Follow Your Heart [EN]: Chapter 18

#18.

“Glory to Cayenne.”

The First Knight Commander gave a textbook salute and scanned Roderick’s face.

The king’s madness, which flared up from time to time, seemed to be decreasing in frequency lately, surprisingly.

Each time he had an episode, its intensity was more explosive than before, but he also calmed down more easily.

This was because the vengeful spirit stimulating Roderick was growing stronger, but the person defending against it was also exerting more and more power.

Lee Jae did not want this outcome, but the vengeful spirit and Lee Jae were ultimately in a battle of wills.

“What is it?”

Jade placed a sealed document on the desk.

“It’s a report stating that there are definite signs of artificial causes in the accident involving the eldest daughter of Baron Moore.”

It was about Roderick’s first fiancée.

At first, it seemed like a simple accident, but after his second fiancée died of poisoning, the royal family belatedly began an investigation.

Roderick simply nodded at the expected result.

However, the Knight Commander brought up another topic.

“And Your Majesty, it seems Her Majesty the Queen has a diary she brought from the Duke’s residence.”

“A diary?”

“Yes. About ten volumes. She hasn’t been writing in it since she entered the castle, just reading it.”

It sounded somewhat strange.

However, it was common for people in the castle to be mindful of records.

This was because they knew both the importance and the danger of records. Didn’t the royal family pass down important facts to future generations in characters only they could understand?

Jade was interested in Hailey’s diary for that reason.

He thought he could deduce important information.

The king seemed to be steadily drawing Hailey in, but sometimes, he seemed to be dragged along. So Jade asked very cautiously.

“Should we investigate the contents a bit?”

The king didn’t answer immediately and stroked his chin.

“What are Duke Duncan’s movements like these days?”

“There are no major movements. He continues to lobby the nobles for Albert Duncan’s reinstatement.”

Roderick clicked his tongue. After pondering a bit more about the diary, he shook his head. For some reason, he didn’t feel like it.

“Let the Queen keep that to herself.”

“……Your Majesty.”

The Knight Commander seemed somewhat opposed, but Roderick shook his head again.

“I don’t want to be a vulgar man who snoops through his wife’s childhood diary.”

Jade wanted to revert to his childhood way of speaking and ask if such pride alone would protect the throne.

However, if Jade had known that Hailey’s diary was just a series of short sentences that never exceeded five lines, he wouldn’t have bothered with such a distasteful suggestion.

And Roderick was lost in a slightly different thought.

He was rationalizing himself, just as Lee Jae had done.

In any case, Hailey Duncan had already turned down two requests from the Duncan family on her own.

Although he couldn’t trust her… Roderick didn’t dwell on it any longer and stood up.

“I’m going to go work out.”

It wasn’t common for the king to suggest it first, so Jade followed him with a bewildered expression.

Lee Jae was sitting quite a distance from the lake. She was sitting in the flower bed as before, but her eyes were fixed on the magnificent lake.

However, when the Western ghost suddenly appeared next to her again, she lowered her gaze to the dirt floor.

*Ah, it’s here again.* Lee Jae groaned inwardly.

-Why are you pretending not to know me again?

Lee Jae pretended not to hear and looked around.

Then, she found a twig and began to write something diligently on the dirt floor. It was a spell to repel ghosts.

Of course, the Western ghost, with its formidable aura, was not affected at all.

In the first place, it wasn’t a vengeful spirit that would be affected by such spells, but Lee Jae was just expressing her dissatisfaction.

-Do you not like talking to me? I think I’m quite likable.

“………”

-Is my face not competitive in today’s world?

Lee Jae’s expression was gradually becoming unmanageable, so she stopped doodling on the ground and snapped the twig in half.

*Why are ghosts all so talkative?*

Of course, Kang Lee Jae knew the reason. Ghosts are originally very interested in humans and want to talk to them.

In fact, they envy and are jealous. It’s simply because humans are alive, but they are not.

After seeing it a few times, Lee Jae, who was more annoyed than scared, simply picked a fight. She muttered as if talking to herself.

“If you’re so competitive, what are you going to do? Seduce a female ghost or something?”

Then, a boyish laughter rang out.

Lee Jae completely gave up and looked around. The maids and knights were waiting dozens of steps away for the Queen’s quiet rest.

Lee Jae glared at the ghost with the floating boy’s face.

“Can’t you please stop talking to me?”

-I’m not a bad ghost. I’m just interested in you.

Lee Jae then made a truly disgusted expression.

*Even though I’m interested in a prosperous afterlife, I refuse ghost sex.*

*If I’m going to do it, I’ll do it with my legal spouse.*

-No, hey, that’s too far. That’s not what I meant. Of course, I’m not completely uninterested in that either.

The boy ghost waved his hands in embarrassment as Lee Jae expressed even more disgust than before.

-I’m just interested in you as a human. I’m not a vengeful spirit; I’m a guardian spirit. If it doesn’t seem like it, you can think of me as a territorial spirit.

“Whether you’re a vengeful spirit or not, I keep getting involved with the afterlife because of you. I want to live a normal life like everyone else.”

He didn’t answer that.

Lee Jae also knew. Having been born with spiritual sight, she could never live like everyone else no matter what. That was Lee Jae’s fate.

Suddenly curious, she asked the boy ghost.

“You’re the guardian spirit of this castle, so why aren’t you helping that person? If that person is harmed, wouldn’t Cayenne’s national fortune be shaken?”

Lee Jae was looking at Roderick, who was sparring with Jade in the distance. In her eyes, she could see the vengeful spirits falling away with a resounding clang each time their swords clashed.

Lee Jae turned her head back to the boy ghost.

“Did that person commit a sin so great that it’s justifiable for him to suffer like that? I want to know.”

The boy ghost stared at the incomplete pupils unique to humans for a long time.

And he answered calmly.

-I can’t tell you that. It’s a secret of heaven. You have to figure it out yourselves.

“……I knew it.”

Lee Jae looked back at the dirt floor as if she hadn’t expected anything.

She grumbled inwardly.

*As expected, it’s only a loss for me to talk to ghosts. They only do what they want.*

Lee Jae began to write spells to repel ghosts on the dirt floor again with the half-broken twig. This time, she drew the Eight Trigrams [a set of symbols used in Taoist cosmology] and made a real fuss.

The boy ghost, who was watching it with amusement, asked.

-But is my face really that bad? Wouldn’t I be okay even if I’m a ghost?

“It’s bad. And I’m not attracted to younger men. The environment I grew up in was a bit like that, so I’m like an old man.”

-I’m old. I’m over five hundred years old.

“I don’t want to know the age of dead people!”

Lee Jae was overwhelmed. She realized that this life was failing as much as her previous life, exchanging useless words.

Suddenly remembering something, she suddenly spread out her palm.

Then, she looked at Hailey’s palm lines.

“……Her face isn’t good, and her palm lines aren’t good either.”

The king has everything, so why is people’s fate so unfair?

Lee Jae clenched her fist with a wounded face.

And as she was drawing meaningless lines on the dirt floor again with the twig, the boy ghost’s voice was heard.

-Kang Lee Jae.

She paused.

It was because he knew her name, which she hadn’t even told him.

A being with clear features and more deeply connected to the principles of all creation than humans.

*As expected, he wasn’t an ordinary ghost.*

When Lee Jae looked up at him with somewhat nervous eyes, he smiled and said.

-You and Hailey have both died once already, right? Aren’t you?

“………”

-So why are you so worried about everything?

Lee Jae didn’t say anything and just stared at the smiling boy.

Just as she narrowed her eyes and was about to ask something.

He shrugged and pointed ahead.

-Look ahead. Roderick is coming.

“………”

-He has a very worried look on his face.

When Lee Jae turned her gaze to the front again, Roderick was walking over with a frown.

And when he stopped sparring, the vengeful spirits that had been circling around seemed eager to seize the opportunity. They were rushing after him.

“Hailey Duncan.”

Lee Jae almost laughed at his voice.

As the boy ghost said, his tone seemed to have something slightly bothering him.

However, she couldn’t laugh.

Even when Lee Jae was near Roderick, ordinary *japgwi* [minor or miscellaneous spirits] couldn’t approach easily.

But this wasn’t that level.

The vengeful spirits chasing Roderick didn’t dare to come any closer. Rather, they were moving away again.

Lee Jae glanced to the right.

*Was it because this boy ghost was guarding the hall that his surroundings were so clean on the wedding day?*

*He’s strong. Then he should stop being so cautious and help with all his heart.*

Of course, Lee Jae was also being cautious.

But having discovered a powerful shield that seemed impossible to penetrate, she smiled.