See, I told you.
How could the real head of the Sierfu family grovel just because someone has a clergy background?
Seeing the hesitation on the beggar girl’s face, the fake lord let out a long breath.
If the beggar girl had agreed without even thinking, his worldview would have truly collapsed.
“Why?”
However, contrary to the fake lord’s expectations, Moya showed no surprise at all on her face, as if she had already anticipated the beggar girl’s answer.
“Reporting to the Divine Envoy, it’s not that I don’t want to return to my own body…”
The beggar girl looked at the fake lord, her eyes filled with anger.
“But this filthy beggar refuses to leave my body and absolutely won’t agree to swap back to the previous body!”
“The officials in the royal capital told me that while trying to avoid others discovering the body swap, they only have the option of resorting to private torture. They’re truly a bunch of useless idiots!”
The fake lord, who was just mentioned, snorted coldly, completely ignoring the beggar girl’s accusations against him, which amounted to a half-admission.
“But, Divine Envoy, my original body is already quite old—back pain, insomnia, panting after running a few steps… You tell me, how could a body like mine withstand the private torture from those useless idiots in the capital?”
The fake lord’s concerns were practical—to make him yield and agree to the body swap, the intensity of the torture naturally couldn’t be low.
How long the fake lord’s physical body could endure became a serious problem.
Even if the beggar girl could harden her heart and watch her own body suffer, when the bodies were swapped back, it would still be her who would be tormented by that severely injured body.
Moya did not respond.
“…Divine Envoy?”
Seeing Moya standing still without any reaction, the beggar girl asked cautiously, a look of fear beginning to appear on her face.
‘Was she being too cowardly and afraid of death?’
‘Is the Divine Envoy angry?’
As for the beggar girl’s panic, the fake lord was dismissive.
In his view, Moya was simply embarrassed and didn’t know how to respond.
Only Aide maintained a calm expression, suppressing the twitching of his mouth corners.
He could tell.
Moya had fallen asleep.
The moment he first realized this, Aide almost couldn’t stop himself from directly pulling Moya away to prevent the beggar girl or the fake lord from noticing this astonishingly awkward situation.
But just as Aide was about to act, he narrowly realized something:
Divine Moya seemed to appear only late at night, which also happened to be when he saw her in his dreams after falling asleep.
However, Aide had never known the conditions for Divine Moya’s appearance.
‘Could it be…?’
Just as everyone was growing more confused by Moya’s motionless reaction, Aide was the first to notice that beneath the cloak enveloping Moya, something began to stir.
“I understand your concerns.”
A soft voice sounded.
Although it was still Moya’s voice as everyone remembered, to the ears of the beggar girl and the fake lord, it carried an additional indescribable sense of compassion and divinity.
“Yet the Holy Scripture says, ‘Those who sow in tears will reap with shouts of joy.’ If you wish to return to your original body, how can you not pay a price?”
The gentle voice brushed past everyone’s ears like flying wings, carrying a heart-soothing warmth, as if embracing all the unease and hesitation.
“This…”
Hearing Moya’s counsel, the beggar girl’s eyes showed hesitation, clearly wavering.
She wasn’t unaware that the fake lord had taken advantage of her fear of death, which was why he dared to keep refusing to return the body.
As long as she didn’t muster the courage, the body swap would certainly be hopeless in the short term.
“Please rest assured.”
After confirming that the beggar girl was deeply shaken, Divine Moya took off her cloak, revealing her true angelic form.
“This is the Lord’s trial. I can guarantee that as long as you are willing to muster the courage and face this trial, after your passing, I will personally guide your soul to heaven. Not only that, after you persist in your resolve and return to your original body, I will use divine arts to heal any wounds that may appear on your body from the torture, alleviating your suffering as much as possible.”
Amid the dilated pupils of the beggar girl and the fake lord, Moya gently cupped the beggar girl’s cheeks, promising the supreme aspiration that every believer pursued in their lifetime—ascension to heaven.
“R-really! I’m willing! I’m very willing to embark on this trial path, Divine Envo… no, Angel!”
Slowly realizing reality, the beggar girl showed an ecstatic expression and nodded vigorously.
“The child is teachable.”
Seeing the beggar girl relent and agree, Moya smiled, affirming the girl’s choice.
Actually, there was one point she hadn’t made clear.
Even if the beggar girl refused, given the amount of her past donations to the church, Moya would most likely still follow her superior’s orders and personally guide her soul to heaven.
No helping it—she had donated far too much.
But the beggar girl didn’t need to know that; it gave Moya some extra leverage now.
“How could this be…”
Seeing that the beggar girl, after witnessing Moya’s true angelic form and hearing her counsel, agreed without hesitation, the fake lord’s jaw dropped in disbelief at everything happening before him.
“How could it not be possible.”
Aide, standing nearby, chuckled softly.
“If it were me, I’d agree without hesitation too. Being taken away by her after death is far more attractive than any of your conditions.”
The fake lord glanced at Aide but didn’t reply, nor did he know how to reply.
He completely couldn’t understand the beggar girl’s motivation.
And for some reason, the fake lord felt that Aide’s reason for agreeing was completely different from the beggar girl’s.
“Now it’s your turn.”
Aide placed his hand on the fake lord’s shoulder.
“The beggar girl has agreed, which means the royal capital can go all out. Torturing you privately is no longer a forbidden option.”
“Either agree and accept the compensation from the capital, or stubbornly refuse and wait for the capital’s officials to send people to secretly capture you, torture you until you have no choice but to agree.”
“You also heard—Moya promised to heal the real head of the Sierfu family afterward and alleviate the suffering. That means for the beggar girl, agreeing to this proposal will greatly reduce the pain she endures, and on top of that, she’ll receive a reward that’s very important to her. She can no longer stop the capital’s actions as you wished.”
Seeing the fake lord’s expression growing more and more devastated, Aide softly whispered his final words into the fake lord’s ear:
“And I just noticed something.”
“You said the real head of the Sierfu family actually doesn’t dislike this body; she wants to go back to her original body only because she needs her original status and position.”
“If you really push the capital to its limits, they won’t mind staging an accident—an accident where the head of the Sierfu family dies.”
“However, luckily, the capital has successfully found the illegitimate daughter of the head of the Sierfu family—the former beggar girl has finally obtained her true identity: the heir preparing to inherit the title of head of the Sierfu family.”
“I think the beggar girl, as the true head of the Sierfu family, wouldn’t mind regaining power and status in this new identity. She can perfectly play this role and, as she wished, keep this young body. The only cost is the accidental death of a person wearing the head of the Sierfu family’s skin, but no one will care, because the real thing will perfectly replace your existence under a false identity.”
Aide’s whispers tightly coiled around the fake lord’s heart, forcing him to reconsider his options once more:
“But I think the capital hasn’t thought of this yet, because they don’t know that the real head of the Sierfu family doesn’t want to go back to her original body but to her original status. Tell me, if I were to inform His Majesty the King of this, what do you think he would choose?”