Chapter 49
Chapter 49: The Girl and the Little Turtle
Silk-smooth brilliant golden curls cascaded freely over Funis’s half-naked, pristine upper body. The tulip fragrance accompanied Charlotte’s light breathing like waves constantly lapping against Funis’s cream-white shoulders and neck. The remaining clothing below hung precariously, needing only a hook of a finger to fall away.
The golden-haired girl pushed the pink-haired girl in her arms against the wall, drawing ever closer.
The scene was quite intense for a moment.
Funis couldn’t tell whether she was taking advantage of her adopted daughter or Charlotte was taking advantage of her, but continuing like this would certainly lead to regret for both of them someday.
After making up her mind, Funis finally gathered courage to push Charlotte away, slipping out of her embrace and collapsing softly to the side.
Suddenly a wave of dizziness and vertigo hit her. Funis felt a tickling, weak pain from where her horns had originally grown, as if some kind of change was occurring in this body again.
The major ethical crisis still wasn’t resolved.
Just pushing away once, Charlotte hadn’t awakened from her bewitched state.
She picked up a strand of cherry-pink hair that flowed to the floor, breathing in its fragrance as if intoxicated, then slowly approached again.
In comparison, Funis—currently spraying continuously while lying powerlessly on the floor—looked even more enticing than before, making her situation more dangerous.
“Mmph♡… you can’t♡… don’t do this♡…”
Her traitorous body was reacting.
Funis was almost crying with anxiety, her eyes that were already red and swollen filling with tears again.
That familiar slender arm from her memories now seemed like a demon’s claw gradually reaching toward her. The girl’s rising shadow completely enveloped the helpless girl beneath.
“Charlotte, please wake up…” Funis closed her eyes tightly, pleading desperately.
Just one step away, fingertips suspended in mid-air.
“Charlotte?”
A pause.
Even breathing briefly stopped.
“You… called my name?” The golden-haired girl suddenly awakened from her confusion, her face full of disbelief. “But… how do you know my name?”
The hazy layer in her mind was driven away by surprise and confusion. Charlotte remembered she definitely hadn’t told this girl named Seli her name. So how had the girl learned it?
Seeming to catch a glimmer of hope, she felt she was about to approach the answer.
“Seli, have you… seen Sera? Sera Fred… a man, full of stubble…” Not yet fully recovered from her confused thoughts, Charlotte still asked haltingly.
The girl seemed quite frightened. She wrapped her snow-white delicate body in her pink hair, shrinking against the door frame trembling. “Can I… take a bath first, Charlotte… big sister?”
“Eh? Of course… sorry, Seli…”
Charlotte big sister!
Not only wasn’t she angry, but she called her so intimately. Charlotte was struck in the heart again.
Simply an angel, God’s perfect creation, transcending all worldly things. Yet she had just tried to defile and desecrate this sanctity.
Full of regret and self-blame, Charlotte led the girl into the bathroom. After only brief introductions, she resolutely turned away and left under the girl’s puzzled gaze.
She shut herself outside the door.
Slumping down.
Leaning against the door and holding her dizzy forehead, Charlotte felt afraid of her strange behavior just now.
What was she thinking?
Toward a girl who had just escaped witch imprisonment, toward someone she should do everything to protect, toward what might be the only key clue currently connected to her adoptive father Sera.
Having such improper thoughts about such a pitiful girl and almost acting on them—Charlotte blamed herself to the extreme. She felt she had nearly lost her qualifications as a law enforcer.
—This world is complex, and love and harm are often separated by only a thin layer. Restraint and temperance keep people before that line, which is why they are virtues…
Sera had told her this.
Charlotte was only ten then. She had accidentally let a little Code turtle die.
The young golden-haired girl stood separated by the tank glass, watching the little creature that usually had no vitality now completely lose its life force.
Sad and unable to believe it, but she didn’t cry—just stood by the tank for an entire day, staring like that.
She had thought the little turtle’s lack of movement meant it wasn’t full, so she poured lots of feed into the water. But she didn’t know this type of pet turtle had its satiety sensation degenerated—overfeeding would only cause the turtle to be stuffed to death.
Sera stroked her head and said those words to her, but she couldn’t fully understand them at the time.
Now it was seven years later.
Charlotte had officially embarked on the Temperance pathway and become a law enforcer like her two fathers, but she still couldn’t thoroughly understand the words Sera had left behind.
She still didn’t understand how pouring out all one’s tenderness and care could ultimately become a cold blade that hurt others.
Her sea-like clear blue eyes were moistened by tears.
Conrad didn’t know.
Sera didn’t know either.
Actually, Charlotte would cry too. Her strength, her stubbornness, her pride were all just protective shells for a fragile heart. After removing the disguise, she was still that little girl standing by the tank seven years ago.
“Father…”
“Where exactly are you…”
…
Half her head submerged in the bathtub, silk-like long hair floating on the water surface, Funis blew bubbles like a goldfish.
Still shaken.
She’d almost had that kind of thing done to her by her adopted daughter.
Since Conrad’s death, Funis had raised Charlotte for nine years, from a naive, small girl all the way to a heroic, spirited young woman. She had witnessed this golden-haired girl’s growth and changes in mind and aspirations, but had never paid attention to Charlotte’s emotional world.
Time had passed too quickly—nine years gone in a flash.
In her impression, Charlotte still seemed like that little girl who would be sad all day over accidentally killing a little pet, never having grown up.
But until Funis personally experienced her adopted daughter’s now rolling waves at her chest and her highly aggressive flirting techniques today, she finally realized—Charlotte had grown up.
Seventeen years old.
Sera’s seventeen had crawled out from mountains of corpses and seas of blood.
Behind every legend and hero lay countless sacrifices and partings of companions. Their bright, glamorous surface concealed the loneliness and sadness behind.
Seventeen years was enough for a person to experience many things. These things together shaped a person’s cognition and character. After those unforgettable memories, people could truly grow and become human.
“Seventeen years old—time to grow up.” Funis murmured underwater. “Charlotte is already a big girl.”
But not Seli.
At least not with Funis.
But thinking that she might end up benefiting some young man in the future, Funis suddenly couldn’t sit still. She jumped up from the bathtub with a splash, wet long hair draped over her body like seaweed, still dripping water.
Memories suddenly flooded her mind.
That was her precious daughter she’d painstakingly raised with her heart and liver and everything she had! Marrying her off would break her old heart!