Chapter 277
Chapter 277
55 vouchers
“Keep an eye on Raul. If he goes mad and spreads certain words, your previous little achievement won’t be enough to cover it up.” Leandro said.
He glanced at the courtyard as he gave the order.
Raul mistook him again when he saw him. “Grover? Weren’t you dead?
“Have you come back from the dead again?” Raul questioned.
“I’m telling you, even if you’ve come back to life, I can send you down again!” Raul added.
His gaze turned vicious and cruel as he continued, “Your wife, children, and family, I sent them all to the afterlife. Why have you returned?”
“I’m going to kill you!” he shouted.
As he spoke, he staggered to his feet, grabbed a stick nearby, and brandished it like a sword, charging at Leandro!
“Are you insane!” Joshua yelled.
His eyes reddened with rage. He stepped forward and shoved Raul to the ground. “How could I be so unlucky as to have a father like you! Will you not rest until you’ve destroyed the entire family?”
Just now, Raul’s words truly made his heart pound with fear!
Last time, at the Icy Pool, Tessa said Raul had taken Grover’s place, become the magistrate, changed his name, and used the treasury fraud to climb step by step to where he was today.
Each of these acts, if exposed, would warrant the execution of the entire clan!
Now, Raul went mad, yet he spoke of these things openly and recklessly!
Joshua’s eyes were bloodshot as he pinned Raul down in the snow, both hands gripping his throat tightly, wishing he could end his life right then.
Leandro, at the side,e was also stunned.
He knew Raul was disgraceful, but he hadn’t realized it was to this extent. Now he truly seemed to have become a lunatic!
But seeing Joshua losing control as well, he couldn’t help but remind him, “Joshua, if you strangle him to death today, you won’t escape either.”
“Patricide, murdering an official of the court. Can you bear such charges?” Leandro added.
His voice was low and chilling.
At the words, Joshua’s mind went blank, his grip on Raul falling slack.
Raul gasped for breath, lying on the ground and breathing heavily, staring at the gray sky, his mind momentarily blank.
“Even if he is to die, it’s not your place to do it,” Leandro said.
He glanced at Raul as he spoke.
1/5
12:03 pm DDDD
Chapter 277
He wished he could cut this old man to pieces.
However, he was still useful!
༠:ས་
55 vouchers
Even if he were to die, he had to remain useful to the very end, lasting at least until after the Royal Examinations, until the King had fully purged his faction.
Otherwise, new chaos would erupt.
Once chaos broke out, people died.
It was not the deaths themselves that were feared, but the deaths of the innocent.
Leandro looked at Joshua and said, “If you and your brothers want to survive, keep a close watch on your lunatic father!”
With that, bed and left.
“Who is he?” Joshua asked.
He stared at Leandro’s departing figure, feeling a chill down his spine. “Why is he helping us?”
Russell did not know how to explain.
He wanted to say Leandro belonged to the Stormshade Hall, but then he recalled the threat from his last encounter. In the end, all he could offer was, “When I went to Ramsgate two days ago to retrieve the defense map, it was he who aided me.”
“He probably bears no ill will toward us,” Russell added.
“You went to Ramsgate?” Joshua asked rhetorically.
Only then did he realize and continued, “So, you went to the palace today? The King told you that the matter of the Icy Pool will not be pursued?”
“…Yes,” Russell admitted. “But… I have to leave as well.”
He did not want to stay here.
With that, he turned to leave.
Joshua instinctively tried to stop him, “If you all leave, what am I supposed to do?”
“You can leave too,” Russell said.
He turned around and glanced at Joshua.
“You-“Joshua was stunned, watching Russell leave, and only then realized that, growing up, he was most like Raul
Even though he deeply loathed his current situation, he could never bring himself to run away from home.
Russell disappeared at the doorway.
In a daze, Joshua seemed to see the scene when Margaery left, so resolute, so cold.
At that time, all he felt was rejection and anger.
Now, those emotions were like a sharp blade, stabbed fiercely into his heart.
2/5
2:03 pm DDDD
Chapter 277
Back then, he thought Margaery was immature.
Now, he realized his own cowardice.
55 vouchers
He could not, like Margaery, resolutely leave this quagmire, nor could he, like Andrew, run off to the northern frontier to seek a new future for himself.
Nor could he, like Russell, turn away and leave in disappointment.
He could only loathe and fear, trapped in such disgust and fear.
He was afraid of the unknown.
He was afraid of leaving familiar places, unable to imagine the future he would face after leaving.
Thinking of this, he squatted down, held his head, and cried bitterly.
Yet Raul climbed up and, full of contempt, kicked Joshua in the forehead, “Widow Elara, who the hell are you acting so high ind mighty for? I only slept with you once to blow off steam, and you’d let the whole village know?”
Now that you’ve fallen into my hands today, I’ll show you what it means to be trampled on, what it means to be humiliated!” Raul roared.
oshua was stunned and looked up at him.
How do I look anything like a widow?
What is Raul imagining?‘ Joshua thought to himself.
let, under his utterly bewildered gaze, Raul suddenly shouted, “Someone, hold her down and strip her! I’m going to play her o death today!”
Then he began to unfasten his belt.
Ugh-” Joshua couldn’t help but utter.
Even if it was his own father, he couldn’t take it this time.
He vomited on the spot and cursed, “You sick pervert, go to hell!”
Then, grabbing the stick beside him, he struck Raul on the head!
Raul’s vision went black, and for a split second, his mind cleared.
Looking down and seeing his pants half removed, a surge of humiliation and rage flooded his heart, and he suddenly spat out a mouthful of black blood.
After that, he collapsed to the ground with a crash.
Joshua vomited for a long time, unable to shake off the feeling of disgust. Suddenly, he recalled the filthy thoughts he’d once had about Tessa, and goosebumps broke out all over him.
‘Am 1, perhaps, just as filthy as my father?‘ he thought.
All at once, Raul seemed like a mirror, reflecting Joshua’s heart!
3/5
12:03 pm DDDD
Chapter 277
Joshua was dumbfounded, and a wave of intense self–loathing surged within him.
He got up, dragged Raul somewhat mechanically, and threw him into the woodshed.
Then, he locked the door from the outside.
At the very moment he left, he felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
Once, he had locked someone in just like this.
The memory flooded back: Raul giving the order, himself carrying it out, and Margaery… locked inside.
If Father’s confinement here today is fate turning its wheel, then when would it turn to me?‘ Joshua thought.
He remembered cutting out Keaton’s tongue over the Icy Pool.
At that time, he had treated Keaton as if he were Margaery.
བ་་་
55 vouchers
So, would there come a day when my own tongue would be cut out, left bloody and unable to utter any meaningful syllable?‘ he thought.
Suddenly, Joshua shivered involuntarily.
At that time, would the person who acted against him be Margaery? Or Dashnell?‘ Joshua wondered.
And at this moment, elsewhere, a woman with a pale, bloodless face, resembling a vengeful spirit, was screaming, “You killed my mother, killed my elder sister, I will make you pay back a thousandfold!
‘I want you to go to hell!” she roared.
Her eyes were crimson, filled only with the flames of hatred, as if they would burn everything to ashes.
A handsome man comforted her, “If your heart aches and you are full of hatred, you must remain calm, recover your health, and reinvent yourself. Only then can there be a future and hope.”
His tone was gentle.
Yet there was a devilish allure to it, easily leading one into illusions and making one follow him. “I’ll take you to see Master Landon; he will give you hope.”
A pause, then the voice added, softer, deeper: “So will I.”
In the dim secret chamber, the man’s lips curled upward.
A touch of wicked beauty bloomed amid ambiguity, seductive and enchanting, yet extremely dangerous.
4/5
Sara Lili is a daring romance writer who turns icy landscapes into scenes of fiery passion. She loves crafting hot love stories while embracing the chill of Iceland’s breathtaking cold.
