Due to the struggle between the Crown Prince and the Second Prince for the throne, the Duke of the North and his wife, along with their heirs, had not come to Vitlil. As a result, Hedelin Manor remained vacant, just as it always had been in the past.
Cinderella felt extremely nervous as she pushed open the gates of Hedelin Manor. She could feel her heart pounding thump thump.
She passed through the familiar tree-lined path and walked along the stone path she had not seen for so long. As Cinderella ventured deeper into the courtyard, she could not find her Little Beech Tree for a moment.
“Strange… It should be around here somewhere?”
She looked around, suspecting that her memory had failed her. Because where the Little Beech Tree should have been, there were no small or medium-sized trees at all.
All the trees were large ones.
Coo coo coo—
The pigeons’ cooing drew Cinderella’s gaze. She walked toward the tree where two white pigeons perched. The moment her hands touched that tree, it suddenly emitted a silver-white glow.
‘…Rela, Cinderella…’
The gentle female voice did not enter through her ears but directly into Cinderella’s mind.
It was the voice of Cinderella’s birth mother, Ivy.
“Mom…!”
Cinderella incredulously covered her mouth. Ivy’s soul detached from the beech tree and came over to embrace her.
“You’ve grown up, my child, my baby, my Cinderella.”
“Mom, Mom…!!”
Cinderella wanted to hug Ivy, but her hands passed right through Ivy’s body.
“My dear Cinderella, I am about to ascend to the heavens… All the souls you saved but who could not survive are ascending with me—”
Behind Ivy, on the beech tree as towering as a century-old ancient tree, dozens of human figures appeared. Some old, some young, some standing, some sitting, but all with smiles on their faces.
Coo coo—
The two pigeons seemed to be urging Ivy to set off quickly. Ivy’s body also floated lightly upward.
“Mom, wait! You haven’t told me yet…! You haven’t told me if you mind me recognizing my stepmother as my mother…!”
Cinderella, sobbing messily, spoke in a jumbled mess.
But Ivy understood her confusion.
“Oh, my dear Cinderella, do you know? Cats all raise kittens communally as females. It has nothing to do with blood relations. For that one, I only have gratitude.”
“Gratitude for raising you into such a wonderful child.”
Behind the smiling Ivy, the souls had already risen into the ring in the sky. Ivy kissed Cinderella’s forehead, shedding two transparent teardrops.
“Gratitude for nurturing you into such an outstanding woman.”
Coo coo coo—
The pigeons flapped their wings and flew off, and Ivy vanished into the light.
Emma and May, who should have entered Hedelin Manor just a step behind Cinderella, saw her collapsed crying in front of the large tree and exchanged glances.
Ye Tang sat beside Duke Wilson as they paraded through the streets.
—After dealing with Frederick VI, Duke Wilson had quickly helped her onto the parade flower carriage prepared by the nobles once they returned to the streets from the palace.
Ye Tang’s eyes were sharp and clear. She could tell that Claudia did not mind being clung to by Adrian, and that Jack could not resist Gloria’s advances at all. She also knew that Cinderella and Charlotte wrote letters to each other every day.
Her own good cabbages were being rooted up by pigs, while one of her other good cabbages went off to root up a pig herself. Wasn’t that a kind of tit for tat? Thinking of this, the old mother could not help but smile faintly.
“What are you laughing at?”
Duke Wilson removed a petal stuck in Ye Tang’s hair.
Compared to the first time he saw this lady, her appearance had clearly aged quite a bit. But strangely, he wanted to possess her heart even more urgently.
Closing his eyelids to cover his pair of purple eyes, Ye Tang smiled and said, “I’m laughing… at how nice the weather is today, how beautifully the flowers are blooming, how comfortable the breeze feels. The war has ended, the plague has temporarily receded…”
As if sensing her daughters’ gazes, Ye Tang opened her eyes.
Cinderella drove up in a brand-new automobile ahead. Cinderella’s driving skills came directly from May, and she had also learned cooking from Emma. Emma and May had learned medical knowledge and nursing basics from Cinderella.
The vehicle Cinderella drove was something Ye Tang had sold to the Duke of the North and his wife along with Hedelin Manor. After Ye Tang left Vitlil, the car had been parked in Hedelin Manor’s garage. Now it finally saw the light of day.
Claudia and Gloria jumped down from Adrian and Jack’s horses respectively, ran over to board Cinderella’s car, and waved at Ye Tang.
Ye Tang then waved back at her daughters from the flower carriage.
In the bright spring light, the girls’ smiles shone brighter than the sunlight.
Ye Tang’s eyes moistened slightly.
“And?”
Duke Wilson pressed her from the side.
He did not believe he held no place at all in Ye Tang’s heart. This woman in front of him had stayed by his bedside day and night, without even undressing, to care for him for many days in order to save him.
Her gentle words and resolute gaze had made him, half-dead, gradually believe in the haze that he could overcome this ordeal, continue living, and take control of this country.
Now, the woman sitting beside Duke Wilson spoke in that same gentle tone, reciting like poetry: “…And, my daughters have found their paths in life, people they love.”
“They can already overcome difficulties on their own, conquer themselves and man-made disasters… I have nothing left to teach them.”
Ye Tang narrowed her eyes slightly, and suddenly leaned against Duke Wilson’s arm.
Duke Wilson’s shoulder trembled, but he did not push Ye Tang away. Instead, he hesitated shyly for a moment before wrapping his arm around Ye Tang’s waist.
Ye Tang showed no reaction, so the duke took it as tacit permission.
With a joyful heart, Duke Wilson did not realize until they arrived at Queen Road’s square, where he was about to invite Ye Tang to give a public speech, that Ye Tang, with her eyes closed, had stopped breathing.
“Mother?”
Claudia, Gloria, and Cinderella—the three sisters—had been waving at Ye Tang all along. Seeing no response from her and that the duke was holding her waist, the three giggled and drove ahead to Queen Road’s square first.
By the time the three sisters noticed something was wrong with Ye Tang, all resuscitation efforts were too late.
“Mother! Mother!!!”
Claudia and Gloria forgot everything around them. They only remembered the cardiopulmonary resuscitation technique their mother had taught them.
They rushed onto the flower carriage. Cinderella supported Ye Tang’s head, steadying it, while Claudia and Gloria took turns performing CPR on Ye Tang nonstop, but they could never bring back their mother’s breathing or heartbeat.
Wails and sobs—an hour of rescue yielded no results. Claudia was pulled away by Adrian, Gloria by Jack. Cinderella collapsed crying onto Ye Tang’s chest.
Under the cloudless blue sky, the uncrowned saintess closed her eyes forever with a satisfied smile.
The people of Osnabrock never imagined that on the day Capital Vitril was liberated, they had forever lost their saintess.
To prevent the spread of pathogens, the saintess had promoted cremation in life, but Duke Wilson did not want to cremate her body. Despite everyone’s opposition, he had her remains sent into the grand cathedral, only for the saintess’s body to vanish without a trace that very night.