☆,Chapter One
I have witnessed and understood numerous strange and bizarre ways of death.
Consequently, the way of being imprisoned until death did not leave an especially deep impression on me.
At least, that was the case before it happened to me.
Catherine Windsor
Chapter One:
Catherine still remembered the day when she left Windsor Castle, where she was born and raised, and came to Volterra, a small town on the outskirts of Florence, Italy.
The sky in London was so gloomy that it seemed as if it was about to collapse at any moment. The 虚伪 (hypocritical) farewells and blessings of Amber's family were made even more ethereal by the wind, and Catherine simply ignored them.
She was so eager to escape from Windsor Castle that when Mr. Leonardo Langdon, her father's close friend who had come from afar, proposed during her father's funeral that Catherine could follow him as an apprentice to Italy, Catherine almost agreed without hesitation.
You can't blame her for having no sentimentality for her hometown at all. It's just that the memories left here for her were really not pleasant.
Catherine didn't have much luggage, and there was even less that she couldn't part with and wanted to take to Italy. Therefore, three days after her father's funeral, she packed her luggage in just one morning.
All added together, it was enough to stuff them into a handmade cloth bag with its color faded - her mother made the cloth bag for her, and she had been using it carefully for eleven years.
She left Windsor and England just like that, with only a cloth bag and a black mourning dress as her equipment.
It was incredibly simple and resolute to the point of being almost heartless.
Although she was not completely indifferent to Windsor, this fragile connection was only limited to her parents. She had no interest in the identity of the guardian of Windsor Castle at all. Because of this identity, her mother Evelyn and father had lived their lives as if in a cage. From the moment they inherited this identity until the end of their lives, the trajectory of their entire lives could be clearly seen without even having to look up.
So, after her father's funeral, for the first time, Catherine did not oppose when Amber's parents tried their best to prove to the cardinal of Westminster Abbey that Amber was more suitable to inherit the guardianship of Windsor than she was. Instead, she felt truly grateful.
Although she strongly disagreed with the reason given by Amber's father, Charles. Charles said, "Catherine has indeed been educated since childhood on how to protect everything in Windsor Castle, but she has serious mental problems. Not to mention that she often talks to herself, just the fact that she has claimed countless times that she can talk to the long - dead Evelyn is extremely absurd."
"Windsor is the pride of all Windsor family members. How can a girl who always thinks she's mingling with ghosts or something like that be allowed to take over this important task? Maybe one day she'll hold a so - called ghost party here! This is simply a great shame for Windsor!"
Catherine obediently sat aside without saying a word, looking out of the window as if she hadn't heard Charles' slander of her at all. Long before her father was still alive, she had already realized that she was the only one who could see and communicate with those lonely lost souls.
Windsor was an ancient castle with many lost souls inside. Most of them were guardians of past generations, also members of the Windsor family, and there were also some royal members who died of illness here. Catherine's perception of and yearning for the outside world and her resistance to the identity of the guardian came from this.
She had learned so much about the outside world from them and was deeply fascinated by it. Whether it was the bravery of the Vikings in the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas, the glorious Florence that shone throughout the Renaissance period, or ancient Egypt, one of the cradles of human civilization, all made her excited.
Unfortunately, in the eyes of others, all these were classified as symptoms of delusional disorder.
Catherine could almost foresee that if she didn't cooperate and give up her inheritance rights, she would spend the rest of her life in a mental hospital. She had no doubt whether the Charles couple would do such a thing, because the answer was definitely yes.
After Amber's family went bankrupt in business, their vanity didn't disappear. The identity of the guardian of Windsor was enough to support their pitiful and fragile pride, although it meant that Amber's family's freedom, surname, and everything in the past would be erased forever.
This was a pleasant and calm transaction - Catherine exchanged her inheritance qualification for the life she desired, a life full of unknowns, confusion, but also infinite possibilities. Amber's family got a respected reputation, a stable source of livelihood, and the halo of the British royal family.
A win - win situation.
Catherine sat in the back seat of Mr. Langdon's car and looked back at Amber's family. The gorgeous and elaborate clergy costumes seemed like layers of shackles binding them, and the ancient and solemn Windsor Castle was like an impregnable and exquisite cage.
A patrol of guards walked neatly in front of Windsor Castle. This was Catherine's last impression of Windsor. Fortunately, she was extremely lucky to escape from it.
For Catherine, whose character was far less stable and calm than that of her parents, Windsor was really not suitable for her. She thought that leaving was the best choice.
At least, she always thought so until her life was ended.
A.D 2017, Florence, Italy
The impact of autumn on the Apennine Peninsula is far less obvious and intense than in temperate regions. It was only when Catherine, after finishing her morning run and walking home, saw that many shops were tearing down the posters of Ferragosto and putting up discount previews for Halloween, which was coming next month, that she realized that autumn had already been here for so long.
This was the seventh year since she came to Italy. From being sixteen years old when she left Windsor to twenty - three years old now. Along with the change in her age, her identity and life had also changed.
She successfully escaped from the identity of the Windsor heir. Under the guidance and training of Leonardo Langdon, she became a trainee forensic doctor in the Florence Police Department. Langdon was a veteran forensic doctor in the Florence Police Department. It was said that he had been working in the police department for almost thirty years.
Every time Catherine heard this, she would feel incredible because Langdon looked so young. Judging from his appearance, he was definitely no more than twenty - five years old.
Moreover, that face was so beautiful and charming. When those long, narrow, golden - brown eyes with special eye colors narrowed slightly to look at someone, that fatal gentleness seemed to flow out from his eyes and soak into the other person's heart, as if drinking a glass of red wine with a magic spell, having an irresistible attraction.
He had never told Catherine about his past - except for the part about how he and Catherine's father got to know each other - and she had never seen any relatives come to visit him, as if he had been alone all these years.
Perhaps because living alone gave him more free time at his disposal, Langdon's cultivation and knowledge were simply beyond reach. From bridge to chess, from red wine to chocolate, from the Crusades to the historical details of the two World Wars, from the piano to the mandolin, from pasta to sailing at sea by identifying directions by looking at the stars, he could control everything gracefully and talk about them eloquently, while making people feel neither boring nor annoying.
Now, Catherine was interning under Langdon and had taken over several cases. She still encountered some wandering lost souls from time to time, just like when she was a child. Unfortunately, she had never seen her mother again.
After opening the door, Catherine reached out to untie the knot of her shoelace. But at the moment she lowered her head, she saw a sticky note on the walnut - wood shoe cabinet in the entrance hall:
There has been a major breakthrough in the serial case. Come quickly.
After reading it, Catherine turned around and ran out with her keys in hand, secretly excited that there was finally progress in the serial murder case that had lasted for half a month.