Living As the Villainess Queen (Web Novel KR)

Kasser gazed at her for a moment before he muttered out. “But you… didn’t lose your memory. If that’s the case, it’s only obvious that you couldn’t remember anything about it as you never had any memory of such in the first place.”

Eugene gave a nod while her eyes rounded with sheer astonishment. She remembered how her words had wandered off from her as she went on. In the end, she ended up getting confused by her own statement, as if her thoughts and words weren’t in sync at all. With difficulty, she swallowed the cooled tea. She felt the need to start all over again so that her narrative could sound more sensible to him. But it seemed like she had underestimated him as he already had fully grasped the whole outline of her story.

Eugene carefully studied his face. He was now deeply lost in his own thoughts in silence. On the contrary, she was growing more nervous since she couldn’t tell if his such response was a good or bad sign.

The king hadn’t had the slightest idea of what she was trying to convey when she started out by bringing up a past incident from twenty years ago. He admit, it wasn’t easy to take her by her words when she disclosed the secret of Lady Arse—possessing a natural ability which made her realize at once that the baby, although it was Jin in the flesh, returned to her wasn’t her real daughter.

He wondered if Eugene was also trying to explain how she had become distant with her mother ever since Lady Arse had fallen ill from the shock of the incident.

Still, doubts began to emerge at some point as he continued to listen to her. Although he highly doubted his suspicions, he trusted his wife, the thought of being swapped by soul alone was enough to make goosebumps erupt on his skin.

He was silent, so Eugene resorted to studying his face. As his eyes met with hers when he turned to his side, she quickly averted her gaze elsewhere and pretended as if she hadn’t been looking at him at all.

He reflected that the cup she was reaching out for was. Her eyes wavered when she realized it as well. Her such bewilderment was clear to his eyes—Eugene wore her heart on her sleeves. She was honest about her feelings without ever trying to hide it.

As far as he knows about his dear wife, that’s who Eugene really was. She was not the person to deceive anyone.

He must admit there had been a clear turning point in his three years of marriage as ‘Eugene’, who he finally got to know of, had only appeared in his life a few months ago. Aside from the recent months of being with Eugene, the prior three years of his married life, mostly spent with the impostor Jin Anika, held no meaning to him in the least.

Strictly speaking, he believed that Eugene was a patient whose years of memory were completely wiped out from her one day. At times, he felt ashamed of his own selfishness as a part of him strongly wished that her memory would not come back to her anymore.

‘So, she truly is a different person? Is it really plausible for two souls to be switched?’

His mind was in constant denial. A normal person would say it wouldn’t be possible for such an absurd theory to be true in the first place. However, there has been far too much evidence which could support such a ridiculously surreal theory.

[Can a person’s nature change just because memory was lost from one?]

Although he had eventually come to stop comparing Eugene to her past self, he did have his suspicions about her in the beginning since she seemed to have changed into a completely new person after her memory loss.

However, he strongly believed that it wouldn’t be possible for one to turn into a completely different person, even after the memory was wiped out. He believed that one’s true nature always remains the same. If so, the only plausible way to explain the foreignness he felt from Eugene would be to admit she was never the same person he knew in the past. All his doubts seemed to have cleared up after coming to such a conclusion.

“Eugene.”

“Yes.” She blurted out a reply with a start.

Kasser fixed his gaze onto her eyes, which seemed to waver in disquiet along with her growing anxiety as the silence stretched between them. Eugene felt compelled to beg for forgiveness as the stern look in his eyes seemed like an expression of disdain to her.

“I’m so sorry that I lied. But I did it only because I was… scared. I’d just found out about my identity after I met mother. Before then, I only thought I was involved in some kind of accident. And I must confess that I was planning to keep everything a secret for as long as I should, to keep on living inside a body which I thought I had taken away from Jin.”

“You really must have been scared. I bet you had suffered a lot on your own.”

Eugene wondered if she had heard him right. Just like he said, she had indeed raked with apprehension and guilt until she finally met Dana. She also had asked herself countless times who she really was, in fear that she might one day disappear into another world just like how she was thrown here all of a sudden. And most importantly, what would happen to her if the impostor Jin comes back?

To her surprise, not only Kasser didn’t berate her for anything, but he had also instead shown concern. In disbelief, she asked for further clarity in fear that she might have interpreted his words to her advantage while his true intention remained hidden behind his words.

“Do you really understand what I just said? I’m not the same Jin who you married three years ago.”

Kasser flinched for a second, but he managed to give her a nod. “I do understand.”