Chapter 55: 55

Michelle’s words struck deep into the young prisoner’s mind, and he sank into his thoughts, wondering how he might have offended his old master for him to frame him like that. But nothing came to his mind.

As the man thought, Michelle sweeper her gaze over his cell and realized that his cell was dry, unlike the other cells. “The guards know you are innocent?” she asked with a lifted brow.

Her words snapped the man out of his thoughts. “How do you know that?” he was shocked. Even the guards never once told him they knew he was innocent. He just understood it from their gazes. So how could Michelle guess it when she never saw his interaction with the guards.

Michelle rolled her eyes with a sigh and decided to explain her thoughts to the man: “All prison cells are wet and damp, because the guards give the prisoners who deserve to be in here the food carelessly, not caring if it spills. Also, when the prisoners misbehave, they splash them, along with the whole cell, with a bucket of dirty cold water, and in an underground place like this, the cells can’t really dry.”

She continued: “But your cell is dry and clean. Your food had clearly always been put carefully down, and you were never splashed for misbehaving. I doubt you were so obedient for them to never once splash you. They just overlooked it since you are innocent in their eyes.”

Listening to that, the man was stunned. Michelle was clearly just a bit younger, but she was able to guess in a glance something for what he needed a few weeks’ time to even notice. “You can find all that out from just that my cells dry…”

Michelle shrugged and took out the keys to the prison cells. “Until tomorrow, you should think carefully why your master framed you!” she said as she unlocked the cell and entered, locking it from the inside as she sat on the ground in the corner, putting the keys in her spatial ring. “I’ll stay in your cell this night to cultivate,” she added as she closed her eyes, once again trying to understand and master the memory manipulation skill she got from Rivenaar since she failed to use it on the concubine.

The man stared at Michelle as she closed her eyes. She looked relaxed and defenceless, but even as a cultivator, he couldn’t grasp her full power, which meant that she was far above him. He wasn’t a powerful cultivator as before he was locked up, he never had time to cultivate, and in the prison was nearly no spirit energy, but even so. As all the cultivators in the kingdom were his age at most and even though most were more powerful than him, he could still guess their power, but Michelle’s power was out of his reach.

Also, he couldn’t understand how she wanted to cultivate when nearly no spirit energy was in the prison. But he didn’t dare disturb Michelle so he just sat in a different corner of the cell and watched her cultivate.

Michelle’s mind sunk back into Rivenaar’s memories, going over the memory manipulation skill again and again, trying to understand it more in depth. She thought about every single detail in the skill and thought about what she could have done wrong to fail. She refused to never master the skill.

After dawn came, Michelle opened her eyes and stood up. Her eyes landed on the young prisoner, who was asleep. Then, without making any sound, she unlocked the cell and walked out, locking behind her. Then, she walked towards the concubine’s cell at the back of the prison hallway. The concubine couldn’t sleep a wink the whole night because of the traumatizing pain she went through in the evening, so she instantly saw Michelle walking towards her, unlocking the door. She wanted to scream, but Michelle was already next to her and placed her palm over the concubine’s mouth.

“Shh-” Michelle sipped with a gentle smile, her eyes cold and ruthless. “You wouldn’t want to wake up the others…” she whispered, her face sweet, but her voice cold and threatening.

The concubine didn’t dare make a sound, even as Michelle moved her hand from her mouth to the top of her head and closed her eyes. Soon, the concubine felt something seep into her brain, but to her surprise, it wasn’t as painful as she expected. It hurt a lot, but it was bearable.

Michelle noticed that she couldn’t fully push her memories into the concubine’s mind, so she could just retract her spirit energy and sigh. She stared at the concubine who was frozen in fear, and her smile widened. “Don’t worry, I’m near succeeding!” she spoke lazily as she turned to go back to the young prisoner’s cell.

“So? Did you think about it?” she asked calmly as she leaned on the cell bars. “Or are you still clueless as to why your master framed you?” she added.

The young man in the cell had already woken up after she left the cell, and his mind was clear, his eyes filled with cold rage. “I know why…” he sipped, his voice dripping with venom.

“Oh-?” Michelle grinned, her eyes gleaming darkly. “Why?” she asked, her voice lazy, laced with amusement.

After Michelle asked that, the young man remained silent for a long while before speaking up. “Who are you to have the keys of this prison?” he asked with a frown. It was a question weighing on his mind since the first moment he saw her.

Not receiving an answer to her question, Michelle didn’t mind the least bit. She had a few guesses in her mind, and seeing the venom in the young man’s eyes, she could rule out a few guesses. “I’m the little Emperor’s teacher,” she answered as she pushed herself off the cell bars. “Why? You want me to get you out of here? To prove your innocence and get your master behind bars?”

“No!” the young man shook his head.

That made Michelle lift a brow. “Then, what do you want?” she asked with a lazy smile. The young man was quite interesting, and she had a fair guess as to what he would ask of her. If her guess was right, and he asked for it, she would be very happy.

The young man took a deep breath, thinking he would be rejected, before answering. “Actually, yes and no! Please, get me out of here, but don’t put that bastard behind the bars!” he bowed his head as he spoke.

Hearing that, Michelle’s smile widened. She got an answer she liked, so she asked: “Why shouldn’t I put him behind the bars?”

Receiving the question, the young man frowned. “I want to take revenge on him myself. My Lady, I don’t want to kill with a borrowed knife.”

Michelle snickered and put the key into the keyhole. A soft click sounded as she unlocked the cell and opened it with a loud creaking sound. “Come with me. I’ll take you to the Emperor.”

The young man was surprised. “You just want to take me out of prison? No procedures?” he was fairly shocked. He had never seen anything like that.

To that, Michelle just shrugged. “Is your old master more powerful than the Archduke?” she asked with a smile as she walked towards the prison exit.

Seeing that he would get left behind if he didn’t move, the young man stood up and ran after Michelle. “You’re the Archduke’s daughter, My Lady?” he hurriedly asked as he caught up to Michelle. “The Young Lady who was rumored to be arrogant and vain? Incompetent and lazy?” he didn’t even watch his tongue as he spoke about Michelle’s dark past.

When his words fell, he quickly wanted to apologize, but Michelle just smiled. “That sounds like me!” she grinned as they walked past the prison guards, and she led him towards the Emperor’s office.

“My Lady, but you are nothing like the rumors!” he exclaimed.

Michelle shrugged with a smile. “People believe that a memory loss has changed me.” She squinted her eyes as she stared up at the sky.

Hearing her words, the young man was shocked. “My Lady, you’ve lost your memories?” he asked quickly. “How could that happen to you?”

“Who knows…” Michelle snickered as she stopped in front of the office building in the Imperial Palace. “That’s just what people say.” She spoke like it was a story not concerning her, and that made the young man even more curious about her.

“My Lady, so did you, or did you not lose your memory? What’s the truth? Are you just pretending to have lost your memories, so people don’t suspect that you are nothing like the rumors?” he asked, Hus gaze fixated on Michelle’s expression, as if trying to read her mind. He wanted to see a crack in her acting to see what was really the truth.

But Michelle’s acting was foolproof, and he couldn’t discover anything as Michelle opened the door to the office building. “I don’t know. Did I lose my memories or not…?” she chuckled. “Let’s say… partly…” The young man could no longer know what was the truth and what a lie.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep