. As for me, I was not so lucky. As punishment..."

The woman laughed coldly and opened her clothes toward Lausanne the Second, revealing the tattoo on her left breast, a black-and-white Eternity Flower with complex patterns.

"Remember this tattoo? Back then, you even said it was beautiful..."

Lausanne the Second frowned deeply and looked at that black-and-white Eternity Flower with sorrow.

In the next second, the smile on the woman's face turned cold.

"But it was not for beauty or seduction. It was to conceal."

Belicia closed her lapel and said coldly.

"The original place was carved with that pig's family surname, written in noble and classical ancient Imperial script. Ha, I grew up that much and it was the first time I learned ancient Imperial script could be so complicated, with so many strokes, as if it could never be finished."

Or rather, never finished carving.

After speaking, she laughed, as if this truly were amusing.

The killer captive had remained silent. Only now did he speak.

"Later, did you obtain justice?"

Belicia was silent for a long time.

She lowered her head and looked at the cigarette in her hand, expressionless.

Justice.

What was that?

Another name for power?

Belicia raised her head, a cold smile at the edge of her mouth.

"After that, without anyone noticing when it began, the way everyone in the relief home looked at me changed, including the girl who had given me the blade. Why are you so weak? You did not even dare resist?"

She looked at Lausanne the Second, her words malicious and cutting.

"From that day on, in everyone's mouth, I became a 'bitch': a bitch so desperate for men she went mad, a bitch who sold her body to please a priest, a bitch who would do anything to climb upward, a bitch full of lies and schemes, a bitch who threw a tantrum and dragged someone down because the money and breakup fee were not enough, a bitch who had probably been fucked rotten by who knew how many people in secret... One day, when I followed a matron out to buy things, an eight- or nine-year-old beggar chased me with a grin and asked: if it was him, would ten coppers be enough?"

After saying this, Belicia even laughed once, bending at the waist.

Lausanne the Second became even more silent.

The woman sighed and adjusted her breathing.

"I was too stupid then. For this bit of nonsense, I could not think my way out and hanged myself, right before the statue of the Sunset Goddess."

Lausanne the Second's gaze trembled slightly.

"Until a matron found me and, with first aid, a little luck, and prayer, or in her words, divine arts, pulled me back from the edge of the Prison River."

Belicia rubbed the cigarette in her hand. Her words became much calmer.

As if she were telling someone else's story.

"But she understood that I could not stay in the temple anymore. So privately, she let me go, using another girl's corpse, back then, children died on the streets every day, to replace me."

Belicia's emotions were steady, her face calm.

And so that day, she died.

The nun apprentice died.

The girl died.

The woman scoffed softly.

"And the dead girl who replaced me was called Belicia."

Belicia.

Lausanne the Second looked at her with complicated eyes.

"That priest from the relief home... that pig. What was his name?"

He spoke softly, cautiously.

Belicia came back to herself and stared at the killer for a long time before snorting disdainfully.

"Why are you asking?"

Lausanne the Second squeezed his remaining fist and said through clenched teeth:

"Tell me that with your ability, at least your present ability, you made him pay."

Belicia quietly stared at him.

In the end, the woman nodded.

"Of course. He paid in the end."

But not in the way he should have.

"And I was free."

She sighed and returned to reality.

"But fate was not that kind. Jade City back then was not suitable for a little girl to survive alone outside," the woman said calmly. "Fortunately, when I was nearly about to die in the street, a wealthy merchant from the capital who had come to Jade City on business saved me."

She spoke faintly.

"Also fortunately, by then I already understood that no one's generosity came without a price. That merchant was not doing charity, nor did he save just anyone he saw."

Lausanne the Second frowned.

"But to eat my fill, to survive, to avoid dying on the street, I was willing to do anything, including pretending to be pitiful before that merchant, including all the skills I had 'learned' from that pig, skills for pleasing men."

Belicia sneered mockingly.

"Only this time, I could no longer argue that I 'was not willing.'"

She raised her head, her gaze sinking into the darkness of the dungeon.

And so that day, she lived.

The bitch lived.

Lausanne the Second closed his eyes.

"Just like that, the merchant kept me. He spent generously. Aside from not liking to tell me where the villa gate key was, and not allowing the servants to let me go out, everything was quite good. So good that I thought perhaps this would be my life."

Belicia walked to the lamp, calmly lit this third cigarette, slowly took a drag, and only then turned back.

"Until his wife in the capital discovered our affair."

She laughed.

"Very amusing. It seems this was not the first time she had encountered such a thing. Even more amusing was that the first person she thought of confronting was not her husband."

Belicia turned with the cigarette in hand, smiling beautifully.

"That old pious hag was burning with jealousy. From the Iron Bat Society, which specialized in trafficking people, she paid to hire a group of kidnappers to travel all the way to Jade City and 'solve' me."

Solve.

Lausanne the Second suddenly discovered that from this point on, Belicia's tone no longer trembled or hurt. It even carried a light teasing ease.

As if from then on, everything became ordinary.

Nothing more than common trifles.

"And on the night after that group of kidnappers abducted me, enjoyed me, and prepared to sell me to Harvest Town the next day..."

Belicia took another drag and talked and laughed naturally amid the smoke.

"I racked my brains and used the skills I had learned from that pig, and perhaps from that merchant too."

She narrowed her eyes.

"I persuaded, or rather, slept-persuaded, the leader of those kidnappers. After much effort, I finally made that brain of his, smaller than his dick, start turning. How much could they earn by merely kidnapping women and children and secretly selling them to Harvest Town, selling them to poor bachelors?"

Belicia's eyes moved, playful and cute.

"And for doing me, in every sense of the phrase, how much money had that old hag employer paid them? Was it more than the merchant's family fortune?"

The woman whistled.

"So I was lucky. I was not sold to Harvest Town like the other goods they handled."

She smiled.

"Instead, those kidnappers kidnapped the wealthy merchant."

Lausanne the Second listened quietly.

"Of course, the story did not end well."

Belicia looked at the cigarette.

"The merchant was frightened senseless and would not cooperate. His wife refused to pay, and even hoped he would die cleanly. The kidnappers argued among themselves, and their boss Gary, that adorable Gary, began to think he had been tricked by me."

She laughed until tears came out.

"But just like that pig priest and that merchant..."

Belicia's smile gradually disappeared, and her gaze slowly sharpened.

"Dear Gary never once asked, from beginning to end: whether I was willing."

Belicia glanced at the killer and sneered.

"But the good news was, this time, finally no one came chattering to question me, 'Why did you not resist?'"

Lausanne the Second took a deep breath.

"What happened later?"

Belicia exhaled smoke.

"Remember that unlucky merchant?" She raised her brows. "Kidnapping plus killing the hostage. In other places, I do not know, but in Jade City, that violated a major taboo."

Of course, the taboo was not kidnapping.

Belicia twitched her lips.

It was the wealthy merchant.

Kidnapping? That was a big matter.

Kidnapping a wealthy merchant? Wow, incredible. That was a fundamental matter shaking the foundation of the Star Kingdom, damaging the honor and reputation of the entire South Coast Territory, violating the duke's governing policy, and affecting the foundation, life, and death of Jade City.

After all, no matter involving a wealthy merchant is small.

"I hear the old duke personally spoke. Jade City was put under martial law. The Jade Legion and security officers pursued relentlessly. Gary and his people had no choice but to flee east and west."

Belicia curled her lip in disdain.

"Until they were found by the Blood Bottle Gang, tortured to death, and not a single one missed his trip to the open sea."

It was said they visited quite a few places. On average, each person visited four or five.

"Was it that they were found by the Blood Bottle Gang," Lausanne the Second noticed something strange and could not help asking, "or that you exposed them to the Blood Bottle Gang?"

Belicia snorted softly.

"Is there a difference?"

She took a heavy drag until she could not bear it and coughed repeatedly.

"But this time, I was not so lucky."

The woman's gaze froze.

"Before escaping Gary, I did my best to erase every clue, but the Blood Bottle Gang still caught me."

Belicia slowly reached out, pressed the nearly finished cigarette to the ground, and rubbed it back and forth.

"And sent me before him."

The expression on her face disappeared.

"Only this time, the man I met, this new boss, was different from the previous ones. He did not touch me. He did not even look at me."

Belicia snorted, carrying both disdain and hatred.

"He only said that he saw something in me, something ordinary mistresses did not have."

Her breathing gradually quickened.

"He forced me to answer: did I want to continue living like this, leaning east and west, tying my livelihood to another person, or did I want to use my talents..."

Lausanne the Second opened his eyes, filled with coldness.

"Turnbull."

Belicia snorted softly and nodded in admission.

"That was the first time I met old gang leader. No, old lantern."

Her eyes once again became a pool of dead water.

"From that day on, I became his bitch."

A true bitch.

His tool.

His weapon.

"Just like that, I changed identities and used my strengths. Soldiers, merchants, shipowners, security officers, even Blood Bottle Gang colleagues who threatened Turnbull... from a village girl determined to repay kindness, to a refined and otherworldly fallen young lady, to a stage actress disappointed by life. I acted out every kind of script, probing intelligence for Turnbull, drawing in allies, attacking enemies and even our own people."

Hearing this, Lausanne the Second could not help noticing:

Belicia had not smiled for a long time.

"Until one day, I met another man."

She raised her head.

"Sonar Covendier."

Lausanne the Second's attention was drawn again.

"He sat there at a luxurious tea table with calm posture, politely and respectfully invited me to sit, and asked whether I would honor him with dinner and incidentally talk about Gang Leader Turnbull's loyalty."

Belicia opened the corners of her mouth and revealed a smile exaggerated enough to seem distorted.

"As expected of a great person born noble, from a famed house, the lord of Archsea City. Every movement of his was noble and elegant, every word understanding. He warmed the heart even more than that pig priest's smile."

The woman spoke faintly, hiding a hatred almost impossible to detect.

"Of course, until he also died unclearly at an assassin's hand."

Her words fell, and her shoulders began to shake.

At first, Lausanne the Second thought she was sobbing.

But he quickly discovered that she was laughing.

Laughing without stopping.

"Hahahahahaha..."

Belicia clutched her shoulder, the curve of her mouth exaggerated, and let out strange laughter cold enough to chill the bones.

"Hahahaha..."

The laughter echoed through the dungeon, but Lausanne the Second only felt heavy.

He was silent amid the laughter for a long time.

"I am sorry."

Only when Belicia had laughed until her mouth was dry and the dungeon returned to silence did the killer slowly speak.

"But I... I do not know. I do not even know whether this story you told me, these experiences, are true."

Belicia snorted coldly.

"Because these experiences are all too coincidental, yes? How could I be so unlucky and somehow never meet a good person?"

Lausanne the Second frowned.

"No, I only..."

"If you do not believe the logic of it, then naturally it is false, something I made up."

Belicia turned her head indifferently.

"Believe what you want to believe. It would not be the first time anyway."

"Belicia..."

"But according to your words, I was also in a so-called 'cage.'"

The woman interrupted him and said coldly,

"From the beginning, from one man to the next, one identity to the next, one cage to the next."

Lausanne the Second was silent.

"So what?"

Belicia's gaze turned sharp.

"Does knowing that make you feel better? Make you feel that we are both pitiful, both helpless, both clean?"

The killer opened his mouth, but still could not speak.

"No."

Belicia stared at him.

"My struggle is not the same as yours."

Lausanne the Second slowly raised his head.

"Yes."

His voice was hoarse.

"It is not the same."

Belicia froze slightly.

"My suffering is not your suffering," the killer said through clenched teeth. "My cage is not your cage."

He looked at her.

"My struggle, and the struggle in my three lives..."

He clenched his teeth.

"Were never the same thing as yours."

Belicia did not speak immediately. She only watched him coldly.

Lausanne the Second did not avoid it either. He only stubbornly looked back at her.

As if this moment was the truest long-awaited reunion between the two after many years apart.

Until Belicia curled her lips.

"One day, the old matron from the relief home found me. Somehow, she recognized me."

Even though the girl had died and the bitch had revived.

Even though I had long since become unrecognizable.

"Old matron..." Lausanne the Second frowned.

"The one who saved me and let me go," Belicia did not explain further. "She had a terminal illness and not long to live."

The woman narrowed her eyes.

"Only one matter remained that she could not let go."

"What matter?"

"After I died back then, that pig priest was transferred and suspended. But once the storm passed, he returned to his post, as if people had forgotten what he had done."

Or rather, did not care what he had done.

After all, it was not easy for the temple to cultivate a qualified good priest. He could not be ruined by a few scandals and rumors, right?

"The Sunset Temple and Jade City covered it up from top to bottom, as if nothing had happened."

"What?" Lausanne the Second's breathing quickened.

"Yes. Even more unfortunately, that pig was soon going to take office as a city's deputy chief priest, and had a teacher-student relationship with the district chief priest. He was an honored guest of every major family. If things were managed properly, he might even become a regional chief priest who educated the masses. Especially since he started from the relief home, in the temple high-level's eyes, he was a rare talent trained from the grassroots."

Belicia spoke with disdain.

Besides...

After the disturbance, returning to his official position...

Did that not prove this priest had withstood investigation and testing, clear and aboveboard?

It also proved the Sunset Temple was upright and proper, appointing the worthy without fear of gossip.

As for the ranks of Sunset priests, they were as pure and just as ever.

The result was already out, the dust settled. Were you still going to question the decision of the temple higher-ups?

Who the hell did you think you were?

The chief priest or the deputy chief priest?

Belicia pressed a hand over her left breast, breathing hurriedly.

"The matron tried every method. Anonymous reports, appeals to superiors, even disregarding her reputation and crying out loudly. None of it worked."

Belicia snorted coldly.

"In fact, in the monastery that pig was about to take over, there were several senior nuns he had ruined before. All of them dared to be angry but dared not speak."

Lausanne the Second did not move.

"And so, after praying thousands, tens of thousands of times, yet never receiving the goddess's answer, the old matron made a decision..."

Belicia's gaze was complicated.

A decision that, for the matron herself, was deeply sinful just to think of, and contrary to Sunset teachings to even propose. It would bring divine punishment upon her and send her forever into hell.

"When she was young, the matron failed to protect her girls."

"And now, she was going to die."

Belicia shook her head and opened a smile.

"She did not want to leave regrets."

Lausanne the Second understood something and changed expression slightly with feeling and surprise.

"She wanted to..."

"The matron took out the savings she had kept for many years, though there was not much, less than what could be earned on the street, and found me."

Belicia spoke softly.

Once, for the greater good, the matron had endured and remained silent.

Now, she betrayed her faith to seek atonement.

"I do not know why it was me. Perhaps she saw that I had gone wild and ultimately had not walked the proper path. Or perhaps she thought I was dirty enough and should not mind doing one more dirty job?"

Belicia said sarcastically.

"But the matter involved the temple and upper-level nobles, and carried consequences and risk of warrants and retaliation. In all Jade City and even South Coast Territory, no one dared take this job. Merely asking about it was enough to make the fiercest drug dealers under North Gate Bridge cover their ears and avoid it."

Belicia's smile disappeared.

But she had to accomplish it.

No matter how difficult.

She had to.

"I had no other way. I could only find Turnbull. And the old lantern answered..."

Belicia's expression was serious.

"There is only one person."

"One person?"

Belicia nodded.

"Old gang leader told me that in Jade City now, there was only one person, one swordsman. Only he dared accept, and could accept, this kind of job that would offend countless people, leave endless future troubles, and perhaps require hiding one's name and traces forever afterward."

A swordsman.

In that instant, Lausanne the Second remembered something, and his whole body trembled.

"Yes. Only him."

Belicia repeated softly.

But you see, he has played at chivalry for too long. Pedantic and stubborn. Other than self-defense and revenge, asking him to take money to kill...

Belicia gazed at the distracted captive, remembering Turnbull's meaningful words back then.

Unless. Unless someone gives him a push, makes him throw away those frames and rules, and cross the final line...

"And so, Turnbull made the introduction, and the matron found that swordsman."

Belicia closed her eyes and drove old gang leader's words from her mind.

"The matron did not tell me more. She only said the latter accepted the job, even though the pay was meager."

Belicia took a deep breath.

"Not only that. Before leaving, he casually gave the matron a bottle of medicine and said it could-"

"Could treat her cough."

Lausanne the Second interrupted her.

The vampire killer dazedly took up Belicia's words.

"I told her that medicine could make her... feel easier."

Lausanne the Second moved his lips in a trance.

"As long as... it was dissolved into blood."

It could revive the dead and restore flesh to bone.

Heal the terminal illness in that poor old woman's body.

Belicia smiled.

"Yes. The matron said his attitude made it seem as if that bottle of stuff was nothing, as if it could be thrown away casually."

Without realizing it, Lausanne the Second's expression became mournful, his lips trembling.

Why?

He asked in sorrow, looking into the endless darkness of the dungeon.

And looking toward the old days.

Why?

"But the matron never used that bottle of medicine before she died. She recognized it. Do not forget, she had once been a nun of the temple too."

Belicia took a deep breath.

"Before she passed away, she gave that incomparably precious source blood to me," the woman looked at the dazed killer, her tone rarely calm and indifferent, "and asked me to find a chance to return it to its owner."

That child needs it more than this old woman, who is destined for hell.

Belicia slowly crouched and spoke softly.

"As for that priest..."

"Dead."

Lausanne the Second remembered something, his eyes lost.

"I killed him. I still... at the time."

At a banquet, from under the protection of a full team of temple bodyguards and guards.

He was bathed in blood, covered in wounds, and had nearly been caught by the Jade Legion.

Because he was not practiced, simply locking onto the target had wasted an hour.

But he still succeeded.

He killed him.

Killed that priest.

Lausanne the Second closed his eyes.

"For... for that old woman's payment."

Or something else.

Belicia smiled.

The smile was sincere and natural.

"Back then, after Dogfang Bott died, regarding the next target, Turnbull gave me several choices, from high officials to nobles, from giant merchants to big bosses..."

She rested a hand on the killer's shoulder and said gently,

"But I knew my choice."

If only to return it to its owner.

Thinking of that solid source blood, Lausanne the Second's thoughts were chaotic. He only felt all strength leave him.

"I told you, my dear," Belicia sighed. "The first time I saw you, I knew we were the same kind of person."

"Because you were damaged."

Lausanne the Second trembled at these words.

"Just like me."

In that instant, amid the boundless darkness of the dungeon, Belicia bloomed with the gentlest and most lovely smile.

Just as she had back then.

And so from that time on, Jade City lost one devout matron.

And lost one filthy pig.

But gained a cold-blooded killer.

And a vicious bitch.