It seems that the villain is targeting me.

Charles' heart was shaking violently with shock. He raised his head uncontrollably and looked at Umuda, who had a calm expression, with a look of fear in his eyes.

He had already vaguely anticipated something, and Prince Charles had already sensed the impending storm.

He knew that something extremely terrifying was going to happen in this house today.

Charles couldn't help but tremble and fell behind Umuda.

But Umuda ignored the eldest prince and did not hesitate. He pushed open the door of the main house and walked in as if he was at home.

In a sense, this was indeed his home.

Walking into the Brandon family's ancestral home, one can clearly see the signs of decay along the way: unswept fire debris on the floor, faint cracks in the ceiling, and tapestries hanging on the corridor walls that may have once been very expensive.

Perhaps because of the lack of guards, thieves occasionally visited here. Charles noticed that there were traces of rough cutting on the tapestries - that part may have been originally decorated with gold.

The owner of this place used to be of high status, but now, it seems that even some daring thieves dare to steal his property.

And Umuda didn't seem particularly interested in appreciating the house in its current state.

The corridor decorated with tapestries and lamps led to the owner's residence, but he paused at a corner of the corridor and looked at a narrow, dark passage.

Know what you are thinking.

He knew that the passage ended in a simple, cold room.

He also knew that the house had long been abandoned and no one was inside.

Prince Charles looked at Umudah strangely, wondering why he suddenly stopped.

Fortunately, Umuda only stopped for a short while, without saying anything or showing any extra emotions, and he soon started walking again.

The two men came to the outside of the study. Umuda held the door handle with his hand and pushed the door open.

------

-

Duke Brandon was already old and looked a little old. He had very thick eyebrows, his pupils were pure iron gray, and some thin white beard could be seen in the stubble on his chin.

Duke Brandon was sitting in a straight-backed chair made of cherry wood. When Umudah pushed the door open, he seemed completely unaware and was just concentrating on looking at something on the table.

The sound of Umuda pushing the door was not small, and Duke Brandon frowned.

He thought it was the housekeeper coming in, so he said without even looking up, "Get out! Don't come in and disturb me if there's nothing to do!"

But Duke Brandon waited for a long time but did not hear any frightened apology or the sound of the door closing again.

The Duke finally raised his noble head when he realized that the person who came in was not the butler.

He glanced at Prince Charles, who had an embarrassed expression, and then looked at Umuda who was standing beside him.

Then, those iron-gray eyes suddenly widened, their expression filled with disbelief.

Duke Brandon had not seen his illegitimate son for more than ten years, but he recognized him in an instant, and the moment he recognized him, his hand subconsciously reached for his waist.

However, the Duke came up empty-handed - he did not bring any weapons into the study. Who would tie a knife to his belt while working?

As if realizing his own misconduct, Duke Brandon put his hands on the table, stood up suddenly from his chair, and scolded harshly:

"You! You damned bastard! Who allowed you to step into this house!!!"

Umuda's reaction was to humbly perform the etiquette of a junior, as if he didn't take Brandon's questioning to heart at all.

He smiled and said to Duke Brandon, "Good night, my dear father."

This title made Duke Brandon's face look extremely ugly.

The old duke's expression was very strange. At first you might think he was angry or annoyed, but after careful observation you could find that there was actually a hint of hidden fear deep in his pupils.

——He was afraid of the child he had given birth to, he was afraid of Umuda, the illegitimate son.

Duke Brandon looked at Umuda and Charles in horror, as if he couldn't understand why these two people were mixed up together. He subconsciously asked, "You... Umuda, what are you doing back here?"

"Why are you asking?" Umuda looked at him with a smile, "Aren't you clear about it already, father?"

The Duke didn't even care that the eldest prince was still standing there. He raised his voice and shouted outside: "Guards! Guards!"

Immediately, two knights from the Brandon family rushed into the study.

A brief smile of joy appeared on Duke Brandon's face.

But it was only a brief moment, because the two knights walked straight past Umudah and headed towards the Duke himself.

"No, what do you want to do?!"

"This is betrayal! Betrayal!"

"You are not worthy of being knights!!!"

But no matter how Duke Brandon scolded and insulted him, he could not escape the fate of being pinned to the ground by two strong knights of the family.

The noble Duke struggled furiously for more than ten seconds until he saw a pair of boots in his sight.

Umuda stopped in front of the embarrassed Duke Brandon.

He squatted down and looked at the other person slowly for a while.

Umuda smiled shyly, as if complimenting a well-fitting coat: "This suits you very well, Your Excellency the Duke."

He then asked, "Why are you acting so scared? These are all things you taught me—am I not the son who most resembles you?"

Duke Brandon politely replied: "You bastard, don't even think about getting anything from me. I will never give you the title even if I die."

Umudah looked at him quietly and said, "No, father, you are wrong. The dead cannot be the masters of the living."

Duke Brandon's face turned pale, but he was unwilling to be inferior to Umuda. He glared at the other party fiercely, as if he wanted to eat Umuda alive.

But Umudah seemed to be tired of it.

He stood up, looked at the wine jug on the desk, and suddenly asked Duke Brandon, who was lying on the ground, a somewhat strange question.

"Are you hungry, father?" said Umudah.

A few minutes later, someone brought a slop bucket from the kitchen filled with various murky liquids.

Umuda looked at Duke Brandon and said the last words to his biological father.

He said: "Sir, do you believe in karma?

? ”

------

-

Umudada's mother was a Jaran, a bought Jaran slave.

Because of her beautiful appearance and graceful figure, Duke Brandon doted on her for a while.

But soon, the Duke, who was easily bored with the old and easily interested in the new, lost interest in this beauty. He casually sent the woman away and completely forgot about her existence within two days.

Umuda's mother is actually very smart, and Umuda, who inherited his mother's brain, can testify to this.

This woman of humble status knew very well that if she wanted to survive, she could not offend anyone here. She had to live like a ghost without breathing and sense of existence.

She paced cautiously in this cage-like mansion, always keeping her head down humbly, rarely speaking and rarely competing with others for anything.

Not many people even knew that she was pregnant at that time. She gave birth to her child in that dim and narrow room. Only a familiar maid provided a little help because she felt sorry for her.

She shouldn't have given birth to this child, or she should have strangled him at birth.

After all, she gave birth to the Duke's illegitimate child, and this child was destined to bring disaster to her.

But she really couldn't bear to leave this child - this was the only relative she could have in this country.

Umuda's mother protected him very carefully, and the child never left the room where he was born until he was two years old. This made him think that everything in the world was just a bed, a small table, his mother and Aunt Susan who would occasionally visit him.

But as Umuda grew up, his existence could no longer be concealed.

When he was almost three years old, Duke Brandon learned of the existence of this illegitimate child.

Because Umuda was a son, the Duke was initially very interested and asked someone to take a look at him.

But Duke Brandon was disappointed at first sight:

From a distance, little Umudada's eyes seemed to be the same iron-gray color as his own, but if you looked closely, you would find that he still looked like his lowly mother.

At that time, the war between Jialan and the Empire was at its most intense, and this blue-eyed half-blood kid was unwelcome wherever he went.

The Duke soon lost interest in this illegitimate child, but since he was his own son after all, he casually gave a few instructions and asked his subordinates to give Umuda some food.

But Umuda and his mother's lives did not improve, but became worse.

Originally, all the mother had to worry about was food and warm clothes.

She was a very low-key and hardworking woman, and it was not particularly difficult for her to exchange some drinking water from the Duke's Mansion.

Now, the existence of the Duke's illegitimate child made her conspicuous. All kinds of gossip and undisguised malice were directed at his mother. She had to face the difficulties of the Duke's decent wife and the deliberate teasing of those legitimate children.

When he was a child, Umuda always followed his mother closely. When she went to wash clothes or help in the kitchen, he would stay by her side and help her with some light chores.

When the servants prepared mealtimes, the mother and son would put down their work and go get their food for the day. But no matter how early or late they arrived, they would be pushed to the end of the line and eat the leftovers.

There were many people in the kitchen. The mother held the short Umuda tightly with both hands and stood silently at the back of the crowd. Some men deliberately came close to her and touched her inappropriately with their hands, but she endured it quietly.

When adults do bad things, they always think that children don’t understand anything and won’t notice at all, but in fact children are the most sensitive to such things.

Wumuda was confused at the time and did not understand what these people were doing. He just felt intuitively that these people had bad intentions.

He then looked up at the men's faces and clung to his mother, trying to protect her.

Young Umuda memorized everyone's face and thought, "When I grow up, I will chop off all these people's hands."

But he was really too young at that time and he couldn't do anything.

Later, his mother became seriously ill and was dying in the room where he was born. Umudah had no way to save her. He could not find a doctor and no one was willing to help him.

Umudah then broke into the room where the Brandon family was having dinner and asked the distinguished sons of the Brandon family for a bowl of milk mixed with water.

One of his brothers—a vicious little brat—took the bowl of milk from the table, called the servant who was sweeping up the food scraps, and poured the milk into the slop bucket that the servant was carrying.

"Give that to your bitch mother," chuckled Brandon. "That's the kind of stuff you deserve."

When Umudah returned empty-handed, his mother had already stopped breathing on the bed.

Umuda is actually a person with very weak emotions. He does have some pathological emotional defects. He has almost no empathy for others and it is difficult for him to have emotions such as fear.

Such people can easily become antisocial elements - but this is not absolute. There are also people with emotional disorders who are very peaceful and live like ordinary people.

For Umuda, mother

It is probably the only connection he can have with the world.

She had tied a thin thread between her and Umuda in the human world, giving him a bond that he was reluctant to let go, thus forming the most basic constraint.

Although the force of this restraint is weak, it still exists.

But then, the thread broke.

Twenty years ago, one of the Duke of Brandon's sons dumped a bowl of milk into the slop bucket.

Twenty years later, the child who begged for food pressed Duke Brandon's face into the slop bucket.

He patiently and calmly felt his biological father struggling desperately under his palms, felt food residue choking in his trachea, and then felt the extremely painful muffled coughing sound.

Umuda did not particularly enjoy this process. He remained calm throughout, which was completely unlike the expression he should have after taking revenge.

He just put it on his list and planned to complete it that day.

He felt the strength of the struggle in his hands gradually weaken.

Wumuda waited patiently for another five minutes to make sure the other party was completely dead.

Then he stood up, and the two knights beside him dragged the dead Duke of Brandon out of the room, taking the slop bucket and the soiled carpet with them.

Umuda took out a handkerchief, wiped his hands, and threw it aside casually.

It was not until he walked back to the eldest prince and considerately asked him if he felt sick that Charles came to his senses, staggered back two steps, and showed a terrified expression.

At this moment, a man who looked like an official walked into the room and greeted the new head of the Brandon family.

The officer spoke a little slowly, but that was probably because he was filled with fear.

He pointed to a door outside the study.

The officer said, "Master Wumuda, the people you mentioned are all inside."

Umuda nodded, then turned around and smiled gently at Charles - that smile had no meaning, it was just an unconscious action.