Chapter 358: Chapter 358

The moment he saw the guest’s face, Cadel couldn’t help but panic.

‘Jeffrey Holiven?’

His eyes were set fiercely, and his hair was dark bronze. He looked much younger than his present self, but it was unmistakable. The man sipping black tea with Helena at his side was unmistakably Jeffrey Holiven, Yozen’s longtime target.

“Helena……!”

“Ho, honey.”

As soon as Andy saw Helena’s pale face, he threw down the fish he’d brought and pulled her behind him. Her gaze down at Jeffrey was a mixture of wariness and faint fear.

“Who are you, and why did you show up unannounced at someone else’s house?”

Jeffrey stared at Andy without taking his mouth off his teacup. Andy’s eyebrows arched at the lifeless, corpse-like look in his eyes. Helena, who had been watching them together, turned quickly as soon as there was an opening and ran to Yozen.

“Yozen, wait outside.”

“Yes……?”

“Just wait, it won’t be long.”

Helena patted Yozen on the back as he stood stunned. But Yozen, sensing something was amiss, hesitated, unwilling to leave. He glanced back and forth between Helena’s pale complexion, Andy’s stern expression, and the mysterious man who set down his cup of arsenic.

“Who do you think I am?”

“……Probably someone from the family. No matter how much you try to convince me, it won’t work. I’m not going back to the family, because spending the rest of my life here with Helena is what I want. I don’t need an inheritance, and I don’t covet anything from the family, so tell them to pretend they never had an eldest son like me.”

“Hmm…….”

Jeffrey rubbed his smooth chin in interest. In the midst of all this, Cadel could vaguely guess Andy and Helena’s past.

‘Did they run away to fulfill a love that was opposed by their family? Seems like they’ve been through this situation once or twice before……. They must be quite a famous family. They seem to be obsessed with their eldest son, like Lumen’s family.’

Cadel had never sensed anything like the dignity of aristocratic restraint in Andy, so this was quite a surprise to him.

“Helena……. Is that woman’s name Helena?”

“Does it matter?”

“As you know, I am here on a commission, two commissions, in fact.”

“……Two?”

“Your father, Cain Jastick, is not well, or to put it more bluntly, he is near death.”

Helena stopped in her tracks as she pushed Yozen away at the sound of Jeffrey’s gruff voice. Blinking dazedly, she realized that Yozen’s uneasy gaze was directed at her.

“Get out of here, Yozen. This is not what you need to hear.”

Her tone was stern, and Yozen walked out the door as if he had no choice. After pushing him out the door, Helena quickly closed and locked the door behind her. Cadel changed his mind just before Yozen walked out the door and stayed inside the house with Andy and Helena. Following Yozen’s perspective, it became difficult to see into the enclosed space.

Helena rubbed her damp palms over the hem of her skirt. When she steadied her shaky breathing, she turned around to see Andy propping himself up against the kitchen table. Jeffrey grinned wryly as if amused by Andy’s reaction.

“My client, Count Jastick, wishes to announce that you, Andy Jastick, will return home and rule over the family estate.”

“……I can’t do that.”

“Even as your dying father’s last request?”

Andy was silent at that question. Whatever his relationship with his father had been, Andy had never been harsh enough to refuse his father’s last request, which was almost like a will. Helena, who loved him more than anyone, knew this best.

She walked over to him and wrapped her fingers around the back of his hand on the table, then met his trembling gaze in silence.

“I’m fine.”

“Helena.”

“I’ve had an overwhelmingly happy time with you, and thanks to you, I got to meet Yozen, so…… you can go now.”

“What do you mean, you want me to abandon you and go back to my family, go get a new wife or something?”

“You’ll regret it after today.”

“So will I if I go back to my family! I’ll spend the rest of my life longing for you and dying of thirst. I can’t live without you, Helena. Even if I fail to fulfill my father’s wishes, I……. I will never leave your side.”

Helena was willing to sacrifice herself for Andy’s future, but he quickly rejected her offer, and she couldn’t spit out the words that twice told him to leave her.

Their love was passionate and blind. But in Jeffrey’s eyes, it seemed to be a fool’s game.

“I knew it would come to this. The Count saw it coming, too. A hermit in the mountains, leaving everything for a woman, and he’s not going to come back with his father’s life as a sacrifice.”

Jeffrey’s laughter was low and sullen, and there was something unpleasant about it. Andy narrowed his eyes at Jeffrey, who slowly rose from his seat.

“If you knew, you’d give up and go home.”

“……No, no. I can’t do that. Didn’t I tell you, I’m all over this, on commission.”

“Are you trying to kidnap me?”

“I don’t know. Even if I did kidnap you and bring you back to the family, there is no way you wouldn’t run after Helena again, and there is no way Count Jastick would take her as a daughter-in-law. Kidnapping is useless.”

“Then…….”

“I have an idea.”

The scowling face moved closer and closer to Helena. Andy stepped in front of Helena as if to protect her but Jeffrey shook him off easily.

“Wait……!”

He grabbed the startled Helena by the throat and dragged her to the opposite wall.

“Kyaaaak!”

“He, Helena! Are you crazy? What are you doing now?!”

Jeffrey pinned Helena against the wall and elbowed Andy in the face as he ran up behind her. He looked over at Andy, who fell to the ground clutching his nose, and smirked.

“Without her, you’ll have nowhere to run, nowhere to turn. You’ll be able to focus on the family affairs.”

“You crazy bastard……! Don’t you dare lay a finger on her!”

“You show me your weakness and then tell me not to stab you in the back? How does that work?”

Helena struggled and pushed Jeffrey off of her, but it was no use. Neither did Andy’s struggles as he struggled to his feet. Before the lovely couple could do anything for each other, without a sound, Jeffrey plunged the dagger he’d drawn into Helena’s skull.

“What……!”

It happened in the blink of an eye. There was no mercy in Jeffrey’s hands, and his ability to execute his orders was exceptional. All judgment was over in a short time, and he killed the innocent woman without a second thought.

He threw Helena, writhing helplessly, to the ground. A tearing scream followed, and Andy, scooping her up in his arms, checked her condition. His trembling hands clumsily tended to the wound, but the blood was rapidly draining from her face.

“No, no, no, Helena……. Please…….”

It was such a futile death. She took a few faint breaths in Andy’s arms, and then, without so much as a brief dying wish, she was gone.

Cadel watched the whole thing in a daze. The woman who had tenderly comforted Yozen, the woman who had done her best to maintain a simple life. She didn’t deserve to die in a place like this, for someone else’s greed. She was a victim, and the sight of such one-sided greed made him sick to his stomach.

“Helena……. Open your eyes…….”

Andy couldn’t focus. Unable to let go of his wife’s slowly cooling body in his arms, he repeated his command to wake up as if he couldn’t understand it.

Meanwhile, Jeffrey nonchalantly pulled up a tablecloth and wiped the blood from the dagger. Humming a tune, he left the house at a leisurely pace. He looked around as if searching for someone, but then he began to stumble in a certain direction.

“There you are, kid.”

He found Yozen. Yozen was under a tree away from the cabin, picking at the grass on the ground with nothing to do. A sharp sense of denial washed over Yozen’s expression of freedom. His vision was not of Jeffrey’s face, but of a bright stain of blood on the hem of his shirt.

“Sh*t’s done. Time to go home.”

“…….”

“Cooperate, I don’t want to see you wasting your strength.”

Yozen instinctively sensed that something dangerous had happened. The smell of blood on Jeffrey’s breath, the killing intent he hadn’t quite concealed, and a strange sense of exaltation. Quickly rising to his feet, Yozen reached for his waistband. The dagger was there, ready to take on Jeffrey. However.

“Why is it that once I say something, it doesn’t get through.”

Even if Yozen had the natural talent for assassination, he was still just a regular person who hadn’t killed anyone yet. Yozen’s eyes rolled back in his head and his body tilted as he took the blow. Only after Yozen had slumped face-first to the ground did Jeffrey pick him up like an animal and turn to face the cabin again.

The first thing Jeffrey did when he reappeared, carrying Yozen, was to threaten Andy: He killed Helena, Andy’s sanctuary, and used the life of Yozen, his only remaining family member, to force him to return to the family.

Andy had no choice.

“I know you came back with a nasty lump……. But I’m glad, now I can close my eyes in peace.”

Yozen looked at the old man lying on the bed beside Andy, who was now shriveled up. The man was surrounded by the most expensive things of anyone Yozen had ever met, but he reeked of the foul stench of a man near death.

“Don’t blame me, Andy. Don’t sow resentment in the path of the dead. Remember, it was all for your own good.”

After returning to the family, Andy never spoke again. He ignored the family’s hospitality, the suspicion, envy, and patronizing glances. Every once in a while, he would stroke Yozen’s head wordlessly as he looked up at him.

Yozen had not witnessed Helena’s death and had been brought straight to the family home, so he had not yet realized that she was dead. Therefore, he did not cry. Just Jeffrey Holiven. He did not forget that the young man had destroyed all their happy times.

“I’ll get rid of him, the man who killed Auntie.”

That was what Yozen told Andy in his bedroom one dark night. The instantaneous change of scenery, the unshakeable contemptuous gaze, and Andy’s completely different demeanor. It all took Yozen’s breath away. After a brief taste of happiness, he took up the knife to somehow return to the past.

And with his desperate will, he set Andy’s frozen time in motion.

“You can’t do that.”

He barely managed to get his voice out through his parched lips. He pulled Yozen’s stiff shoulders to him and patted the disintegrating child on the back.

“Why? I’ll be strong. I’ll be strong enough to kill that man.”

“You can’t.”

“Why!”

Yozen snarled, shoving Andy roughly away from him. It was a wild, furious look he’d never shown before. Tiny tears welled up in Yozen’s eyes. Andy, who had been silently staring into that sad face, spoke with a wistful smile.

“If you kill that man, you will never be happy.”

“If I kill that man, everyone will be happy.”

“Killing people is not easy, Yozen. You’ll lose a lot, and I don’t want you to live a life stained with blood. You wandered through the mountains covered in blood because of someone else’s malice, but you don’t have to continue that malice.”

“……So you’re going to forgive that man, Uncle? He killed Auntie, he killed Helena!”

“Only if my forgiveness will make you happy.”

Andy’s expression contorted strangely. He scrunched up his face, looking like he couldn’t cry or laugh, and pulled Yozen, who had pushed him away, back into a hug.

“I will forgive him. I’ll hold it all in, so that you don’t carry on my hatred, so Yozen. Don’t hate people. Love is the only emotion you need to know.”

Love. Yozen’s time of happiness was too short to cherish it. Happiness was always the farthest thing from him, and just when he thought it was at his fingertips, it slipped away as if it had never been there.

Finally, someone came along to show him what love felt like, but it was fleeting. Yozen was still not allowed to love.