Chapter 180.1

Chapter 180.1

Operation Red Veil.

‘Zoya’ approached the dangerous graduate student Rigay from Moscow, gave birth to a child, and secretly sent her daughter to the Sakhalin monastery.

And the abusive training that was carried out. The night circus enjoyed by the Russian elite. And the Winter Fortress…

The Winter Castle, the final trial for Russian agents.

“….”

Lee Wooshin could do nothing but tremble. This was the answer to why there was a black-haired child in the great Winter Fortress, and it was the secret of the mansion he had longed to uncover.

“Deputy Chief Joo Seolheon…”

Were you the one who recorded this document?

It had already been ten years since he had worked under her. It felt as if he had been a blind servant all along.

The child born as a tool of espionage, Sonya, whom the United States intended to collect. Finally, when he unfolded the pages meticulously documenting her upbringing in Korea, a groan escaped his lips.

Ah… in the end, a moan slipped out.

Now he understood why Joo Seolheon had only revealed this document posthumously. She didn’t simply want a dual citizen; she wanted to exploit the heir of the Solzhenitsyn family to the very end.

[Certain phrases pierced his memory like shards of glass.

Fortunately, she retains no memory…

Having secretly mingled with Yuri Solzhenitsyn…

Captured while escaping the Winter Fortress together…]

A massive wave crashed over his mind, and cracks began to form in his impenetrable body.

The pride that had composed him, the superiority he had lived by savoring only the success of the operation, the arrogance of believing he would never be discovered, the selfishness that pushed forward his true intentions regardless of the means, every bit of that shameless heart was laid bare.

“…she was right in front of me.”

Everything was shattering like a clay pot.

“The child was alive.”

Han Seoryeong, the daughter of Joo Seolheon, who had been smuggled out of the Winter Fortress. Han Seoryeong, the little rat who had stubbornly survived from the Sakhalin monastery to the Winter Fortress.

‘Han Seoryeong was that child.’

‘Han Seoryeong… my wife, whom I carelessly discarded.’

“….”

‘Ah, Seoryeong. My Seoryeong.’

I had held her so closely…

‘I didn’t recognize you. When I placed you on my lap and covered you with a soft blanket, it felt so warm…’

His eyes burned as if metal skewers had pierced them. All he could do was bury his face in the documents and hold his breath. Lee Wooshin collapsed under the crashing tide of the moment.

‘I’m sorry. I was wrong. I’m sorry.’

Yet, he couldn’t even muster the courage to voice the words of apology clawing at my chest. It was an apology he hadn’t offered even when she erupted in anger.

‘But, if it weren’t for that mission, I wouldn’t have met my beautiful Han Seoryeong. So I don’t regret that marriage at all, but I didn’t want to lump it all together and say it was just a damn act.’

‘I admit I was crazy. That memory is the most precious thing to me.’

‘What good would an apology do? I wouldn’t apologize even if I died.’

But…

“Ugh…”

He clutched his side, his nose crinkling in pain.

‘I’m sorry. I was… so wrong about everything.’

“So you should lose me at least once. I’m sick of you. I’m sick of all these too. So I’ll go to a place where neither Kim Hyun nor Lee Wooshin exists. I want to stop living as Han Seoryeong now.”

He remembered her words before she abandoned him. The profound sense of loss finally swept over him.

‘How could I dare to apologize to you, to your life? Is that even conceivable?’

An apology wrapped in a few words felt too light and superficial, merely a flimsy excuse.

He had cursed Rigay, the man who killed his family, razed the mansion, and took his child. But the truth was, he himself was of the bloodline that trampled her life into pieces. He was the one who had to pay.

His long-buried guilt resurfaced, and his pupils dilated in horror. The whites of his eyes cracked red as he spiraled toward the edge of madness.

‘I will return to being Sonya.’

‘But, my baby.’

‘Do you think I won’t be able to find you?’

‘If you abandon Han Seoryeong and return as Sonya… I will also abandon ‘Lee Wooshin.’

“…You can’t track her?”

The man’s gaze turned dangerously fierce.