1885, I came to save Greece

Chapter 104 The Princess's Choice

The report also includes more sketches.

A middle-aged woman coughed up a glaring patch of bright red blood onto her handkerchief.

A group of children crammed onto a dirty communal bed, like a litter of abandoned puppies.

An overseer brandished a leather whip, striking a slightly slower girl on the back, leaving her back covered in alternating old and new welts.

Each painting was like a sharp knife, piercing her heart.

She grew up in a carefree palace. The most tragic things she encountered were hearing court tutors talk about famines in distant lands, or seeing orphans with clean clothes and timid eyes at charity galas.

She always thought that misfortune meant losing her parents, not having enough to eat or wear.

She never imagined that such a living hell existed in the very city where she lived, just a few kilometers from the palace.

Compared to this report, her proud "royal charity," the ribbon-cutting ceremonies and banquets she participated in, seem like a laughable, self-indulgent theatrical performance.

Her kindness and compassion never touched this darkest of places.

The file was thick, and she flipped through it more and more slowly, as if each page weighed a ton. She felt like she was suffocating.

In the study, only the rustling sound of turning pages could be heard.

The sound was particularly jarring in the deathly silence.

Sofia's fingers were already a little numb as she turned to the last page of the report. This page was no longer a cold list of data, but a record of a single case.

The title is: "On the Death of Worker Elena Vasilio".

"Elena Vasilio, 31 years old, has been working at the factory for seven years. Her husband died of tuberculosis a year ago, leaving behind a six-year-old son."

"Records show that Elena was a hard worker who often volunteered to work overtime in exchange for extra food rations. According to her roommates, her son suffered from severe asthma and needed to buy expensive medication regularly."

"On the 17th of this month, her son's condition worsened. In order to raise enough money for the medicine, Elaine asked the foreman for permission to work continuously without rest in exchange for double pay."

"From 5 a.m. on the 17th to 5 p.m. on the 18th, Elena worked continuously for 36 hours at the spinning machine. During this time, she ate only four pieces of dark bread and drank a small amount of water."

"At 5:15 p.m. on the 18th, the supervisor found him lying motionless on the textile machine. He was confirmed dead. The cause of death was heart failure due to overwork, also known as 'sudden death'."

"Afterwards, the factory owner, Mr. Coroneos, paid compensation to his family."

The report paused here, then started a new line, written in bolder font.

"Total amount of compensation: one silver coin."

Sofia's gaze was fixed on that last line of text.

A silver coin.

A vibrant life, a mother's entire struggle, thirty-six hours of tireless labor—the ultimate value of all was a silver coin.

She could even imagine how the bloated factory owner would contemptuously toss that silver coin out of his purse as if dismissing a beggar.

"Clatter".

A single, glistening tear slipped unexpectedly from her azure eyes, landing on the cold report.

Tears quickly blurred a small patch of ink, obscuring the words "a silver coin".

Then, the second drop, the third drop...

Sofia could no longer maintain the composure and pride befitting a Prussian princess. She reached out to wipe away her tears, but they flowed like a river bursting its banks, unstoppable.

Her shoulders began to tremble uncontrollably, and suppressed sobs escaped from deep within her throat.

Sofia looked at her hands.

They were clean and delicate, with neatly trimmed nails painted with the most expensive nail polish imported from Paris. These hands could play the piano, embroider, and elegantly hold a cup of red tea.

She couldn't imagine that on the other side of the city, there were women like her, struggling to survive in hellish factories with hands covered in scars, grease, and blisters.

They endured inhuman torture just to get a few pieces of moldy bread, just to buy their child a life-saving dose of medicine.

Their lives, however, were so cheap that they were worth only a silver coin.

Her long-held pride in "aristocratic charity" and her insistence on "royal dignity" seemed so pale, so ridiculous, and so hypocritical at this moment!

To visit and comfort those orphans who have been carefully selected and dressed in clean clothes.

In a lavish banquet hall, they called on wealthy businessmen who had made a fortune to donate a tiny fraction of their wealth in exchange for a reputation as "philanthropists."

and then?

Then, those wealthy businessmen turned around and went to their factories to continue exploiting every drop of blood and sweat from their workers with a clear conscience!

Royal charity is like a grand performance. They stand on a high stage, displaying compassion and basking in thunderous applause. Yet they never glance at the countless rotting corpses piled up in the dark corners beneath that stage.

"Bang!"

Sofia slammed the report shut with a loud bang.

She raised her head, and her tear-streaked face held no trace of confusion or hesitation. Her azure eyes, washed clear by the tears, now burned with an unprecedented, icy flame.

"Is this true?" Her voice trembled slightly with excitement, and she emphasized each word.

Constantine stood silently to the side, offering neither a handkerchief nor any words of comfort. He simply watched her as she painfully underwent this cruel transformation.

Upon hearing her question, Constantine nodded slowly.

"Every single word is."

He knew that only by seeing the truth of the world with his own eyes, only by being thoroughly stung by this cruelty, could this pure and noble princess truly understand the path he had chosen, and understand why he was willing to pay any price to grasp that power from the bottom up.

A long silence fell over the study once again.

This time, it wasn't Constantine who remained silent, but Sofia.

She sat there motionless, like a sculpture crumbling. The flame of the kerosene lamp flickered, shattered, and then coalesced again in her tearful eyes.

For a long, long time.

Sofia slowly raised her hand and used the silk handkerchief stained with her tears to forcefully and fiercely wipe away the tears on her face.

Her movements were no longer graceful, even somewhat rough, as if she wanted to completely erase the vulnerability that belonged to the princess, along with her tears.

When she looked up again, her eyes had become unusually firm.

"Who owns this textile factory?" she asked.

Constantine looked at her and saw in her eyes a drawn sword. He calmly replied, "Dmitri Coroneos. A member of the old oligarchic group, a distant cousin of Zaimis, and one of the conservatives' moneybags in Parliament."

Sophia stood up, her pale purple dress now resembling a warrior's armor.

"I'm going to see him."