Chapter 58: It Was My Fault

After Wen Yuzhi left, the smile on Mond’s face vanished in an instant.

For a brief moment, even the chief affairs officer—usually gentle and broad-minded—couldn’t quite keep composure. Lips pressed tight, as if forcing the anger down.

Before today’s exchange, Mond had guessed the little highness might have lived through some unpleasant things.

After all, it showed in the little highness’s everyday words and behavior—so sensible, so well-behaved, almost too sensible, too good.

When Wen Yuzhi first arrived on Dark Tower Star, he always looked wary.

No matter who it was, he was polite and courteous.

Back then, Mond had already had a faint sense that the little highness had most likely been stuck in an anxious, unsafe environment for a long time—otherwise he wouldn’t have ended up with such a lack of security.

But Mond hadn’t expected what lay behind it to be even worse than imagined.

An accident that suddenly took both parents. A once-happy family shattered. Even the home he’d always lived in seized by outsiders by force—at only seven years old, Wen Yuzhi had to start living under someone else’s roof.

Wen Yuzhi hadn’t written out that experience in detail.

But even from the scattered pieces, it wasn’t hard for Mond to see that after losing that pair of adoptive parents, the little highness hadn’t lived well.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have put that group—people who should’ve been family, people who should’ve been able to rely on each other—into the list of those he disliked.

They’d only been with the little highness for a short time, and yet the little highness had personally made dessert for them, worried about them, and even been willing to risk harming his own mental energy just to go save a Saint Clan soldier whose mental sea had already collapsed.

Someone like that... Mond could hardly imagine what those people must have done—how excessive it must have been—to make Wen Yuzhi hate them that much.

Just reading those words, Mond had nearly lost control of the anger more than once.

To the Saint Clan, the little highness was not only noble royal blood, but the entire Saint Clan’s treasure. If he hadn’t been lost outside, how could humans have ever had the nerve to bully their little highness?

Thinking that, Mond didn’t notice for a moment and used a bit too much force.

Crack—

A crisp sound.

The flowerpot had shattered.

For an affairs officer who had served in the palace for so many years, breaking an item while cleaning up was almost unheard of.

And yet Mond had made exactly that kind of low-level mistake—the least forgivable one—right now.

That alone said how unstable the emotions were.

Mond didn’t look at the pile of broken shards on the floor, instead immediately checking the sapling.

Luckily, the sapling inside wasn’t harmed.

These saplings had been coaxed into life by Mond and the little highness together. Mond had just promised the little highness that once the weather warmed up a bit, they’d transplant them outside. So nothing could happen to these saplings.

Mond placed the sapling that had fallen to the ground into a new pot, then cleaned up the mess on the floor.

Only after finishing did Mond head to the deepest part of the room.

Wen Yuzhi had never been here and didn’t know that inside the game room, there was also a separate inner compartment.

When designing it, Mond had thought that if the little highness got tired from playing, he could rest in here for a while.

But before Wen Yuzhi ever came, Mansendis had already come first.

At this moment, the silver-haired sovereign was inside that inner compartment.

Everything Wen Yuzhi and Mond did in the game room had been seen.

When Mond pushed the door open, it was no surprise to find a heap of smashed objects scattered across the floor.

It could be said that aside from the chair Mansendis was sitting in, there was almost nothing else intact in the compartment.

All of it had been beaten into scraps by furious bone spines.

And even then, the bone spines still seemed not to have vented enough. When Mond arrived, they were still posed to attack, searching everywhere for anything they could strike.

That frantic scene—anyone else walking in would probably be startled by the bone spines prowling and swaying through the room.

Yet Mond remained calm.

Ignoring the enraged bone spines, Mond’s gaze went straight to Mansendis sitting at the center of the compartment.

“The little highness has gone back.”

Mond bent slightly as the report was given.

Mansendis let out a low “Mm.” The expression stayed calm. Only those golden slit pupils lowered, half-lidded—light couldn’t reach them, and it made it impossible to read what was hidden in the silver-haired sovereign’s eyes.

But Mond understood /N_o_v_e_l_i_g_h_t/ Mansendis.

Only when truly angry did Mansendis look like this.

The angrier, the calmer.

This silent stillness meant the fury inside had already been pressed down to the very limit.

Mond had no doubt that if the people the little highness spoke of appeared here, not even a complete corpse would remain.

That seemingly calm silver-haired sovereign would tear them into pieces in an instant.

Just like before.

Of course—cleanly.

After all, some trash never should have existed in the first place.

Mond lowered the eyes, thinking idly.

In truth, that thought wasn’t wrong. If those Wen family members really showed up here, Mansendis would absolutely make them pay.

And it would be a price beyond painful.

Mansendis’s gaze darkened.

No one spoke, and the room’s atmosphere sank, little by little, to a freezing point.

As the air began to congeal, Mond seemed to want to say something. The words had barely started—

“Little Highness...”

“It was my fault.”

The two voices came almost at the same time.

Mond’s words lodged in the throat. For a moment, Mond could only stare at Mansendis, shock rising into the eyes.

Mansendis sat right there.

It was the first time Mond had ever seen something like regret on the silver-haired sovereign’s face, and the first time Mond had ever heard Mansendis take the initiative to admit fault.

Mansendis didn’t care about that surprise.

Thoughts were still caught on everything Wen Yuzhi had mentioned.

Whether happy or sad, none of it had ever included Mansendis.

Wen Yuzhi’s childhood had been spent at another couple’s knees. The cub treated them as family, and when speaking of them, the cub’s eyes seemed filled with bright, joyful light.

In Mansendis’s chest, an uncontrollable sourness surged up—something that couldn’t be named clearly.

And that sour, stinging feeling was plainly because of that couple, the ones who could make Wen Yuzhi still miss them and cling to them even now.

Somewhere Mansendis had never been, they had already taken the most important place in the cub’s heart.

A place Mansendis could not reach.

Mansendis was already irritable because of that—and after learning what happened later, the fury was the same as Mond’s, unstoppable.

That violent anger wrapped around him with a stabbing pain. Icy killing intent flooded Mansendis’s mind.

At the same time, an emotion never felt before—regret—coiled in the heart and began to grow, crazily spreading.

Mansendis couldn’t help thinking: if back then there had been just a little more patience, if the abnormality had been noticed when Tasiya said those things, then Wen Yuzhi might not have been lost outside.

The cub would have stayed within the Saint Clan, with the most noble identity—Mansendis’s child, one of only two royal-blood descendants of Salilaino. The cub would have enjoyed all the privileges of an heir. Countless Saint Clan would have supported him, loved him, revered him.

The cub would have received the very best care.

And Mansendis... would have loved him, too.

Mansendis would have accompanied him as he grew, becoming the firmest support—just like that couple had been.

Only...

Now, regret came too late.

What was missed was missed.

Because of that contempt, Wen Yuzhi had been lost outside for so many years—and suffered so much.

At the thought, Mansendis pressed the lips together. Those golden slit pupils gradually filled with a heavy, murky darkness.

...

Wen Yuzhi had no idea that day, when learning to control mental energy with Mond, Mansendis had also been there.

He kept learning as usual with Mond.

The next day’s lesson continued with sprouting seeds.

Only this time, there was no need to play any kind of game.

Instead, each time Wen Yuzhi successfully sprouted a seed, Mond would allow ten minutes of rest with the light-brain.

Wen Yuzhi wasn’t desperate to play with the light-brain. It was just that there were too many materials. Even setting aside time every day, he’d only read a small portion. Finishing all of it was still far away.

But in Mond’s eyes and everyone else’s, it looked like the little highness had been staring at the light-brain longer and longer lately.

After Mu Luo noticed a late night once, Wen Yuzhi’s light-brain time was restricted.

Mu Luo’s reasoning was: “A cub’s body needs plenty of sleep. If you don’t sleep well, you won’t grow taller later.”

Wen Yuzhi: “...”

That kind of childlike coaxing didn’t fool him.

But the Saint Clan believed it.

Mansendis directly used a guardian’s authority to set a time limit on Wen Yuzhi’s light-brain, allowing at most three hours a day.

If Wen Yuzhi wanted more, he had to study well like this to earn extra time.

Fortunately, Wen Yuzhi didn’t think sprouting these seeds was all that troublesome.

On the contrary, over these past few days, he had gradually understood why Mond kept having him sprout seeds when the plan was “mental energy practice.”

The process looked simple, but actually sprouting a sapling required extremely fine control over mental energy.

Perfect for a beginner like Wen Yuzhi.

During today’s sprouting, Wen Yuzhi could clearly feel the grasp of mental energy becoming more and more fluent.

And the act itself—using mental energy to coax a seed into a sapling—was genuinely interesting. It was like personally participating in life’s first stirrings, witnessing its growth firsthand.

It was a magical feeling.

During break, Wen Yuzhi took a photo of the sapling he’d sprouted, then went straight to the contacts list and found the avatar that used to be garbled, but was now a pure black icon.

He sent the photo.

Xi Heyan looked at the vivid, green sapling in the picture and asked:

[New potted plant you bought?]

[No. I used mental energy to sprout this from a seed.]

Wen Yuzhi happily shared today’s result.

[I read the materials you sent, and Mond taught me too.]

Xi Heyan praised without hesitation:

[That’s great.]

Praise from a close friend made Wen Yuzhi even happier.

[Right now I only need half an hour to sprout one sapling.]

Xi Heyan was a little surprised.

Half an hour...

From seed to sapling—that speed was already very fast.

What Xi Heyan didn’t know was that Wen Yuzhi had been able to sprout seeds on the very first day.

If Xi Heyan knew that, the surprise would only be greater—Wen Yuzhi’s talent with mental energy control.

Looking at the message now, with that proud tone between the lines, Xi Heyan kept praising:

[That’s impressive.]

[You’re the most talented person I’ve ever seen.]

From saying he’d start learning with the elders at home to now, it had only been three or four days total.

In such a short time, being able to sprout a sapling—and in so little time—if this didn’t count as talent, Xi Heyan didn’t know what did.

Even at the academy, known as a gathering place for geniuses, there were plenty of students who couldn’t even pass the mental energy assessment.

Granted, that was partly because the military academy had been declining more and more—but Wen Yuzhi’s talent really was outstanding.

Xi Heyan meant it.

But Wen Yuzhi was praised into a bit of embarrassment.

He hurriedly shut off the light-brain. The rest time was already over, and Wen Yuzhi didn’t have time to think further, only continuing today’s lesson.

...

Over the next few days, Wen Yuzhi kept repeating the same routine.

In the morning, sprouting seeds with Mond. In the afternoon, practicing pronunciation with the bone spines using small cards. At night, secretly checking the materials on the light-brain, and asking that friend whenever something wasn’t understood.

Every day felt packed.

Soon, a few days later, it was time to check progress.

A group of Saint Clan sat neatly at the dining table.

Mond had called them over suddenly. Sitting here now, they looked confused.

They wanted to ask Mond, but Mond kept acting mysterious.

Until the bone spines brought the cub over.

Only then did everyone realize today’s matter might be related to the little highness.

Wen Yuzhi stood on the table, small wings fluttering.

He was clearly nervous. When the wings tucked in, they trembled lightly.

Under the gaze of the Saint Clan, Wen Yuzhi gathered courage, opened his mouth—

“Alvin.”

He called the Saint Clan member directly in front first.

The voice was soft and light, like a feather drifting down, but each syllable was extremely clear.

Alvin froze. Not only Alvin—everyone at the table froze too.

What did they just hear?

The little highness had called Alvin’s name?!

But Wen Yuzhi was already quickly looking to the next.

“Selet.”

“Merita.”

“Mond.”

“Yiluo.”

“Feier.”

One by one, Wen Yuzhi read through them, finishing every familiar Saint Clan member in that row.

And at the end, only the silver-haired sovereign seated at the head still hadn’t been mentioned.

Wen Yuzhi walked step by step to Mansendis.

Blinking, he paused for a moment, then slowly spoke that form of address.

“Dad...”

That “Dad” came from Wen Yuzhi’s heart—something he was willing to say.