Chapter 205:
Two Years
YULAN DIDN’T REMEMBER his mother well. Actually, it would be more accurate to say he didn’t remember her at all. Not her name, what she looked like, or how her voice sounded when she called his name.
He just had one memory related to his mother.
“You really resemble her.”
That’s what his birth father had told him the only time Yulan was allowed to meet him face-to-face. He’d taken one look at Yulan, and without a shift in emotion, he’d said those words. Not out of anger toward his mistress, who’d disappeared, and not out of love for his own son. He had no interest in the boy; he merely said the first words that came to mind upon seeing the child.
That utterance from his birth father was the only thing said during their meeting, which had lasted under a minute. It was now the one piece of information Yulan had about his birth mother.
“I don’t have any photographs, and nobody dares breathe a word about the king’s mistress, so I don’t actually know how much I look like her. But I imagine the resemblance is quite pronounced.”
If not for Yulan’s golden eyes, nobody would ever have guessed that he was related to the king—that was just how starkly different the two looked. Whenever Yulan listlessly beheld his own reflection in a mirror, he imagined his mother had looked just like him. Still, he didn’t ever find himself missing her.
“My parents were never interested in me, and the feeling was mutual… Until I came to this house, I seldom gave them a passing thought.”
When Yulan had learned about this mansion, and learned that everything inside was his, he’d felt no sentimentality. He’d only imagined that it could be useful to him. He’d secured a home for Violette after rescuing her from the Vahans, nothing more. He didn’t even attempt to search the property for information about, or mementos of, his mother.
But as he’d spent more time at the residence…an upsetting revelation struck him.
“This house contains nothing meant for a child.”
“Huh…?”
“I was only here for a short time. But I was still just a baby, and there wasn’t a nursery or even a crib.”
The property had been maintained after he and his mother stopped living there, and not a thing was thrown out. The mansion was kept as it was—a castle for the king’s mistress alone.
Every room was beautifully designed, but not a single item within indicated that a child was ever meant to live there. Without Yulan’s existence to confirm that, nobody would ever have imagined that a newborn used to live in the house.
“This was essentially a place to put my mother. A box for my father to shut her inside. That’s why not a single accommodation was made for Yulan.”
Walking the empty halls of the castle his vanished mother had left frozen in time, Yulan discovered the truth about his so-called parents.
His father had loved his mother, but it was a possessive love. She was like a jewel to be admired and prized. Yulan didn’t know how his mother had felt about that, but she surely must’ve had some feelings for his father, since she’d been willing to bear his son. She just lacked the will to raise a child.
Then she’d abandoned Yulan, and he’d taken on the Cugurs name.
“I don’t know why my mother herself disappeared. I don’t even know whether she’s still alive. But I do know she’s the sort of person who’d become a king’s mistress and bear his child… So maybe she settled down somewhere, and she’s having a nice life. Hell if I know.”
As Yulan said those words, laughing carelessly, he sounded far more detached than he’d ever thought he could feel. He was sure that if his mother appeared before his eyes in that moment, he’d react no differently than if she were a stranger. That was just how little interest he had in her. He possessed no faith whatsoever in the very concept of a parent.
“I see…”
Violette smiled, deepening Yulan’s smile in turn. Her smile was out of pure happiness that Yulan had answered her question. His mother wasn’t of any interest to Violette either, so long as Yulan was no longer hurting.
She’d cast him aside because she didn’t want him; he’d simply cast her aside for the same reason.
It was a necessary action for him to take. This was a lesson the past two years had pounded into him.