The Villain's Wife

Unedited.

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Lily raised her eyebrow but said nothing. She let Mr. Neeson continue. "I am here to tell you that we want you to take your grandmother's vacant seat."

"Vacant?"

Mr. Neeson smiled. "We didn't replace her. Rather… no one else is qualified to replace her." Making a deliberate pause, the older man stared at Lily's face as he thought of her similarity to Lilian. It is undeniable that the two are related. Even the way they speak… had similarities. "Other than you, of course."

"Is that why you are here to talk to me?"

Mr. Neeson pursed his lips as he carefully thought of Lily's question. It was clear Lily already knew he was the one responsible for the poisoning. Or why else would she advise the Duke not to pursue the matter anymore? Lily knew that if the Duke pursued the matter, he would only end up dead. He smiled and nodded. "Yes. That is why I wanted to talk to you."

"I see."

"I believe you wanted to ask some questions?"

"Why are you here in Madam Luo's estate?" Lily's question surprised him. He frowned in response. Why would Lily ask such a thing? It didn't take him a few seconds to know the reason behind Lily's action of coming here. She was here to retrieve something.

"Because I wanted to keep this meeting as private as possible." His gaze turned towards Zhuo Jingren. "If your husband is not already one of us… then I would have found another way to talk to you alone."

"Then…. What did my grandmother do? Why kill her?"

"As I said…"

"Explain," Lily uttered. "Why kill a woman who had been working with you for years?"

"Her ideology was the problem." Mr. Neeson immediately answered like a robot reading a script. "Lilian created a bomb… rather, she asked a person to create a bomb that could annihilate countries."

"Nuclear bomb?" Zhou Jingren asked.

"Worse." Mr. Neeson said. "This was an idea… in the nineteen fifties. An idea that the US never approved as it was too dangerous. One wrong gram and the entire world will suffer."

"A bomb worse than nuclear?" Lily said as she lowered her head.

"I am sure you have been close enough to Lilian to know that her views can be quite extreme. She wanted to kill as many people to stop the increase in population. Thus, giving her a chance to stop doing what she was supposed to do. She wanted an escape, and that was her only way. Once civilization collapses, everyone will suffer including us. That would mean… we would not have the time to deal with other problems in other countries. That would have destroyed the status quo. People will die, millions will suffer, countries will collapse. All this was her plan. To have her revenge."

"Revenge against the world?"

Mr. Neeson nodded. "Against the reason why she killed her own husband. Against the people who killed her daughter. Against the people who bullied you. Against everyone who made her suffer. Against humanity. She was a lost cause. When we found out about her plan, we had no choice but to kill her. "

Lily stayed silent. Her grandmother indeed has extreme views. However, Lily was not that close to Lilian for her to know that she hated the world. She scoffed at the silliness of the story that Mr. Neeson told her. Does this old man think that she would believe a word he says? How foolish.

"I am not going to ask you to believe me." Of course, Mr. Neeson knew that Lily is not a lamb that one could easily fool. Lily is not the sheep. She was the Lioness. He smiled at the younger woman. "But I am here to tell you that after you give birth, you have to start working for us. You are needed to balance everything out."

"And if I refuse?"

Mr. Neeson smiled a sinister and dark smile. "You wouldn't want to know the things that will happen once you refuse. Just know… your grandmother refused once. So her husband died."

"You— "

"It was tough love." Mr. Neeson shrugged, unafraid to anger Lily. "I didn't kill him if you wanted to ask. Nor did we order his death. Lilian had enemies. She had enemies before she even met your grandfather. Once the protection that we gave her vanished, they immediately targeted your grandfather like a fucking target board. In the end, she killed him out of pity. That was the consequence of her previous actions. It is sad, but people needed to know that every action had its own consequences. I am sure you already know that, right? Your grandfather's death was one of the most debated topics that we had over the years. People were divided. I chose not to involve Lilian's lover in this mess. However, people voted against my words. And they won."

Lily turned her head away as she pretended to think about his words. Slowly, a smirk slithered on her face. Clearly, Mr. Neeson wanted Lily to know that he tried to stop them from removing the security. But since he was all alone, he failed to win against the other members of the order. But isn't this too silly? If this old man had been watching her since he was a child, then he must have known how she dealt with people.

Lily could easily distinguish a lie from the truth. If Mr. Neeson was indeed watching her, then they should have known that she could do this. And assuming that they know this fact…. "You are testing me," Lily uttered. "But remember… you are also testing my patience." She turned her head towards the older man. Smiling, she continued. "You can lie all you want and I can listen to all I want. But let's be honest here… we are wasting each other's time."

The atmosphere inside the room was soon interrupted with a loud, boisterous laughter that Mr. Neeson made. His shoulders shook in glee, his eyes squinted, making the wrinkles below his eyes more prominent. The pretense in his eyes slowly vanished as he stared at Lily's blank expression. "Tell me… Lily… are you really Lilian's granddaughter? Or Lilian herself?"

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