Chapter 212 I am Cecilia
Time stood still at this moment.
The security guards stopped dragging, and Bronte's cries stopped too.
Bronte stared at Cecilia in a daze. In those eyes, clouded and worn by madness and years, a trace of clarity miraculously appeared. Though the light was too fragile, like a candle flickering in the wind, it shone surprisingly bright.
Wild joy, confusion, disbelief—all these emotions intertwined on Bronte's dirt-covered face, finally turning into the most humble plea.
"Cecilia, is that you?" she called out again, her voice still weak but much clearer than before.
Suddenly, Bronte broke free from the security guards' grip and lunged desperately toward Cecilia, her outstretched hand trembling violently in the air.
"My Cecilia..."
This call pierced Rufus's eardrums and pried open the last defense he had built with stubbornness and self-deception.
His gaze locked onto Amelia—no, onto Cecilia's face.
He saw Cecilia's face drain of color at that call, saw her instinctively avoiding eyes, saw her shoulders trembling slightly as she tried hard to control herself.
All the abnormalities, all the inconsistencies, all the unexplained hatred—everything had an answer now.
—Why did Elodie's imitations, no matter how realistic, only make him feel empty and bored, while a single look of disgust from Amelia could make him feel a twisted, vivid sense of reality.
Because a fake is always a fake.
And Amelia was the real Cecilia.
"No!" A hoarse roar erupted from Rufus's throat. He suddenly stepped forward and grabbed Cecilia's arm.
"Who are you?" He forced out broken words through clenched teeth, his voice shaking uncontrollably.
"Who exactly are you?"
He had asked this question before.
But this time, he wasn't asking for a name—he wanted the final verdict on the crazy guess in his heart.
"Let go!" Cecilia finally regained a bit of sense from the huge shock. She tried hard to shake off Rufus, but his hand gripped her tightly, not moving an inch.
"Answer me!" Rufus's sanity completely snapped.
He shook her shoulders and roared, "Why are you still alive? Why didn't you come find me? Why did you appear with someone else's identity? Cecilia! Why are you doing this to me?"
Rufus's questions were filled with the anger of being deceived, the wild joy of finding a lost treasure, and his inability to understand her hatred toward him.
All these twisted emotions mixed together, making his stunningly handsome face look fierce and terrifying.
"Why?" Cecilia softly repeated the question. She suddenly stopped struggling.
She raised her head, met his crazy eyes, and slowly curved her lips into a smile full of mockery and coldness.
In that smile, there was no joy at all, only bone-chilling coldness crawling out from hell.
"Rufus, are you asking me why?"
Her voice was soft, but every word was clear, drilling into Rufus's bones.
"You're asking me why I'm still alive?"
"Well, I should thank you for that. Thank you for making me so desperate that I used the lighter I gave you to set the house on fire, burning away my last bit of attachment to this world, giving me the chance to break free from that stupid shell called Cecilia."
"You're asking me why I didn't come find you?..." She laughed softly, and that laugh in the silent night was unspeakably shrill.
"What would I find you for? To tell you that your dead wife didn't die after all and came back as a wandering ghost to continue your relationship? Or to watch your fake, self-moved repentance act?"
"You're asking me why I used someone else's identity?"
"Because I find it dirty. I find the name 'Cecilia' dirty! It's covered with your and Blair's fake feelings, covered with the Ember family's cold-blooded selfishness, covered with all the humiliation and tears from that ridiculous marriage! I wish I could grind it to dust, and you still want me to pick up this identity?"
Rufus's body shook violently, and the color drained from his face at a visible speed.
Even his hand gripping her unconsciously loosened a bit.
Cecilia took the chance to pull her arm back forcefully. She suddenly stepped back, creating a safe distance from him and completely drawing a line between them.
"You don't need to guess anymore, Rufus."
She straightened her back, her posture decisive and sharp, using a tone like passing judgment to give him the final answer.
"I am the one you personally drove to death, the one you locked in that sunless villa, who had to watch you and your beloved Blair perform your deep love in front of me day and night, who couldn't even protect my unborn child, and could only use a fire to mourn my pathetic life... Cecilia."
"I am the one who crawled back from hell, ready to watch every one of you pay the price... Cecilia!"
Each sentence struck Rufus hard in the face.
Shattering all his belated affection.
Shattering all his fantasies of self-redemption.
Completely trampling his pitiful and laughable repentance into the mud, grinding it to pieces.
"No, that's not it." Rufus muttered to himself.
He staggered back a step, nearly falling. Extreme ecstasy and extreme despair crashed wildly in his mind, tearing at every nerve.
She was alive.
She was really alive!
But she hated him to the bone. She came back to take revenge on him.
In this chaos, Bronte, who had been stumbling forward, finally broke through the barrier.
But Bronte didn't lunge at anyone. Instead, three steps away from Cecilia, she fell to her knees with a thud.
Bronte looked up at Cecilia, and those eyes that had just regained a trace of clarity were flooded with tears again.
Bronte didn't dare come closer or touch her, afraid that everything before her eyes was just an illusion.
"Cecilia, I was wrong. I'm sorry."
Bronte reached out her hand, not to grab Cecilia, but to start slapping her own face hard, over and over.
Several crisp sounds echoed in the dead of night, particularly jarring.
"I'm useless. I didn't protect you. It's all my fault."
Bronte's mad yet lucid self-harm finally broke through all of Cecilia's hard disguises.
Cecilia's eyes instantly reddened.
She didn't know how to handle all this.
And at this moment, a warm and strong hand gently yet firmly wrapped around her trembling shoulders.
Stefan stood to the side, taking in this mind-blowing scene.
He heard Bronte's call, saw Rufus's breakdown, and saw Cecilia's nearly shattered expression as she was caught between them.
When they arrived at the "Eternal Cecilia" cemetery, a guess had already formed in Stefan's mind.
But he never asked, not even now.
He just came to Cecilia's side.
Stefan said nothing. He just used his body to completely separate her from Rufus and from this chaos.
"Amelia, I'll take you away."
Stefan's voice was low and calm, carrying a reassuring strength.