Book 13: Chapter 45
Lucia regained a lot of her waking time recently. In the past, she couldn’t sleep at night, so she’d walk about lifelessly during the day as zombies did. She adapted to sleeping at dawn when she was young and trained herself to survive on minimal sleep. After getting married, though, she desperately tried to change her sleep hours, but she had yet to succeed. She could only fall asleep very late at night and would wake up before dawn. However, it wasn’t so bad since she had kids to take care of. Like a spirit, Lucia wandered around in the Imperial Palace by herself at night so that she didn’t disturb us. As a result, the guards would go on frantic searches.
I exited the shrine and went to search for Lucia. She was very easy to find. She seemed to appear by my side whenever I wanted to see her. I found her sitting on the large tree, peering into the distance. I didn’t know what she was looking at. Perhaps she was looking at the scenery of the small island.
“Ah, Your Highness!” exclaimed Lucia, noticing me.
Lucia extended her hand toward me. She wanted to climb down, but I shook my head. I climbed the tree to sit next to her. She watched me with a smile. Her eyes glittered in heart-warming way underneath the moonlight. She grabbed hold of my hand with a smile and leaned onto my shoulder. With a smile, she asked, “What’s wrong, Your Highness? It’s late now. If you don’t sleep now, how are you going to be ready tomorrow? Aren’t we going to go and slay the wyrm? We won’t be able to kill it if you’re not in shape, right?”
“No, I was wondering if I should kill it or not.”
I checked out the scenery. Lots of lush trees grew closely together on the island, thereby blocking out the hazy moonlight. The silver light of the moonlight reflected off the ocean surface in the distance. The light broke off as the water moved. The sound of the waves was relaxing.
Puzzled, Lucia tilted her head: “What’s wrong, Your Highness? Why are you suddenly hesitating? Haven’t you planned this for a long time? Also, we’re ready, so why do you want to cancel the plan now?”
“No… It’s just that I suddenly felt that it’s not such a good idea for me to be putting us in danger for Ying’s sake when we’ve got children. I don’t want Nona and Vera to be orphaned because of us, so… Lucia, do you think we should continue?” I said.
Lucia didn’t immediately respond. Instead, she gently hugged my arm, and then slightly shifted around. She then released me and lied down on my knee. She reached her hand out and gently touched my chin without saying anything for a long time. I looked at her without knowing what to say.