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Episode 140: The Way They Love (V)
The world was spinning. Red blood, the collapsing body of Heinrich, and finally, the colorful flames that shot up into the black sky.
All of them were crushed together and imprinting into my eyes like a dizzying palette.
I hugged the man who had fallen.
“Heinri!”
Blood, too much blood

There was too much blood from his mouth and from his side.
I groaned and covered the side of Heinrich, where blood was flowing, with my hand.
Cruelly, people had no idea what was going on here.
At the moment of this spectacular fireworks display, only Heinrich and I were crying.
—Help, please, there’s a guy who’s fallen.
I shouted, but my efforts were buried by the cheers of people watching the fireworks.
It was then.
“Annette.”
Shoe-covered feet stood in front of the pool of blood.
Sislin wrapped his arms around my shoulders and looked at me first.
“Sisl, Heinri
!”
After confirming that I was not injured, Sislin immediately picked Heinrich up, carrying him.
When I saw Heinrich drooping in Sislin’s arms, I stood up.
I felt a momentary awakening.
After panicking like this, the thought of losing Heinrich came to mind, and then the veil that covered my eyes was lifted, making my mind terribly clear.
My beautiful dress and Heinrich’s clothes were all covered in blood.
“Duchess!”
“Victoria, call the doctor and arrest him!”
I pointed to the criminal whose eyes were rolling uncontrollably after having lost the dagger.
Victoria wasn’t the only one who heard the order. Beside her was Owin, the aide who followed his master like a shadow.
While the Imperial Guards, who were waiting outside the banquet hall with Owin, rushed in, Sislin and I left the banquet hall without delay.
Meanwhile, there was a man watching this situation without exception.
Gerard’s lips were squashed and bitten. A scream erupted from right next to him.
“Ahhhhhhhh!”
When the cheers of the fireworks were over, the nobles belatedly noticed the commotion and understood the situation.
“What a terrible thing!”
“
Whose blood is this? Was Duchess Valienne injured?”
‘It should’ve been.’
‘It should’ve been that bitch bleeding!’
“I heard it’s the blood of Grand Duke Hyacinth. It looks like he was stabbed deep enough for his life to be at risk.”
Gerard couldn’t understand why the grand duke would risk his life to jump in and cover that girl.
“Shit
!”
In the end, Gerard clenched his fists and cursed; it didn’t end in his victory.
The nobles around looked at Gerard with surprised expressions, but his mind was so heated up that he could not even manage his usual image.
Wasn’t today’s plan perfect?
Gerard was convinced of today’s victory when he smeared Belsac Valentino’s poison on the sharpened dagger.
He smiled when he cast a spell on a drunk nobleman and made him attack Annette.
Wasn’t even the timing perfect?
It was a time when everyone wore masks and enjoyed fireworks, so no one would know if there was a commotion.
Even Sislin wouldn’t be able to stop it.
Because the moment of the attack would only be 1 second, it’s enough!
How refreshing it would be to see the face of Sislin, the frustration he would have because he couldn’t protect that bitch in the midst of a commotion!
So instead of poisoning Annette, he conjured the drunkard to stab her, just like last time.
It was a choice that originated from a dreadful mind that wanted Sislin to feel the same pain of failure and frustration.
Although it ran into a huge variable called Heinrich.
‘Is he crazy? He must have been out of his mind!’
Gerard trembled and looked down at the pool of blood. The owner of the blood was chosen!
Then a lady spoke to him.
“
Prince, are you okay? You’re shaking too much.”
“Move!!!”
“

!”
The lady’s eyes widened at the prince’s unexpected action of pushing her roughly.
It was very different from his external image.
Gerard was not even aware of it. With wild steps, he went out of the banquet hall. The air filled with the pungent smell of gunpowder filled his lungs suffocatingly.
‘Damn it.’
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━
“It’s strange. His face looked like he was poisoned, but there are no traces of poison in his body.”
I looked at Heinrich. The face that always looked at me and smiled was like a corpse, pale and still.
The Heinrich like that was unrealistic, it felt like he was just dreaming.
I had already brought doctors, priests who use divine power, and wizards who were good with magic potions

Everyone said they didn’t know the exact reason.
However, the doctor had said— There was some bleeding, but it wasn’t that there was enough bleeding that he couldn’t come to his senses while lying down.
Perhaps, it’s like a ‘poison’.
“There is now one person who is unconscious with the same symptoms as Grand Duke Hyacinth. His face looked exactly like that, and the symptoms are the same.”
“Who is it?”
“It’s the former magic tower lord.”
“

!”
The moment I heard those words, I knew who the owner of this poison was.
‘Heinrich’s father, Belsac Valentino!’
In the second half of the original work, he created a ‘paralysis poison’ to put the magic tower lord to sleep as he wanted the position.
It was not an important chapter at all in the original story, and I didn’t care because it was impossible to pinpoint the timing and unstoppable.
Since the original and the present reality were already too far apart.
‘Belsac’s poison
 and Gerard.’
The two were holding hands.
The purpose was me, but it was Heinrich who was poisoned while trying to save me.
“

.”
I reached out and stroked Heinrich’s cheek.
“
This is so pitiful.”
Abandoned by his father when he was still in his mother’s womb, forced to lead a miserable life, and now even his father’s poison was trying to kill him

‘If there is a God
’
It shouldn’t be like this.
‘Fate is so cruel only to Heinri.’
“Duchess, for some reason, he was poisoned while already weakened
 If he doesn’t wake up, he’ll die like this.”
‘If you die like this, I can’t live either.’
‘Heinri.’
With trembling hands, I gently caressed his eyelids. I wasn’t sure I would ever see the purple eyes of the boy I loved again.
Those eyes were always arrogant, but beautiful, and the voice that called me playfully

A boy who was abandoned and crooked, but actually had a softer and purer heart than anyone else.
My Heinri, who could not take even a single step from the place I left behind.
“
Sorry.”
Looking at Heinrich’s fingers and body that had dried up in a few days,
I couldn’t breathe and cried.
‘I’m really sorry.’
I should have understood him more.
‘I’m the only one who knows you entirely, Heinri. I made you like this even though I knew it all.’
Knowing what our last conversation meant to Heinrich, that scene came to mind like a stinging wound.
Those words that Heinrich spit out while trembling to the point of being pathetic.
“If you don’t love me the most, I’d rather you hate me the most
”
Even though he was hurt by my words, even though he was desperate, he couldn’t stop.
“I’d rather you hate me.”
I should have hugged him then.
“I wouldn’t do that, Heinrich.”
Hot tears ran down my cheeks. I cradled Heinrich’s hand with both of mine.
His body temperature was terribly cold.
No matter how long I held his cold hand, even if my tears wet the back of his hand, I was afraid that the warm body temperature would not return.
It seemed like he was getting farther away
“Heinrich, I can’t forgive you.”
‘To you
 I shouldn’t have been so harsh.’
I remembered myself turning around coldly, so I bit my lip in regret, closing my eyes.
Even when I closed my eyes, I remembered vividly.
That day, how lonely Heinrich was.
“Heinrich.”
Please wake up.
“Please just get up
 That shouldn’t be the last conversation we had.”
‘How am I supposed to live like this? My heart aches, even if I die, I will cry while beating my chest.’
“Please. Wake up.”
All I could do was pray to God. I stayed up all night, neither eating nor sleeping, just watching Heinrich.
I prayed earnestly.
Only the moonlight quietly shone through the windows, and the night flowed, harshly like shattering bones.