chsdbacks Chapter 140 Red Roses and Moss
Chapter 140 Red Roses and Moss
Kingdom of Britta, City of Glory, Palace of the Blazing Sun.
The afterglow of the setting sun shone through the stained glass windows, bathing the small hall next to the council chamber in a warm golden-red hue.
William III Brittany stood before a huge family genealogy chart, his finger slowly tracing the names and emblems outlined in gold thread, finally stopping at the end of the chart, in a blank space that was not yet fully completed.
His gaze was deep, and his crimson-gold eyes shone with a light that was completely different from the twilight outside the window—it was ambition, calculation, and an almost obsessive pursuit of the purity of his bloodline.
"Father."
A clear, spring-like female voice sounded from behind.
William III turned around.
The newcomer was a young woman, about seventeen or eighteen years old, with a tall and slender figure. She had red hair and golden eyes, typical of someone with the bloodline of the Fiery Sun.
Her temperament was both heroic and noble, like a red rose in full bloom.
Her skin is a healthy wheat color, and her features are bright and striking.
She wore a well-tailored dark red riding outfit, with a simple yet gleaming longsword at her waist, and a trace of dust from the training ground still clinging to her.
She was William III's most perfect daughter, Princess Natasha Britta.
Her concentration of blazing sun bloodline is so high that it is said to be the highest in the Brittany family in a century.
"Natasha, is training over?" William III's voice was unusually gentle. He had high hopes for his exceptionally talented daughter and imposed the strictest requirements on her.
"Yes, Father." Natasha stepped closer, her gaze falling on the genealogy chart, her expression calm and undisturbed.
"You've heard about it, haven't you? The matter of the Han River Basin." William III turned the subject back to business.
I've heard a little about it.
"A human who calls himself a prophet killed two dukes, seized the Hanhe Basin, and issued a declaration abolishing bloodline privileges." Natasha's voice was devoid of emotion, as if she were recounting a distant event unrelated to herself.
"That's not all," William III scoffed.
"He's uprooting the very foundations of all noble bloodlines! He's challenging the sacred order bestowed by the gods and passed down for thousands of years!"
"I have united with the other six countries to form an allied army. In a month, when the army is fully assembled, it will be the end of that arrogant man."
Natasha nodded slightly, offering no comment on the war itself, but instead asked, "What does Father need me to do? Lead the army? Or, as a princess, inspire morale on the front lines?"
William III turned around and carefully examined his daughter's bright but expressionless face.
This face, this talent, are his proudest creations.
"No, Natasha, you have more important tasks." He reached out as if to pat his daughter's shoulder, but in the end only made a perfunctory gesture.
"Two months from now will be the day you officially come of age."
Natasha's golden eyes narrowed for a moment, but she did not interrupt.
"By then, the allied forces should have won, and the Han River Basin will return to order."
"And as a celebration of victory, and a symbol to solidify the Brittany family's position within the alliance..."
William III’s voice was filled with ambition and vision.
"I will marry you as my queen at the victory celebration banquet."
The air seemed to freeze for a moment.
Natasha's expression remained unchanged; not even her eyelashes trembled.
just.
A shadow crossed the depths of Natasha's beautiful eyes.
William III was oblivious to, or rather, unconcerned about, any possible emotions his daughter might have; his tone was filled with fervent plans for the future.
"With the combined strength of our bloodlines, the purest and most powerful descendant of the Brittany family in history will surely be born!"
"That will be the future sun of the kingdom, leading it to its peak!"
He looked at Natasha, as if only then remembering that he needed to ask for her opinion: "Do you understand, Natasha? This is your responsibility, and your honor."
Natasha stood there quietly, her eyelids slightly lowered to conceal any emotion that might be revealed in her eyes, and responded respectfully in her clear and steady voice:
"Yes, Father."
"I see."
William III nodded in satisfaction: "Very good. Prepare well for the next two months."
"Sword training can be postponed. Instead, focus on learning court etiquette and how to be a good wife and mother."
"Your beauty and bloodline are your most powerful weapons, but they need to be used in the right way."
"Yes," Natasha replied again, her voice devoid of any emotion.
"Go then." William III waved his hand, turning his attention back to the unfinished genealogy chart, as if he had already begun to think of the name of his strongest son.
Natasha bowed and turned around.
She left the small hall bathed in golden twilight with steady, brisk steps.
The heavy, carved wooden door closed silently behind her.
Walking down the spacious and magnificent corridor, the portraits of her ancestors on the walls on both sides seemed to be watching her.
The eyes in those portraits, regardless of gender, all seem to burn with the same crimson-gold flame, filled with power, conquest, and an obsession with the continuation of bloodlines.
Natasha's steps were perfectly steady, her back ramrod straight.
Beneath her calm exterior, a whisper echoed in her heart:
"Father..."
"Natasha doesn't want to be a broken-winged canary locked in a golden cage, existing only to incubate the strongest bloodline."
Dusk completely engulfed Glory City.
The princess's figure disappeared into the deep shadows of the palace, her red figure standing out brilliantly wherever she went.
------
The Tulip Kingdom, a remote border town—Xianglu Town.
There is no splendor of the royal capital, Golden Harvest City, here only some low-rise houses.
On the edge of town, in a dilapidated wooden house, a negotiation that was not intense but cold enough had just ended.
"Sixteen years have passed. I've raised you until you were sixteen. How much food and money did it cost?"
A thin, gloomy middle-aged man, smoking a cheap pipe, leaned against the creaking door frame, glancing at the figure huddled on a straw mat in the corner of the room.
"Now that your grandmother is dead, no one will spoil you anymore."
"The lame son of the Frey family is willing to offer ten silver coins as a bride price to marry you."
"The wedding will take place next month."
On the straw mat was a frail and thin girl.
She was wearing a faded, patched coarse cloth dress.
She was clutching a similarly worn but very clean old woman's coat tightly in her arms.
She lowered her head, her long, pale blue hair obscuring most of her face, revealing only her sharp chin and tightly pursed, bloodless lips.
She has no name.
Her father never called her by her name, only calling her "good-for-nothing".
Her grandmother called her "Little Moss" because she said the child was like moss struggling to survive in the cracks of rocks—unremarkable, but tenacious.
"Ten silver coins..." The girl's voice was dry and hoarse.
"Father, I... I can go to the workshop to sift materials and earn five copper coins a day..."
"I...I can pay you back slowly..."
"Repay? What will you repay with?" The man scoffed and exhaled a puff of smoke.
"Sifting materials? That's something a ten-year-old child does!"
"You're sixteen already, and you still look like this..."
His gaze swept critically over the girl's frail body, finally settling on her face, which was obscured by her hair, and his tone softened slightly, a rare occurrence for him.
"Only this face, inherited from your dead mother, is somewhat useful."
"The Frey family may be poor, but that kid works as a porter at the market, so you won't starve."
"If you take good care of him in the past and give birth to a son soon, that will be your blessing."
Good fortune?
Everyone knows that Freyr is a grumpy cripple.
The girl hugged the coat in her arms tightly; it still carried the scent of her grandmother, a mixture of herbs and the smell of aging.
To raise her, her grandmother saved her food rations for her, but she herself suffered from long-term malnutrition and passed away quietly in pain.
On his deathbed, his withered hands still tightly gripped hers, his cloudy eyes filled with guilt and reluctance: "Xiaotai... Grandma is useless... I couldn't protect you anymore..."
The man in front of her wanted to throw her into a baby-abandoning tower when she was just born because she wasn't a boy.
My grandmother saved me and raised me.
After her grandmother died, the man in front of her took back her last refuge.
And his own fate was to be sold for a good price by him.
Seeing that she didn't speak, the man assumed she had given in and waved his hand impatiently.
"It's settled then! Stay put these next few days and don't wander off. I'm going to set a date with the Frey family."
After saying that, he turned around and left, shuffling his worn-out shoes, without even closing the door, letting the chilly evening wind blow into the already drafty room.
I don't know how much time passed, until the last ray of light was swallowed up by the night.
The girl slowly, very slowly raised her head.
A face was visible beneath messy, light blue hair.
It was a pale and thin face, but the contours of the eyebrows and eyes were exceptionally delicate and beautiful, especially the eyes, which were large and round, staring blankly into the thick darkness outside the door, like two dry, deep wells.
Suddenly, something flashed at the very bottom of the well.
She recalled the sights and experiences she had heard yesterday at the town entrance from the traveling merchant who had returned from the Hanhe Basin, his words flowing freely.
"...Hey! You guys didn't see it!"
"That prophet announced it right there on the walls of Handong City, in front of tens of thousands of people!"
"Abolish aristocratic privileges! Public ownership of land! And what's the point of building... an academy!"
"Yes, the academy! It accepts students regardless of their social status or wealth. As long as you pass the exam, you can learn skills! Learn to read! Learn arithmetic! Learn a trade! Women can go too!"
At the time, everyone around them treated it as a joke and scoffed at it.
As she huddled in the corner picking up the fallen spice crumbs, her heart felt as if it had been struck hard by something.
Freedom…equality…academy…no distinction between high and low…women too…
These words, like tiny but tenacious sparks, fell into her heart.
It burns rapidly.
My grandmother said that my mother was literate and was the daughter of a schoolteacher in a small town. She was gentle and beautiful, but her family fell into poverty and she was forced to marry my alcoholic and violent father because of some things.
Poverty, violence, and the constant birthing in an effort to produce a boy weakened the mother's body.
He eventually died in despair.
The girl didn't want to repeat the same mistake.
She longed to change her fate.
Now, is there a place that claims to have opened the door to knowledge to everyone?
Regardless of whether she is male or female, rich or poor, noble or lowly?
is it possible?
is that true?
Could it be another lie? Another trap?
The girl didn't know.
But she knew that if she stayed here, all that awaited her was to be sold for ten silver coins to a strange cripple, repeating her mother's or even more tragic fate—withering away quickly in poverty, forced labor, childbirth, and violence.
Just like the wild grasses in the wilderness that no one cares about.
In the dark room, she slowly stood up and walked to the only broken bronze mirror in the room.
The mirror was blurry, reflecting only a hazy, thin outline.
She reached out and grabbed a handful of her pale blue hair.
Grandma always said that her hair was like her mother's, long and soft, and that it would definitely fetch a good price in the future.
This is perhaps the only thing on her that, besides her face, is worth something.
The girl's gaze shifted from the blurry reflection in the mirror to her grandmother's coat in her arms.
Grandma... I'm sorry.
Little Moss... doesn't want to accept her fate.
She turned around and pulled out a pair of dull scissors, already rusted and worn, from the corner of the wall.
Without hesitation, not even a tremor.
She grabbed a large clump of hair, aimed at the roots, and used all her strength—
Click.
Click, click...
Strands of pale blue hair fell silently to the ground, piling up at her bare feet.
In a short while, her long hair was transformed into a neat and tidy short haircut, making her look like a malnourished, handsome boy.
She touched her short hair, her eyes filled with determination.
She changed into an old, patched men's suit from the bottom of her trunk; it was too big and concealed her figure.
He carefully folded his grandmother's coat and tucked it close to his body.
This was her only source of warmth and comfort.
Then, barefoot, she slipped silently out of the dilapidated house, like a dim firefly merging into the night.
She didn't turn around.
The town of Xianglu shrank rapidly behind her, merging into the boundless darkness.
Ahead lies an unknown, and perhaps long and dangerous, journey.