Chapter 98
"You..." Ferdinand Ostrich was enraged when he saw Michelle in front of him. He wanted to curse and kill, but he was smart enough to know that he wasn’t in the position to do so. "What do you want...?" he asked.
Michelle didn’t say anything and nodded at Kieran. He walked over to Ferdinand and knocked him out. Then, Michelle came to Anastasia and took the knife from her hand. When fighting, Anastasia might have been able to keep her sanity, but that was still her first time seeing blood after her memories were wiped, so Michelle was worried about her mental state. "Do you think it’s cruel?" Michelle asked as she put the knife away into her spatial ring.
To her surprise, Anastasia shook her head as she spoke her mind: "He was dangerous. Even if it was cruel, it was needed."
Hearing that, Kieran and Ivona were surprised, and Michelle smiled. They were expecting that she would be shocked by the blood, and maybe even traumatized by the fact that she had to stab someone; that was why Kieran didn’t like the plan, but her calmness showed that even though she didn’t remember it, she had gone through something similar at least once or twice, which made it so that she was somehow numb to killing. And that made everyone wonder what an Emperor’s concubine had to go through to be subconsciously used to killing? Or was it from even before she entered the Imperial Palace?
Michelle had a guess about the intrigues in high aristocratic society and in the Imperial Harem, but she didn’t guess it was so dire that a girl barely over twenty would be so cold-blooded. Or was Anastasia just special? She was clearly a scheming and cruel person, but that was considered the norm in the harem, so were all the old Emperor’s concubines like that, or was she just the most dangerous one of them all?
That would explain why she was able to sleep around with the Crown Prince, without anyone catching her. Maybe some people knew about it, but with her reputation and maybe threats, she silenced them, so it didn’t get to the old Emperor.
Suddenly, Michelle felt like giving Anastasia her memories back, to see how she would react. She was curious about the full extent of her scheming and cruelty, and that could only be seen if Anastasia had all her memories. But the memories could also block her in a way. And, if Anastasia got her memories back, she would most probably hate Michelle, but Michelle didn’t want to lose a friend like her. Well... friend. She did manipulate Anastaisa into becoming her friend, but that was only the first day. After that, she was sincere.
Knowing Michelle for quite a while already, Ivona perfectly knew what she was thinking and sighed. Giving Anastasia back her memories had to wait. At least until Anastasia experienced more things with them, and the one incident in the Imperial Palace could be considered a small thing. In the end, Michelle never really targeted Anastasia directly, even though Anastasia ended up as a death row prisoner because of it. The only time when Michelle directly harmed Anastasia was when she was testing memory manipulation skill on her.
"Let’s take this bastard with us!" Kieran lifted Ferdinand over his shoulder and prepared to walk out of the door.