Chapter 38.2

In the room, the little girl clung to Kevin's arm, her face streaked with tears. She wailed inconsolably.

Kevin was used to dealing with rough-and-tumble boys, but he was out of his depth with this delicate little girl. He patted her head awkwardly, his face a mixture of concern and amusement. "Hey, why are you crying?" he asked. "Don't cry, my nose is covered in snot. Aren't you ashamed?"

He laughed through his tears. "I didn't cry when I got blood on my hand, but you're the one who's howling."

The little girl sniffled and wiped her eyes. "I'm scared," she said.

Kevin's expression softened. "Of course you're scared," he said. "That's a perfectly normal reaction."

He sat down on the floor and pulled the little girl onto his lap. He wrapped his arms around her and held her close. "There, there," he said. "Everything's going to be okay."

The little girl buried her face in his chest and sobbed.

In just a few days, the young girl had developed a deep affection for him, second only to her dark-faced uncle in intimacy.

Despite being comforted by Kevin, Sinia not only failed to stop crying but howled even more.

Kevin's arm, which held her, was bloody and disfigured below the elbow. His fingers had lost their skin and flesh, leaving only slender chicken claw-like bones.

Afraid that she would be frightened by the sight, Kevin covered her eyes. The young girl struggled to expose one eye and hesitated to touch his wound while crying uncontrollably as if it were her arm that had rotted away.

"It's okay, it will be fine in a little while. I'm just teasing you," Kevin said, still trying to sound cheerful. He flexed and stretched his fingers like chicken feet a few times, and the bones collided with each other, hoping to speed up the healing process.

After a while, though, his brows furrowed. His hand showed no signs of healing, even the one covering Xinya's eyes showed cracks and blood seeped from the elbow.

"I'm afraid you'll have to find someone else to play with for a while, little girl," Kevin withdrew his hand from covering her.

As he raised it aside, his hand became bloody, with no skin or flesh remaining.

This was what Oswald saw as he entered the room.

"What's going on?!" Oswald asked in a tense voice.

"Just in time, hurry up and take this girl away. The snot is almost dripping on my bones," Kevin replied, relieved when someone came to help. He even joked, "This whole body of blood is enough to give her a bath, keep her away, and she'll be happy, haha."

"Let go," Oswald said sternly, as he hugged Sinia, who was still crying.

The little girl opened her eyes and met her uncle's dark gaze. She pursed her lips, sobbed, then let go of Kevin's arm reluctantly.

"Will Fa die?" Sinia whimpered, grabbing Oswald's sleeve.

"Fa?" Oswald was in a hurry and he didn't give an answer for a while. Sinia was usually called people by the first syllable of the first name, and this was the first time she was called Kevin's last name.

Oswald was about to chase away the female officer who took Sinia outside when he heard Kevin's voice from the room, "I would like to borrow your kind words."

Oswald paused and then headed back inside.

"It hurts…forget it," Oswald said as he approached Kevin, not sure what he could do. He felt as though his brain was in a fog and wanted to ask the nonsense question, "Does it hurt?" But he knew the answer already.

Kevin joked again, "That's all it takes to scratch an itch."

"Excuse me, could you close the door?" Kevin asked Oswald. "Don't scare the guards outside the door."

Oswald did as asked, then fumbled in his chest pocket and found a key in a secret pocket.

With a soft click, the handcuffs were released. Kevin sighed in amazement as Oswald carefully unlocked the other one. "You've put your mind to this, haven't you?"

Oswald didn't answer but instead stared at Kevin's hands. "The wounds haven't appeared in the past two days. What's going on today?"

In the past two days, Kevin's skin had been miraculously free of any injuries. Oswald had been planning to lift the restrictions on him today, but now this had happened.

Kevin shrugged. "I don't know. I was telling a story to your little girl, and then suddenly it was like this."

Oswald frowned. "Why hasn't it healed yet?" He stared intently at Kevin's hands, barely blinking. He seemed to be looking for any subtle changes.

"I don't think it will heal for a while," Kevin said. He tried to move his fingertips, but they felt stiff and slow. Normally, the skin and flesh would have grown back by at least half by now.

Kevin blinked and watched as Oswald approached him with a scowl on his face. His brows were knit tightly together and he lowered his head, his hands dangling by his sides as if he wanted to touch Kevin but didn't know where to start.

"It's not easy for me to scare the emperor so that his hands tremble," Kevin joked again. He stretched out his hands in front of Oswald, wiggling his white bones as if to frighten him. "Does it look like a chicken paw that has been gnawed clean? You can touch it if you want. This one doesn't feel anything."

Oswald was silent for a moment. "I see."

Oswald gave him a sour look for making such a joke at this moment. He took Kevin's hand bones in his own, turned the chain in his hand, and unlocked the handcuffs. With a "click," the handcuffs were released.