The Married Alpha Who Refuses to Be a Heartthrob (A/B/O · Alpha POV) - Chapter 31

Curious about the song “When I Die”, Longshi helped Kaes find the lyrics to it. After finding the lyrics Kaes returned to his office, deeply intrigued by this song about death.

He looked over the lyrics and went straight to the chorus of the song. The words read:

【The moon in the night sky reflects sorrowful tears,

I still remember our love at first sight at the ball a year ago.

Let the mask hide my ugly face, trying to make you love me.

You insisted on leaving me, so I could only keep you here forever like this.

My heart bleeds endlessly, just as yours does now.

When I die, will you love me? Will you love me? Will you love me?

Ah!!! Ah!!! Ah!!!

Let us be together forever.】

“When I Die” was a famous opera song over thirty years ago. It was understandable that young people like Keith and Kaes didn’t know about it. No one has sung it since Fia’s death.

Actors and singers alike considered it cursed, and the title itself brings bad omen.

Kaes glanced through it briefly before taking it to the annex for Keith and the others to study.

……

At ten o’clock that evening, he walked toward Keith’s room. Keith was talking to Xiaolu, who stood on a shelf swaying and singing.

“When I die, will you love me? Will you love me? Will you love me?”

Keith guessed Xiaolu must have heard the song from a promo poster while out playing and was mimicking it. He quickly stopped Xiaolu: “Stop singing that. It’s creepy.”

Xiaolu shifted to the side and continued mimicking the high notes: “Ah!!!!~Ah!!!!!~Ah!!!!~Let us be together forever.”

“I told you to stop singing!” Keith grabbed Xiaolu, pinching its bright red beak. Xiaolu laid back in his palm, staring blankly at him.

Kaes had heard Xiaolu singing that eerie song from outside. The servants listening shivered and scurried away. He walked in to find Keith scolding the parrot.

Kaes: “I found the text. Take a look… Better not sing that song.”

“How did such a terrifying song ever become popular back then?” Keith nodded, shoving Xiaolu into the red parrot’s cage. “Red Tea, keep an eye on Xiaolu. Hit him whenever he sings.”

Red Tea was a good size larger than Xiaolu, who could even hide beneath its wings. The moment Xiaolu tried to sing, Red Tea pecked its head.

Kaes & Keith sat side by side on the sofa, reading the text together. Vansen went to write a letter to the Pope, informing him that his first disciple was still alive.

“I’ll show it to Vansen later. Let’s read it first,” Keith said.

It was a hand-copied text; the original manuscript was said to have been destroyed. Over thirty years ago, the actress Fia who sang this opera rose to fame for less than three months before dying mysteriously, her death mirrored the opera’s female lead. The opera itself was considered an ill-omened artifact.

“Alright.” Keith opened the text, which resembled a play script, filled with characters’ lines.

The plot of When I Die was simple, consisting mostly of singing. It contained many songs, but only the title track, “When I Die,” was the most famous.

After Fia’s death, no one dared to sing it again.

The basic plot was:

[Set at a masquerade ball, a woman falls instantly in love with a gentleman from afar. They bond deeply, but the gentleman must return home after a short stay, promising to marry her a year later.

The woman waits at home for a year, exchanging heartfelt letters with him. During this time, a fire breaks out in her house, disfiguring her face and hands. Her handwriting becomes grotesque.

In his letters, the gentleman wrote: “What troubles have you faced lately? Why is your writing so laborious? If you’re ill, please rest well.”

Unable to reveal the truth, the woman lived each day wearing a mask and a pair of gloves.

A year later, the gentleman arrived as promised. The masquerade ball commenced, and the woman attended wearing her mask. The gentleman took her gloved, swollen hand and pressed her for answers.

Refusing to speak, the gentleman forcibly removed her gloves, revealing her burned, disfigured hands. Whispers erupted among the crowd.

The woman burst into tears and fled. The gentleman froze, if it was only a burned hand he will still accept her.

He chased after her, only to see her horrifying face beneath the mask. Terrified, he couldn’t accept such ugliness.

As he apologized and turned to leave, she embraced him from behind and stabbed him repeatedly with a small knife.

After the gentleman died, the woman caressed his corpse and sang “When I Die,” then took her own life. Their bodies lay entwined.】

“That’s it?” Keith frowned, flipping through the thin manuscript. He didn’t care for the story—the heroine seemed disturbed, her ugliness warping her. “And this became a huge hit? I have no idea what my father went through… I heard Fia died 35 years ago…”

Keith was now 25, a year older than Kaes.

Keith: “If my calculations are right… And my father knew her 25 years ago. Then he was only 16 when they met, and she was already 27.”

Kaes listened, finding it hard to understand: “That’s quite an age gap… a 16-year-old prince and a 27-year-old actress.”

“I heard my father became the Pope’s apprentice at 15 & learned nothing in a year. He then went off fell in love?” Keith closed the text in shock. He couldn’t fathom the love story of a 16-year-old prince and a 27-year-old actress.

Keith’s feelings toward his father were complicated. His mother suffered far more than he did; his father had left him early, and aside from the torment of being forced to make specimens, things were somehow manageable back then.

“Knock knock knock!” The guards outside pounded anxiously on the door.

“Your Excellency! A flayed corpse has been discovered in the sewers!”

Keith and his companion sprang to their feet, opening the door to follow the guard out of the main building. Assuming the victim had just died, Keith asked, “Do you know who it is?”

A carriage awaited outside the main building. The guard led them to it. “No idea. Without skin, we can’t identify them. Some decomposition—seems they’ve been dead a while.”

The two climbed into the carriage and sped toward the sewers.

…

That particular evening Lanqi was eerily quiet. After Kaes banned entertainment, people couldn’t sing or dance at home, nor host parties. Many had gone to bed early.

The carriage arrived beneath the great bridge, where access to the sewers lay.

Several guards stood at the sewer entrance, Long Shi among them, lanterns raised as they awaited Kaes.

Kaes and Keith dismounted to find two commoners waiting: a sturdy, angry-looking man and a scrawny youth.

Everyone bowed to the governor. Kaes studied the two civilians with a searching gaze.

Long Shi explained briefly: “One is a baker, while the other is a thief. The thief was caught stealing bread. The baker chased him, and both ended up in the sewers where they found a flayed corpse.”

Kaes ordered two guards to escort the civilians away: “Take them back. No more wandering at night. If you catch them again then they go to the dungeon.”

The baker and thief followed the guards, both shaken, their minds haunted by the image of the flayed corpse.

Kaes immediately thought of Abe, who had been missing for some time: “Could it be Abe? Let’s go in.”

“Abe?” Longshi hadn’t considered that possibility. He believed the corpse taken by the sorcerer would never reappear. “You say that, and the build does resemble him. Change into your water shoes first before going in—it’s filthy down there.”

Long Shi had two pairs of water shoes brought over. The two changed into them. At the sewer entrance, a foul stench hit them, and once inside, the stench was overwhelming.

The sewer was filthy and foul, the stench nearly overwhelming. The floor was covered in muddy sewage and excrement.

The sewer was pitch-black, its branching passages like gaping black maws.

Long Shi and several guards led the way with lanterns. They wound through the labyrinthine tunnels until they finally spotted a corpse in a narrow passage.

The body lay discarded in the sewer, face up. The skinless corpse was grotesque, most of its surface caked in filth, exposing patches of bare flesh.

Kaes estimated the height and build to closely match Abe’s. He crouched down, peeled back the eyelids with his gloved hand, revealing lifeless blue eyes. He pried open the jaw to examine the teeth: “It really is Abe.”

“Abe was dumped here,” Keith said, feeling a deep sorrow for the man who had suffered such torment even in death. “What should we do with the body?”

Abe’s body was already partially decomposed, covered in filth, foul-smelling and rotting, stripped of all clothing and hair.

“Carry it out and find a place to burn it,” Keith said. “The skin was likely stripped by a witch doctor. At dawn, we’ll transport the ashes back to Bain Pereira and deliver them to his foster father.”

At the very least, they owed Abe’s family an explanation.

Hearing Kaes mention an evil witch doctor stripping human skin, everyone’s faces darkened. They wondered what dark magic this skin could possibly be used for.

Several guards carried the corpse out of the sewer. After leaving the sewer, Keith and the others disposed of their gloves and waterproof boots.

Kaes and Keith boarded a carriage, heading back to the villa.

On the way, they heard the faint singing of a woman. Both men paled. Keith peered out the window: “Where is that singing coming from?”

They assumed someone outside was singing—could anyone dare defy the governor’s orders?

All the windows outside were pitch black; everyone had extinguished their lamps and retired. Kaes’s expression grew grave as he listened intently to the faint melody. He ordered the coachman, “Stop the carriage.”

The carriage halted. The coachman asked, “Governor, what’s wrong?”

Kaes: “It sounds like someone singing. Do you hear it?”

The coachman was baffled. Outside, he only heard the rumble of the wheels.

“When I die, will you love me? Will you love me? Will you love me?”

It was a woman singing, though upon closer listening, the voice seemed neither distinctly male nor female—strangely ambiguous.

Kaes glanced out the window. Nothing was visible. He decided to investigate, grabbing the lantern holding the candle. “I’ll go down and check.”

Keith stepped off the carriage, followed by Kaes. The singing actually grew fainter. Keith pulled him back. “It seems to be coming from inside the carriage.”

“There’s only the two of us in the carriage, right?” Keith’s face paled slightly. The song gave him goosebumps.

The song looped endlessly: “The moon in the night sky, reflecting sorrowful tears…”

“I’ll go check again.” Kaes felt uneasy too. He crouched into the carriage, rummaging around. The interior was bare.

Lifting the seat cushion, he discovered a small flyer. It was the very one advertising Fia’s opera performance. It bore no showtime, only Fia’s image singing on the paper.

Fia wore a red stage gown, singing endlessly behind a mask: “Ah!!!!—Ah!!!!!—Ah!!!!!—Let us be together forever.”

When Keith saw the flyer in Kaes’s hand, he suddenly grasped its meaning: “Were you chosen? Or me? Or both of us?”