The Dreams Of A Goddess - Chapter 0.2

However, that never happened. Yume was practically fuming when the man barged into a bigger palace after a long walk and processed all the birthrights of Yume and chaining her wrists as a precautionary.

That’s what he said. BUT Yume felt the energy from her body being restricted. That’s how she knew that the man in front of her was her father. Yume did not like what was transpiring after all the possibilities that Yume could’ve had death claim her consciousness.

It was not fair. So, Yume officially became the man’s legitimate daughter and was trapped in her courtyard that she did not find fascinating at all. She figured out that her father that had taken her in was the Jade Emperor himself and her life became hell because whatever she did, somehow, the Jade Emperor knew.

Yume was frustrated at the life she was given and her father giving her an attitude was not what she asked for. Yume had not realized that she expected her father to treat her better than how her mother treated her. In the end, Yume was disappointed. She had lost all hopes in having a family that she could embrace.

Yume was five for heaven’s sake! A child shouldn’t go through the treatment like she was not wanted.

That hope she entrusted in her father had cut all living purposes for herself. She felt it was just better to attempt suicide than live a hellish life that nothing ever really matters. Yume did not really hold anything dear and her father did not try to know more of her nature so Yume was ready to accept death again.

Yume randomly fished out a rope in the kitchen and created a noose like how the inhabitants left in the Cold Palace described. She had managed to create a similar scenario that those inhabitants spoke of and grabbed the last thing that she needed: a chair. A chair to finish it all off. A chair to cut off all her pain and suffering.

Yume took the noose and wrapped it around her neck, ready to push down the chair that could finalize her own death.

However, crossing paths with her father was not what she expected. When she yearned for death, the Jade Emperor yanked her away and unbound from the noose.

The look of panic made Yume curious about her feelings. She never expressed panic but calmness that no one her age could achieve. When she thought that she was going to be let down, Yume was smacked across the cheeks and lectured.

Yume held her face in pain but what was more important than just pain was the reason for her father’s lecture.

“Don’t try to do this again. Don’t follow your mother’s footsteps. I know that you have been impacted by her leaving you but don’t try to kill yourself,” he scolded her as a father would but Yume did not express a face of shock, pain, or any guilt.

“Who said I loved my mother?” Yume spoke and her father immediately closed his mouth in shock.

“Who said everything I did was related to my mother? Was it because of the timing that my mother had died? Who said that you could slap me like you were a father when we haven’t known each other? Huh? Am I just a child who doesn’t know cruelty? Who doesn’t know greed and selfishness? Huh?” Yume got worked up by her father whom she hadn’t even got to know him and slapped her. “You know, my original goal was to die. Before my mother died, I was set to die.”

Yume laughed satirically while she looked at her father.

“Did you know my life when I was born?” she continued. “No, you didn’t know since my mother likes to keep secrets. Anyway, my mother only kept me alive because she wanted to show her proof of love for you. Even if I tried to die, her personal maid would’ve continued to keep me alive whether or not I lost my former glory and my mother wished upon her own self that she would die beautifully as an unperishable corpse while cursing to me to live when I was seeking death. She did all that to show you. And for me, I was deemed insignificant. I was used like someone’s belonging and I’m not a toy for you to admire. I’m not going to replace a dead woman in being showered love that wasn’t directed towards me.”

Yume was on the brink of insanity. A life of five years since she was born, she never felt proper love, conversations, or any of the sort. With the Jade Emperor who was already accepted by norms, he couldn’t sympathize. Yume and the Jade Emperor were two sides of the same coin. One condemned by society while the other was accepted.

So, the Jade Emperor, not knowing what to do with his child that he never saw before, felt conflicted. He wanted to love her as he would to her mother but with the condition of self-deprecation of Yume, he could only carry her while she was caught off guard in his arms as he walked out of the Cold Palace to face the crowd of people waiting for the goddess of wishes.

Yume, in his arms, started to panic because she never stepped out of the Cold Palace and to see all the pity in the crowd’s eyes, Yume was angered by them. Yume hated those eyes of pity, for they knew her mother was in a relationship with the Jade Emperor and did not hesitate to accuse her because their Jade Emperor was the holy figure in the God’s realm.

“Please excuse Us for We could not save her for the day of execution,” the crowd looked at their Jade Emperor in reverence but they could not help but see a balled up girl in his arms, shivering as if she was the one persecuted.

“May this subject ask a question?” someone from the crowd asked.

“Yes, you can,” the Jade Emperor spoke loudly.

“Who is that girl in Your Excellence’s arms?” the person spoke again, perking everyone’s attention towards the girl.

“She is my daughter,” he spoke casually and bluntly, surprising everyone. “Please take care of her. Oyasumi, the goddess of wishes, died during childbirth. Do not treat her like Oyasumi for she does not know what her mother was. She is innocent so I will all ask you if she can be excused from her mother’s wrongdoings.”

The Jade Emperor told half of the truth but to stop anyone from accusing Yume, the daughter who had no knowledge of a taboo relationship, yet Yume had found out either way by the implications of her mother. Yume did not want to face the crowd so she stopped struggling and put on a blank expression.

The Jade Emperor looked down just as Yume changed expressions and realized that Yume’s life would not stay normal, for he knew her heart was guarded when his lover did not love her properly and her personal maid only cared for her own master. The selfishness that he and his lover shared all ruined the life of Yume, especially in Yume’s time of need while they were separated. He could imagine the sparkling eyes of his lover staring at him lovingly, wanting to praised for carrying his child while he was hoping for the life of his child to be smooth sailing and loved by the whole family.

The Jade Emperor’s meaning of family drastically differed from his lover’s and now he could see the difference between them. He could still love Oyasumi but after her death, he saw her as someone he loved but not someone he would spend his life with.

Because of the lonely life of the Jade Emperor, the Jade Emperor did not approve of his lover’s thoughts and principles so seeing the results of his lover’s care for their child, he could not fathom to abandon her as her mother did.

The crowd looked at the curled body of the girl stop shivering and freezing. The crowd came to the conclusion that they should spare the girl for her mother was the cause of the accident and the girl was just the burden that her mother gave her.

The crowd soon scattered in approval of the Jade Emperor’s askance of the sparing of his child.

Now, Yume hearing her father that she just met, hoped for a better life.

And so she waits for what’s in store for her future.