Male Lead Is Obsessed With My Health - Chapter 145

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 145

Arelin’s sleeping chamber.
Ludwig, who had been driven out by Mehren’s Expulsion Order only to return, sat beside the bed where Valere had spent the entire past week.
Now that Mehren and Valere had disappeared into Mehren’s study, there was no one present at Halbern Manor who could stop Ludwig.
…….
The servants of Halbern Manor sent anxious glances his way repeatedly, but Ludwig paid them no mind, his gaze fixed on the child lost in deep sleep.
So small.
So fragile that the slightest carelessness might shatter her, and that terrified him.
Fear, worry, anxiety, dread.
Things the arrogant Ludwig had never known.
…….
Ludwig, his throat parched, swallowed hard and closed his eyes. Bloodshot veins spider-webbed across his dry, sleepless orbs.
“My lord.”
…….
“You must rest now.”
His loyal shadow offered counsel born of mortal peril, but Ludwig neither reprimanded nor dismissed him.
More precisely, he lacked the will to do so.
His entire being was absorbed in the small, shallow breaths of the sleeping child.
The past week, while Arelin remained unconscious.
Watching everything that unfolded in this chamber, Ludwig came to understand far more than he had anticipated.
That Arelin had been fragile since infancy, that she had essentially received a Terminal diagnosis, that she required ‘medicine’ once every cycle, that she had scarcely any time left.
And that her survival thus far was nothing short of a miracle, with all the credit belonging entirely to Valere.
‘How strange.’
He had vaguely assumed Valere lived happily and well, but the reality proved horrific—and it brought him no satisfaction.
He had wished for Valere to writhe through a hell like his own, yet witnessing him wade through a parallel hell left him feeling oddly disturbed.
Was this pity? Sympathy?
Me? For Valere?
As the one who now stood closest to the truth of Halbern, Ludwig could perceive how much Valere had carried all these years.
That unexpected realization brought with it a certain unpleasant remorse…….
‘Sione.’
Did you know? That your beloved younger brother would be ground down into such a mire?
That your daughter harbors an inexplicable illness?
That every choice you made would bring misery upon those you loved with all your heart?
He had wanted to scoff, to mock—yet laughter would not come.
Everything simply felt futile and hollow.
“I thought only I was writhing in hell…….”
So that wasn’t the case?
Since Sione’s death, Ludwig had remained trapped in that singular moment when she died.
Ensnared in a moment he could neither reverse nor alter, he saw Sione’s hatred when he slept and woke imprisoned by the instant of her death.
Where had things gone wrong?
What should he have done?
Churning through his mind was the foolish desire to rewrite the past.
If that could not be done, then this time he would utterly destroy Sione so she could never slip from his grasp—abandoning all hope of being loved, choosing a relationship sustained only by resentment, a weary and infected heart.
He knew he was not sane.
From the moment he first found Arelin, his eyes had been wild enough that he brought her back without considering the repercussions—international relations, all such concerns cast aside.
Yes, he had known.
That he was forcing his hand.
Yet the instant he held Arelin, he had made a solemn vow: this time, broken or not, he would keep her by his side.
“Why won’t she wake?”
The small body lay collapsed, writhing in fever’s delirium, and he could only watch—the powerlessness of it all.
The misery of realizing he knew nothing of consequence about this small child and could do nothing to help her.
When the dread seized his throat that he truly would lose Arelin, that terror was the feeling he had never known.
“Why won’t she wake? Why…….”
The sight of Arelin, motionless as a corpse, felt alien.
During their time at Rocke Castle, she had laughed brightly, chattered endlessly, caused mischief—behaving like any child her age, as though nothing else mattered. Those images scattered like afterimages.
He could not breathe. His hands trembled. Though his palms covered his face and blocked his view, they could not shield him from the crushing weight of reality.
As if time, frozen until now, rushed forward all at once, Ludwig’s hours bled away.
And.
Terrible regret descended.

* * *

Mehren’s study.
The long and tangled tale of the past had ended. Valere’s account was rambling and cryptic, yet Mehren, possessed of keen insight, understood without difficulty.
The secret, deadly history of the previous generation of House Halbern, entangled with Sione, the former Grand Duke of Halbern, and Regent Ludwig.
“I see…….”
The secret, deadly history of the previous generation of House Halbern, entangled with Sione, the former Grand Duke of Halbern, and Regent Ludwig.
And…….
The reason why Valere had changed.
“Valere.”
“It’s all right, Mehren.”
Valere smiled, as he always did.
“Even I find myself repulsive.”
…….
A sensation beyond words welled up.
The dim smile Valere had worn when he appeared after being absent for so long in their childhood, or his words about wanting to run away, about missing his sister.
Moments when Mehren had failed to give him a proper answer—they choked off his words now.
Seeing Mehren’s struggle, Valere smiled precariously.
“What? Do you find me repulsive after all?”
“No, it’s not that…….”
Watching Valere, broken to the point of unable to distinguish reality from delusion, unable to discern right from wrong, Mehren found himself unsure what expression to wear.
“How did you endure it? I was surely there beside you then…… So why did I…….”
Mehren had sometimes thought Valere merely strange, never imagining the source of that dissonance ran this deep.
“I didn’t know you were…….”
Wading through such a mire.
Watching guilt darken Mehren’s expression, Valere laughed.
“What, do you suddenly pity me?”
…….
Mehren swallowed dryly instead of answering, masking the turmoil in his heart.
“Right, I kept wondering why someone with everything looked so miserable…….”
“And indeed, as you say, I have everything.”
His long lashes drooped slightly.
“So why…….”
…….
“Why couldn’t I save my sister.”
The shaded irises of his eyes shifted to a deep purple.
“I would have given everything without regret.”
…….
“I could have sacrificed anything.”
Valere’s voice turned bitter with self-mockery.
“Why am I always too late?”
“Valere…….”
“Twice now I’ve been too late.”
In the end, he had not saved his sister.
Mehren reached out his hand toward the anguished Valere.
“It’s not your fault.”
“It is my fault.”
“How is that…….”
“If I had never existed, my sister wouldn’t have made such a choice.”
That was why he could never defy Sione. Why he could not refuse her parting words—to care for Arelin, to leave her behind.
‘Arelin.’
Never once had she been unimportant, never once untreasured.
At times, the fulfillment of his sister’s last wish; at other times, the final thread of connection to his sister, the last tie; sometimes, a burden…….
Or perhaps the last remaining reason and purpose for living.
Yet in all this time, never once had ‘Arelin’ herself been the reason for this blind devotion.
Love? Could he love? Him? With a mind as shattered as his own?
To claim he felt no resentment would be a lie—precious yet burdensome.
That was what Arelin had been to Valere.
He did not think he could love her.
But he thought perhaps he could keep her alive. And so he had tried.
Valere recalled the past week.
Arelin, sleeping and unable to wake, conjured countless dream-visions of Arelin from his nightmares.
Arelin, cold and lifeless, never to wake again.
Clinging to that nightmarish memory, he could not step free of it.
The nameless emotion that had churned within him during that time of waiting was equally strange to him.

“Papa…….”

The word “Papa” spoken for the first time.
A conversation shared for the first time.
A smile seen for the first time.
Was that the problem?
When he raised her, she would die before she could speak; when he left her with others, she would die before she could return to him—his daughter, returning to him only in death.
A small body, a warm pulse of life.
Once, that was all his memory of Arelin contained.
Was this punishment?
As throbbing pain gathered in his head and his vision blurred, another hallucination layered over it. In that moment, he gritted his teeth——
“Lord Mehren! Your Highness!”
The study door flew open as Dileon cried out.
“The young lady has awakened!”

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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