Silence blanketed the room. However, Lily ignored it and started thanking Qin Yuanfeng for her food.
“You sound really well read.”
“My grandmother had most Italian novels in her library. The one who wrote this version was an Italian, I think.” She answered Levi. Lily used to read and dance to cope up with the loneliness and sadness that she had felt eight years ago.
“Wow.” Eliza smiled awkwardly after a few seconds of silence. True to her words, Lily’s story was indeed enough for her to lose her appetite. “I— I never even thought of it in this way.” Seeing Lily just nod and continue eating, Eliza was not able to stop the envy inside her.
She wished she could act as nonchalant and smart as Lily. Her independence, her wisdom and the way she acted was just so refreshing to Eliza that she could not help but want to become like her. She let out a sigh. If this was five years ago, she was sure that Lily’s presence would have made tons of impact to her choices. To her childhood. “So… what happened next?”
Lily raised an eyebrow at Eliza. “You want more?” Surprised flashed in her eyes.
“Of course,” Eliza responded. “It was enough to make me lose my appetite… so, why not just continue?”
“Well… she became a mistress.” Lily smiled as she started eating again. “When the queen came to know that the king loved someone else, she tried to kidnap the twins, cook them and make the king eat them.”
Eliza widened her eyes. “And?”
“Of course, she didn’t succeed.”
“Oh. Then… that’s good. So what happened?”
“The cook never killed the children. Instead he hid them as he cooked two lambs instead. Then… the queen watched as her husband enjoyed the dish thinking it was the children.” Lily answered nonchalantly. “Of course, the queen was not satisfied. She wanted revenge. She didn’t know about the r*ape. She didn’t know that it was her husband’s fault.”
Lily continued, “She tried to burn sleeping beauty… alive as she called her various nasty names. Of course, as the protagonist of the story, sleeping beauty found a way to stall. She told the queen that she wanted to strip the golds and pearls and jewels that she was wearing. The queen agreed and thought it was indeed reasonable.”
“So she started stripping and every time she removed a piece of clothing, she would scream. Prompting the king to find the source of the ‘noise’. When the king discovered that the queen was trying to burn the love of his life, he immediately instructed his soldiers to toss the queen into the fire instead.”
“And they lived happily ever after?”
“Of course, they did.” Lily smiled. “The mistress and the king with their children alive and well, lived happily ever after. The story was so twisted that Disney had to change more than half of the story to make it more appropriate for the kids.”
“Wow. I— I am speechless.” Eliza said.
“And you know… the author said that the moral of the story is that as long as luck favors you. Then… you will always win. Sometimes even sleep-r*pe has a happy ending.” Lily ended the story with a sigh.
“I have never heard of this version.” Zhou Jingren noted as the others nodded. “It is indeed a very disturbing one.” He immediately wondered what kind of library Lilian kept in her study.
“I agree.” Lily pursed her lips as she watched the attendants serve them the order Zhou Jingren, Secretary Go and Yang Mi had placed earlier. “Hey, can I have some?” She pointed at the lobster, her eyes sparkling as if she did not just tell them one of the most gruesome stories that Eliza and Levi had ever heard.
“Of course,” Zhou Jingren smiled.
“If you were the queen.” Staring straight into Lily’s eyes, Eliza continued. “I mean… you are very smart. So… I am curious…” She dabbed the napkin on her lips. “If you were the queen in the story. What would you do to the sleeping beauty? And how will you assure that it will succeed?”
“What do you mean?” Lily asked.
“I mean… are you going to torture the mistress, poison them? Kidnaps the children? What would you do to the sleeping beauty?”
A soft chuckle escaped Lily’s lips. “What makes you think that I will do something to her?”
“She’s the mistress, right?”
Lily shook her head. Why would she punished the one who was r*ped and impregnated while she was asleep? “I would ask the cook to kill my husband.” She smirked. “And I— will let the pigs eat him.” She grinned. “Because that’s what he deserves. To be eaten by his own kind.”
Eliza stared at Lily’s smug face, speechless. When she heard Lily’s story, she could not help but put herself in the shoes of the queen and asked herself what she would do to sleeping beauty once she discovered her husband’s deed.
Eliza never asked herself what she would do to her husband. Instead, she asked herself what she would do to the woman who was raped by her husband. A flash of guilt instantly glinted in her eyes. She lowered her head, embarrassed by her own thoughts. How the hell did she even think that this was all sleeping beauties fault? She gulped as she tried to shake the guilt away.
Was this the difference between Lily and her? If something like this happened in real life— if her husband cheated on her, Eliza would have surely focus the brunt of her anger towards the mistress. Maybe on her husband too— but she would think of ways to hurt the mistress first.
Eliza would think that it was the mistress fault and might even think that her husband was the innocent one. She might even think that her husband did it because he was only human, that he succumbed to temptation. Then she would focus her anger towards the woman who seduced her husband. Forgetting the fact that it always takes two to do a tango.
Was this the difference between Lily and her?
….
Proofreader: Dragon777
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