A Tragic Story

Jorgen stood at the door of the ward and looked at Senoni sitting on the bed. Her wrists were bandaged and she was looking out the window. She seemed to have lost some weight. Outside was just gray mist.

"How is she?" Jorgen asked.

"She was able to eat today. I fed her some porridge." Katrina answered.

"Can I...?"

"Yeah, I think it's okay. But don't tire her out too much."

"I will be careful."

"Jorgen, wait. Thank you...for saving her. I'm really grateful to you. She has always been a strong girl, but this kind of thing is really...Well, I'm going back to the theater first."

Jorgen went in and sat down by Senoni's bed. Senoni seemed unaware that someone was approaching, still staring out the window like a stone statue. After a while, she spoke.

"Mr. Jorgen, did you enjoy my performance?"

"Very much. I've been an old audience, you know."

"Which role do you like best?"

"Um...I guess the maid who pretended to be the princess."

"But I don't like her."

"..."

"Becoming someone else does not lead to happiness."

"Tell me everything you know," Jorgen said. "There's no need to hide from others or yourself anymore. Let's start with how you and Lemenito first met, shall we?"

Senoni withdrew her gaze from the window and looked down at her fingers.

"After a few performances in Auberdine, Pastor Jacobson came to see me backstage. At first I thought it wouldn't hurt to go with him. Although it's disrespectful to Katrina, after all I became an actress just to avoid going back to live a hard life in the village. I accepted the invitation and went to his house for dinner, where I met Lemenito."

"How did he react at first?"

"At first nothing, I guess he was used to his father bringing different women home. But that night, I could feel he was paying attention to me all the time. Later, when Jacobson was about to take me to the bedroom...he showed up and sent his father away, then had someone send me home. After that, similar things happened several times, and Jacobson gradually stopped looking for me."

"Could you feel that Lemenito was deliberately preventing Jacobson from getting you?"

"Yes. I always wondered why he did that until one night...he came to my room. I thought he...but things weren't what I thought. He didn't touch me, just let me talk to him all night."

"What did you talk about?"

"Mostly he talked about himself. The first night I just listened to him talking nonstop, feeling very awkward. He said he was tired and how Jacobson was such a bad man. After that, he came to see me almost every day. His words became more and more strange, scaring me a little. He said Jacobson was just his adoptive father. He went abroad to study when he was very young, and now he has returned to Auberdine and found that he can still see his biological father. He said his biological father was the man he hated most and had to take revenge on him one day."

"Did he tell you the name of his biological father or his real name?"

"None at all. But he once said I looked exactly like 'Helio'. I asked him who Helio was, and he said she was his sister, the person who cared about him most in the world, but was now gone. When he said that, he cried bitterly and scared me. Then..."

"Then he gave you the ruby necklace."

"...He put it on me himself. What could I do? That night he cried himself to sleep in my lap. I stroked the back of his hair like a sister would her brother, even though he was actually several years older than me."

"Then Dores discovered your necklace."

"Yeah. Although Lemenito repeatedly urged me to cherish the necklace, I was still curious...so I agreed to show the necklace to Dores. I told him the necklace was given to me by Lemenito, a relic of his sister's, and Dores seemed very disappointed. I didn't expect Lemenito to see us...He didn't do anything to me, but when I heard the next day that Dores had been hanged, I was shaking with fear. Later, when you took the necklace as evidence, I felt strangely relieved at the time...until he dragged me into that hut."

I told Lemenito that I had taken the necklace to get information. It was my fault that Senoni suffered this. Jorgen thought.

"He went mad, really mad. He said I betrayed him, that the ruby necklace should not belong to anyone else...I think, maybe...I was never the embodiment of his sister in his heart. That ruby necklace was. Giving the necklace to me was just because he wanted to see someone who looked very much like his sister wearing that necklace again...He tied me to the bed, walking around with a gun, tearing out his own hair and pounding the walls hard...and pointing the gun at me several times...sometimes at himself...I thought we were both going to die, just didn't know who would go first..."

"That's enough, stop talking." Jorgen gently stroked Senoni's hair and let her cry on his chest. "You're a good girl who's been through so much. Don't think about it anymore."

"Can you tell me...what was all this for?"

"It's not an interesting story. You should rest now."

After Senoni lay down again, Jorgen left the ward and went to the hospital lawn. He took out the necklace from his pocket and looked at it in the faint sunlight. Now he felt that the slight cracks in the rubies were perhaps the traces left after being roasted by flames. These traces had clearly remained for fifteen years, while Dores' life had gradually faded into these cracks.

Jorgen felt as if he could see it all. It really wasn't an interesting story.

He saw Dores fifteen years ago: an irredeemable Twilight cultist. He whipped his wife until she fled; abused his children, leaving a brother and sister crying in the dark. Until one day, he finally decided to abandon all humanity and sacrifice his children to the void Ancient God.

There had to be an order of precedence between brother and sister. He may have agonized over it, or maybe not, but in the end he chose to tie his daughter to the pyre first. His daughter's favorite ruby necklace was no longer on her, but he did not notice. His eyes could no longer see the things of this world. At that very moment, his son was in a small hut not far away, snatching the necklace from a little boy named Jito.

The flames rose. He watched his daughter's eyes, watched those beautiful eyes devoured by the great fire. The arrival of the guards temporarily halted his frenzied state, and he began to flee. What was really chasing him was not the guards or the flames, but a strong sense of guilt.

This guilt grew slowly within him. He had nightmares every day and got drunk every day. He realized that he was a parricidal sinner. In order not to be crushed by guilt, he chose to become an informer, risking his life to deal with his former "comrades".

Dores also discovered the little boy named Jito. He escaped from the flames, disfigured beyond recognition, and had now grown up. He had a feeling that perhaps the ugly orphan was his son. He supported him to make himself feel better. He dared not speak to Jito or even see him, for fear his dream would be shattered. Let's just consider him my son, Dores thought. Jito was deaf and dumb, which turned out to be a good thing, because even if he was not Dores's son, he could not say so, and the dream would not be shattered. To protect this dream, he did not hesitate to kill the innocent dwarf Gamero Ironhammer - this dwarf was going to take Jito to Silis, that distant, desolate, dangerous place.

On the other side of the story was his son. He did not die, but was adopted by Jacobson, the biggest beneficiary of the fire. He was sent abroad, received the best education and lived the best life. When he came of age, he reappeared in Dores's sight. From the first sight of Lemenito, he fell into deep confusion: in that handsome face, he clearly saw the image of his biological son.

He thought: perhaps it was just a resemblance, no other evidence. But if resemblance did not count as evidence, what gave him the confidence to imagine Jito as his son?

What had to be faced had to be faced. One day, he happened to see the ruby necklace around Senoni's neck, and felt as if struck by lightning. He met with her, and when he held that necklace in his trembling fingers, Senoni casually said, "Given to me by Lemenito. He said it was his sister's relic."

This sentence was no less than a death sentence. Irrefutable evidence. The son is still alive! Shouldn't this be a good thing? But he couldn't be happy. The dream was shattered and he didn't have the courage to admit it. He had already killed an innocent dwarf for the imagined affection. He felt he had not atoned for his sins; his sins had only deepened.

He wearily returned home. What he did not know was that his son was also aware of his existence. What he did not know was that for the past fifteen years, his son had only one thought in his mind: to avenge his sister. His son felt the time was right, for the ruby necklace had been seen, and if he waited any longer, he feared he would lose courage. So that night, Dores paid for all his sins - by dying at the hands of his son.

—Was this a satisfying story?

Jorgen no longer had time to think about it. Sandis Windweaver's three-day deadline was up. The murderer was dead, no further investigation needed. An hour later, all the files on this case would be gathered and archived.

He put the necklace back in his pocket and walked out of the hospital lawn.