The Villainess Lives Twice - Chapter 168

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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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Chapter 168

Artizea looked at Cedric with a shocked expression. Without realizing it, she trembled like an aspen leaf and stepped backward.

“H-how, how…?”

Artizea stammered.

She hadn’t thought of it.

She already knew there were ‘returned ones.’ Cadriole was a returned one, and there was also a returned one in Karam.

So she had thought there might be more returned ones.

She had anxiously and meticulously observed whether memories might return to someone in an important position in the Imperial Court.

But she hadn’t thought it would be Cedric. She hadn’t even imagined it.

Wasn’t that right? If Cedric had all those memories, he wouldn’t have taken Artizea as his wife.

He couldn’t have loved her. Just the thought that he might have felt such emotions, even for a moment, would have made his skin crawl and made him want to cut out his heart.

Moreover, he wouldn’t have tolerated Evron’s heir being born from her body.

“Even if you ask how, I don’t know either. That’s not important right now. I know you, Tia.”

Artizea staggered. Her vision went dark as if she had been struck by lightning.

It was because she understood all the meaning contained in Cedric’s word ‘know.’

Cedric rubbed his face with both palms. Even that didn’t calm his mind, so he dry-washed his face several times.

There had been a premonition from the day he first met Artizea.

He had dreamed of Artizea and felt emotions that couldn’t happen with someone he was seeing for the first time.

The memories didn’t come pouring down all at once, but seemed to have fallen piece by piece from somewhere, little by little.

He felt pity first, then respect, then protectiveness, then love.

He also felt destructive urges and regret, sticky obsession that came from who knows where.

And now, standing here and looking back, all those emotions weren’t born in the past year, but were things buried that he had dug up one by one.

“As much as you know me, I know you.”

Artizea stepped backward until she hit the window.

“How terrible a person you were, what happened to Evron, how the countless people I held dear died.”

Cedric spoke as if vomiting blood rather than words.

“And how long you’ve been watching me.”

“Ced, Lord Cedric…”

“While you were watching me, do you think I truly didn’t know?”

He thought he had prepared a lot. He had thought many times, reflected, and tried to speak gently and carefully.

On a quiet evening, sitting with rich tea boiled with milk and sugar between them, he wanted to speak calmly.

Since they had to move beyond the past to head toward the future, he wanted to tell her to stop clinging to old matters.

Though they couldn’t pretend it never happened in her heart or his own, he wanted to say let’s do our best for the future, and that he knew she was trying to do so.

What prevented him from speaking was the pregnancy. He was afraid Artizea wouldn’t be able to bear that shock.

But Cedric realized that was just an excuse. In truth, he wasn’t ready.

What kind of preparation would have been needed to have this conversation properly?

“That, that can’t be…”

Artizea stammered. But even her question couldn’t form properly.

She was terrified.

She seemed to have been mistaken. That she could deceive Cedric until the end.

She hoped he wouldn’t know. Because then it seemed like things could stay as they were.

Happy that he loved her, ecstatic, always fearful yet thinking she shouldn’t fully accept it, she had ultimately used the excuse that he didn’t know to covet what she shouldn’t dare covet.

But if he remembered.

If so.

Still, she didn’t know. Her thoughts wouldn’t continue beyond that. Though thinking was supposed to be her value and strength, no thoughts came to her.

She just couldn’t breathe. Deep in her heart ached and hurt.

Artizea turned away from Cedric. Then she suddenly realized there was a diamond bracelet on her wrist.

She tried to take it off. But her hands were shaking so much she couldn’t easily undo the clasp.

Cedric grabbed her wrist.

“What are you doing?”

“You said you remembered.”

“Tia.”

“The contract I originally proposed was for 2 years, but now it’s enough. The inheritance is finished, and we can sort out the baby issue, and it’s not too late so you don’t have to regret it.”

Artizea spoke quickly. She couldn’t be sure whether she was speaking properly or what words she was stringing together.

No matter what she did, the bracelet’s clasp wouldn’t come undone. It was maddening.

Cedric grabbed her arm and turned her toward him.

“Are you unable to understand my words, or are you pretending not to?”

“Lord Cedric.”

“I love you. How many times must I say it for you to understand?”

Cedric was generally patient. He knew this well about himself.

Cedric could endure pain several times more than others. He wasn’t optimistic, but he knew how to think positively.

He could withstand despair. He had lived nearly twenty years holding onto small hopes.

But even he had moments he couldn’t bear. And it was always Artizea who created them.

In every sense.

“I tried to bury such feelings forever. I felt your gaze, knew you, pitied you, and ended up loving you, but I couldn’t forgive.”

Such things, such feelings couldn’t be acceptable. Those who died by her hand, those who died caught up in what she did, wouldn’t allow him that.

“Nevertheless, I love you. Even trying to bury and eliminate it, the feelings wouldn’t disappear!”

“That can’t be!”

Artizea shouted back. Cedric yelled.

“Don’t cut and tailor my heart according to your thoughts!”

Artizea had once said that people betray in ways you’d never think of.

Her words were rarely wrong. It was true.

Cedric had betrayed Evron. If this feeling wasn’t betrayal, what would be?

Still, he decided to love her.

Though the resentment didn’t disappear, now it remained only in Cedric’s own memory. So wouldn’t it be enough if only he endured it?

If the memories had returned first, he wouldn’t have dared reach out his hand.

But love had returned first.

They had danced and married and embraced each other.

That too was something that couldn’t disappear, as much as the resentment.

Even remembering all of it, nevertheless, to the point where he couldn’t let go of everything.

“I love you! And we’re already married, and we have a child! The pain you gave me and the resentment built up in Evron have all lost their substance!”

“That doesn’t make it something that never happened!”

Artizea half-screamed.

“Now you know what kind of person I am! It’s not like I’ve lived differently this time!”

“Don’t be mistaken! I chose you! You didn’t choose me!”

Artizea clutched her chest and stepped back one more step. Cedric pulled her arm as she tried to flee and embraced her.

Their lips met. The painful moan that escaped from Artizea’s throat was sucked into Cedric’s mouth.

Soon the strength left Artizea’s limbs and she went limp. Cedric supported her and trapped her in his arms.

And cupping her chin and cheeks, he looked into her eyes.

“Have you forgotten? I asked you for a strategy.”

“Ced, ric…”

“The responsibility for you being alive, being here, marrying me, and doing all this is all mine, and I started it. You didn’t deceive me.”

Artizea wanted to look away now. But Cedric’s eyes wouldn’t allow it.

Artizea remembered those eyes. So her vision blurred with tears.

It was a gaze she couldn’t forget.

When she had to roll Lisia’s last words only in her mouth because she had no tongue, when Cedric knelt and bowed to her, those darkly blazing eyes.

A face burning red like a statue standing tall in the square, weathered by wind and rain, receiving the dawn at sunrise.

Beyond all hatred and resentment, the man who had knelt and asked for strategy because he knew her and trusted her abilities was there.

“At that time, if you had survived and given me counsel, do you think I wouldn’t have accepted it and taken responsibility? Do you think I would have considered you an enemy rather than my strategist?”

Artizea trembled violently. She had a definite answer to that question.

He probably would have truly accepted her as a member of Evron.

If she had possessed the power to turn the situation around at that time, she would have gladly become Cedric’s strategist.

And she could have spent the rest of her life as a retainer serving a lord worthy of service.

When she returned and realized that she loved Cedric, she had thought about it.

If she could have done so then, unlike now, she could have fulfilled her duties without anguish or pain. That would have been right.

The tears pooling in Artizea’s blue eyes finally fell in drops.

This time, Cedric did not wipe away her tears. He did not comfort her either.

Instead, he spoke in a hoarse voice.

“At that time, I had already decided to take responsibility for whatever you did.”

It didn’t matter what kind of person she was. He needed her that much.

Back then, Cedric had worried. Wasn’t this using her? But there was no longer anyone to seek advice from.

The important people had died one by one, so while those who offered loyalty remained, there was no one to confide core information to or discuss the desperate future with.

There was no one to rely on.

Feelings of longing, hatred, and resentment were all covered with dust-like fatigue back then, making none of them visible.

“And you devised strategies as I requested. So everything that happened afterward is rightfully my responsibility and what I must bear.”

Cedric said quietly.

“Just because time has turned back doesn’t change that fact. As you said, it will never become something that didn’t happen to us.”

Artizea covered her mouth with her hand.

Cedric grasped her hand with his own and pulled it away. Then he pressed his lips to the back of her hand, and to her wrist as well.

The diamond bracelet caught on his lips.

Cedric spoke in a weary voice.

“Please don’t make me lonely anymore. I don’t have the strength to endure it either.”

The only people who could truly share this burden would be each other.

“Ah…”

It was then.

Something went thump inside Artizea’s belly.

Just when she thought it was once, she felt a series of small movements – thump, thump, thump.

Artizea was bewildered and didn’t know what to do. The regular sounds echoing from inside her body even felt like the baby was trying to announce its presence from within.

Cedric looked at her, not knowing why she was acting this way.

“The baby is…”

Artizea said haltingly.

It wasn’t necessarily something that had to be said right now. But in her confusion, Artizea spoke reflexively.

She had never once told Cedric about the fetal movements before.

Cedric also reflexively reached out and placed his hand on Artizea’s lower abdomen.

Through the thin fabric, he felt faint vibrations against his palm. To Cedric, it felt like a pulse.

It was truly an amazing and mystical experience.

“This is fetal movement.”

Cedric exhaled deeply.

He felt the swamp-like loneliness that had been pooled inside him slowly flowing away.

He embraced Artizea with both arms. Then he sat back against the chair, exhausted.

Artizea, seated on his lap, leaned weakly against his chest.

And they remained like that without saying anything.

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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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