Chapter 180

“What’s this weird question again?”

Prince Freckled, hearing it and being utterly confused, replied with a tinge of impatience:

“I’m my father’s only son. What sister are you talking about? If you’re wasting my time for such nonsense… uh…”

At this point, he seemed to recall something, hesitated briefly, then cautiously glanced in Leon’s direction.

“Are you… peeking into my dreams when I sleep using some method?”

Dreams?!

After hearing the Freckled Prince’s words, both Leon and Emma raised their eyebrows simultaneously, then instinctively made direct eye contact.

“Prince Joshua, while the Clearing Bureau does have cleaners capable of entering dreams, our Virgo Subdivision doesn’t possess anyone with that ability… but we can’t confirm whether or not there might be someone like that among the rebels.”

After exchanging glances and deciding this was worth investigating further, Emma immediately sat up straight, her expression turning serious as she said:

“Prince Joshua, we now suspect that someone may have intruded upon your dream and is attempting to harm or manipulate you through it. For your safety, please inform us of the content of your dream!”

“Hmm… it was just a chaotic dream, one without much logic. Do I really need to tell you about it?”

“Yes, it could be crucial intelligence!”

“Well… okay…”

Intimidated by Emma’s serious demeanor, the Freckled Prince hesitated for a moment before reluctantly recounting his story in a hesitant tone:

“Same as your question last night, I had a similar dream where I wasn’t an only child but had a sister who was fourteen or fifteen years older than me. She seemed to be called… Ver… Veronica or something…”

“Veronica?”

“Yes! That’s right, Veronica!”

Clapping his hands together happily, the Freckled Prince paused briefly before looking up at Leon, who had chimed in, with a puzzled expression:

“How do you know the name of the person in my dream? And why does your voice sound so familiar…”

“Of course we know that name!”

Emma gave Leon’s leg a slight pinch under the table to signal him not to speak out of turn, then frowned slightly as she replied:

“Because there’s a woman named Veronica among the rebels. Prince Joshua, we suspect that this woman possesses an anomalous item capable of entering dreams and has actively intruded on yours!”

“So that’s how it is…”

The Freckled Prince nodded in sudden understanding, then relaxed somewhat: “That makes sense. I wondered why I would have such a strange dream. So it was all controlled.”

Strange? Upon hearing this, Emma blinked and immediately followed up with another question:

“Prince Joshua, aside from having a sister in the dream, were there any other strange elements?”

“To be honest… the whole dream was strange!”

Furrowing his brows in recollection, the Freckled Prince recounted with distaste: “Under the manipulation of those rebels, I looked like a clown in that dream.

And… um… the me in the dream was pretty stupid.

When I was young, our relationship was decent; she often took me around the royal palace to play. But once I grew a little older, I started doing everything against her wishes—she was frugal, so I became extravagant; she was gentle, so I was harsh. I kept causing her trouble, and later…”

As he continued recalling details, more memories surfaced, and his eyes gradually took on a pained look. He recounted as if narrating his own story, with discomfort evident in his expression:

“Later… the kingdom was invaded, first with warships blockading all major deep-water ports, then a quarter of the main roads were bombed, and most of the rest were occupied too. Half the kingdom’s transportation network was almost completely cut off, and every day we could see airships dropping bombs overhead.

As for the army under the control of those useless people in the military department, they were utterly incapable in front of the enemy, practically collapsing at the slightest touch. Only the few new armies organized by my sister and the Minister of Defense had any real resistance capability.

But in terms of numbers and weapons, they were far inferior to the enemy. Although they managed to repel several attacks under Old Hill’s command and stabilized the situation, my mother and some people from the Ministry of Finance began constantly hindering them behind the scenes…”

Recalling his clown-like behavior in the dream, the Freckled Prince found it hard to continue, then slammed the table angrily, filled with frustration:

“It was all a mess!

Then the new army couldn’t pay salaries, ammunition and weapons weren’t supplied either. Though my sister’s prestige kept them from dispersing, eventually they couldn’t hold on anymore, and most of them were trapped in Merino County.

Nothing went right!

Then the capital fell, refugees were everywhere. My mother and I got separated from the Ministry of Finance group and didn’t manage to escape. Then… then my sister came back.”

Pausing briefly here, the Freckled Prince spoke with a complex gaze:

“At such a time, neither my father, my mother, nor my uncle came for me, but only she broke through the siege in Merino County, re-entered the capital, and found me hiding in an air-raid shelter converted from the old district’s sewer system.

I… I asked her why she came, and she said she didn’t want to come, but I still had to live. Father only had two children, and I couldn’t die like this. I had to live, just in case.”

“The me in the dream didn’t understand what she meant at the time, but after father died on the run and she was captured and executed for resisting unsuccessfully, her scattered army and those who didn’t want the kingdom to be completely annexed began to rally around me, saying I was the last robin of the royal family.

But me… the me in the dream was utterly useless, lacking the ability to persist in resistance like her. I could only retreat again and again, completely submitting to another kingdom, signing extremely harsh treaties, barely holding onto a small piece of land less than three counties.

And to avoid total annihilation, I had to pay a huge sum of precious minerals every year, along with nearly forty percent of the fiscal revenue, making it almost equivalent to a large county in another kingdom. Even though I worked tirelessly every day, the situation only got worse…”

Finishing the story of the other self with a dim expression, as if deeply empathizing, the Freckled Prince gazed blankly and said: “Just as everything seemed to be heading towards the worst outcome, with the entire kingdom impoverished and burdened beyond endurance, an old man with squinty, smiling eyes asked me if I wanted to change all this.

Then he opened a door for me, telling me that walking through it would undo regrets, but as a price, I’d lose everything. The me in the dream, either completely desperate or feeling like there was nothing left to lose, walked through directly…”

“…”

“Then what happened?”

After waiting for a while without hearing a continuation, Emma, captivated by the tale, couldn’t help but ask: “What happened to the you in the dream after entering the door?”

“After?!”

The Freckled Prince blinked, momentarily lost in thought, then said:

“There’s nothing after that. I woke up when it got light.”