The Baby Who Regressed Refuses Childcare - Chapter 38
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Small frame.
All she had ever done was kitchen work, simple farming, and raising a child.
It didn’t take much effort to confine Ann Clark.
Moreover, Abner Manor was currently in complete chaos due to the assassin’s intrusion.
All available forces were scattered around the manor, thoroughly searching for traces of the intruder.
As a result, there was no manpower to guard the prison cell holding one small, thin woman.
Knowing this, Sharon Abner walked silently with a terrifying expression on her face.
“Nothing in the East Wing!”
“No traces in the West Wing either…!”
Soldiers frantically moved about the area.
She chewed her lips as she gazed at the distant sky where dawn was beginning to break.
The doubts swirling inside her became clear.
‘What exactly is this situation?’
How were things unfolding like this?
Meeting the child by chance, experiencing several quite remarkable things.
The family’s financial situation had become incomparably more comfortable than before.
Along with the connection to the Crown Prince.
The child had somehow won the Crown Prince’s favor, making the Dowager Empress side with Abner.
Of course, she had never once spoken of it aloud.
But Sharon Abner found all these situations, and that strange child’s attitude…
Quite reassuring.
‘I like birthday parties…!’
She recalled the words the child had said while twisting her body after running over from playing with children her age.
‘Thank you! Your Grace!’
And the small bird-like laughter that had crowned those words.
‘…Ah, it’s okay.’
But that voice had been brutally silenced.
The child had lost consciousness right before her eyes, covered in blood.
“What exactly, what exactly is okay…”
Her face contorted in pain as she recalled the words the child had repeated over and over.
When she clenched her fist, the area torn by glass shards from earlier throbbed.
But this was nothing.
Compared to the wounds on the child’s back.
Compared to how much that small body must have hurt…
Sharon Abner’s eyes grew even redder.
‘Is this also Ann Clark’s doing?’
Was this something that woman had orchestrated with the intention of escaping from here?
But when the child was attacked, Ann Clark was with Wendel.
‘She might not have been alone.’
Two, or three, or even more might be moving together.
Her throat felt stuffy as if a stone was lodged beneath it.
“Damn it…”
Everything else was fine.
Sharon Abner herself had always lived a life with many enemies.
Right after becoming the head of the family, hadn’t she faced threats to her life once every day?
Dealing with assassins daily, she needed a weapon she could handle well, so she chose a small crossbow.
Later, she became so fond of this crossbow that she even enjoyed going hunting.
‘So if they were going to target someone, they should have targeted me.’
To cowardly target a five-year-old child who didn’t know how to use a single weapon?
Sharon Abner felt she could never forgive whoever had harmed Annellia until they died.
She wanted to capture them somehow and skin them alive like beasts.
It was when she squeezed her eyes shut in surging anger.
“My lady!!”
An urgent voice came from the distance.
Opening her eyes quickly, she saw a servant running toward her frantically.
“In, in the Main Manor, in Lady Annellia’s bedroom, that woman is!!”
“Huh, mmph…”
Ann held the pure white blanket while holding her breath.
The white fabric was gradually stained with blood seeping from her hands.
But Annellia, who slept as if dead, wouldn’t open her eyes.
Her breathing was so shallow it seemed like it might stop at any moment.
“You…!”
A voice full of wariness came from behind.
However, Ann didn’t take her eyes off Annellia’s sleeping face.
The child’s condition was terrible.
She was wrapped in bandages all over her body from rolling down the stairs, and her complexion was pale.
“G-get out right now! If you don’t leave!!”
Then, the sound of an Abner servant shouting came from behind.
Ann slowly turned her head.
And with bloodshot red eyes, she looked straight at the servant who had shouted.
“And what about you.”
At the cold voice, the servant closed their mouth with a flustered expression.
“What about you, who left Annellia to become like this?”
Tears streamed down from her wide-open eyes.
“What are you people. What are you to make this child become like this.”
She couldn’t even raise her voice loud, afraid the child might wake up.
The voice she barely managed to squeeze out choked with sobs several times.
“You said you’d raise her well. Not in a backwater place like Evehill, but in a bigger world…”
“…”
“With more support than even Lambert Longton, with lots of love, you said you’d raise her like that… raise her…”
When she clenched her fist, the fingernail that had been hanging by a thread finally broke off.
Through the gaps in Ann’s tattered clothes, her arms and shoulders, black with bruises, were revealed.
To escape from the prison cell, she had somehow reached her hands between the bars.
These were traces of barely managing to pick up a sharp stone in the corridor and striking the lock thousands of times.
In the process, her entire upper body had been scraped against the thick wood, creating bruises and wounds.
Her hands were in even worse condition.
Her fingers were broken, and all her fingernails had been torn out.
But even so, she had to escape.
She had to see if Annellia, who had been dying before her eyes, the child she had raised, was okay.
“What are you!”
The hoarse cry twisted inside her mouth as if it would burst.
The Abner servant’s eyes filled with fear and sadness.
“You should have protected the child! No matter what happened, you should have made sure she didn’t get hurt, like that, you should have!!”
I wondered if this was what it would feel like to shed tears of blood.
Ann had seen many children leave over the years, and had raised them with her own hands.
And she had never failed to love any one of them.
She always tried to give equal love to every child.
But Annellia was such a lovable child that she made even those efforts seem meaningless.
“She was my treasure. My pride, the one and only angel-like child in this world…!”
“…”
You people, how dare you hurt my child, my child like this!!”
The outcry eventually turned into sobbing.
The Abner servant was also silently shedding tears with her mouth closed at some point.
That was the moment.
“…Teacher…?”
A faint voice that seemed about to fade echoed in the room.
Ann turned her head in surprise.
Annellia, who had been unconscious, was looking at her with her eyes open.
“Annellia!”
“…Is it Teacher Ann?”
The Abner servant covered her mouth.
Not even a few seconds later, the door burst open.
Countless people rushed in through the open door like a flood.
Sharon Abner, Wendel.
The manor’s butler and soldiers, even all the servants who had been guarding the main manor.
But neither Ann nor Annellia turned their gaze toward them.
“Is it really Teacher Ann…?”
Annellia asked again.
Her voice was still faint as if about to fade.
Tears welled up in Ann’s eyes again.
“Yes, Annellia. It’s your teacher, your teacher is here…”
“…”
The child’s dry lips moved slightly.
Her dimly opened ivory-colored eyes slowly traced down Ann’s face.
Soon, moisture slowly gathered in Annellia’s eyes.
“Teacher…”
The child whimpered.
Pearl-like tears dropped from her large eyes, then flowed down in streams.
“It, it hurts…”
“Annellia…”
Sharon Abner, who had entered through the open door, was watching the scene with a hardened face.
Ann Clark’s disheveled shoulders, arms, and hands caught her eye.
“My back, my back hurts so much…”
Annellia began to cry loudly.
“Sob, ugh… My stomach too, my stomach hurts, and my arms…”
“Annellia, what should I do, what should I do!”
Sharon Abner and Wendel, Soya.
Miel, who had been staying in the room all along.
And even the other Abner people who had suspected Ann Clark.
Everyone watched the scene speechless.
Even after being injured in the back by an assassin and tumbling down the stairs, the child had not cried.
She had just kept her eyes blankly open, repeating only “I’m fine” with an eerily calm face.
But now.
“Why, why did you only come now, it hurts, it hurts so much, waaah…”
Leaving the crying child behind, Sharon Abner came outside.
She muttered in a subdued voice.
“…Call the doctor again.”
Wendel nodded without asking for a reason.
And immediately ordered the administrator to call the doctor again.
This time, it was for someone other than Annellia.
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This chapter was translated by Lunox Team. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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