The White-Haired Ghost
When he came back to himself, Canna was asleep.
‘Asleep?’
The sight made fury surge through him like a tidal wave.
He had just endured a profoundly humiliating experience, yet the woman responsible for it was sleeping peacefully.
‘I’ve been completely toyed with.’
He had received countless temptations throughout his life.
Yet never once had he been the one to beg or lose control of his reason.
So why had he acted that way just now?
A scorching heat burned in his gut. It was a dizzying sensation he had never experienced before.
And there was one more thing.
‘Why did I submit so meekly?’
That woman had played with him. Yet he hadn’t protested, hadn’t resisted. He had simply obeyed.
He couldn’t understand the man he had been moments ago.
With cold eyes, he glared at the sleeping woman.
Her eyes were gently closed. Not even the sound of her breathing could be heard.
She didn’t stir once. It was almost as if…
‘She looks like a corpse.’
Lying in a coffin, forever asleep.
A corpse.
That was when it happened.
Thump. Thump. Thump. Thump.
His heart suddenly began to race violently. He was startled by his own reaction.
Why was his heart… suddenly beating like this?
“Huk!”
His breath caught in his throat.
A crushing pressure, like iron chains tightening around his neck, bore down on him.
What was happening?
Even as confusion filled him, he reached out with a trembling hand and held it beneath her nose.
He had to check.
Whether she was alive. Or dead.
The moment the faint warmth of her breath touched his fingertips—
‘She’s alive.’
He let out a sigh of relief and dropped his head.
Thank god. She was breathing.
She hadn’t died.
‘What the hell was that just now?’
Exhausted, he stared at the woman.
Why had he imagined her dead? Why had he felt such suffocating despair?
“Damn it.”
This sensation. This woman. She disgusted him.
Just who was she?
Only moments ago, her mere touch had driven him to the brink of madness. Now, the sight of her sleeping form filled him with unbearable despair and anxiety.
He instinctively understood.
This woman was dangerous.
She could become something incredibly hazardous to him. She would undoubtedly bring him nothing but ruin.
He trusted his instincts. They had never once failed him.
He sighed and ran a hand through his hair.
What irritated him even more was that while he was shaken to his core, she continued to sleep soundly.
“Fuck.”
He spat out a curse, pulled a cigarette from his pack, and lit it.
He told himself he’d smoke one and go to sleep, treating the whole thing like a dog bite.
But even after five cigarette butts had piled up, sleep still refused to come.
It wasn’t because of the discomfort.
The sensation of the woman who had climbed on top of him earlier kept flashing through his mind.
The weight pressing down on him. The soft texture. The way her hands had stroked his chest…
Once again, his body grew feverishly hot.
He put a sixth cigarette between his lips and looked up at the sky.
“I’m going crazy.”
After that, Kallen practically ignored Canna. There was no conversation between them at all.
He only spoke when absolutely necessary and never once looked at her. Canna, for her part, secretly observed him without lowering her guard.
‘Has the mole on his chest disappeared?’
It was extremely rare, but there were cases where moles vanished naturally. Perhaps that was what had happened.
‘Still, it would be dangerous to assume he isn’t Kallen just because the mole is gone.’
Danger.
The word felt strangely foreign to Canna.
Perhaps because she had spent the last three years immersed in perfect peace. The term felt almost alien.
One thing was certain: he wasn’t acting. That much was clear.
If this man truly was Kallen, then he must have lost all his memories.
‘Then what should I do?’
What should she do? Canna made her decision coldly.
‘Nothing.’
She had no duty or obligation to help Kallen Addis reclaim his life at the risk of losing her own as Tatiana Evgenia.
That was when Kallen, who had been preparing their bedding, suddenly threw the sleeping bag aside and strode toward her.
“Why are you staring at me like that?”
“What did I do?”
“You’ve been watching me this entire time.”
Canna responded brazenly.
“Then who else am I supposed to look at in a place like this? We’re in the same space. It’s natural for my eyes to drift toward you. Aren’t you a little too self-conscious?”
“Self-conscious?”
Kallen let out a stunned laugh, then his expression suddenly hardened. He grabbed her by the collar and yanked her close.
“Don’t talk nonsense, client. Did you really think I wouldn’t notice you’ve been observing me all this time?”
His face was now inches from hers. His threatening voice brushed against her cheek.
“Or are you planning to bewitch me with your eyes this time?”
It was true she had been observing him, but she had no such intention. This time, it was Canna who felt offended.
“That sounds like you’re the one who’s overly conscious of me. Did my gaze feel seductive to you?”
She sneered with a thick, mocking smile.
“It’s not my fault you disappeared at dawn, is it?”
“……What?”
“I could hear it from far away. I was worried you might be in heat or something.”
At those words, Kallen’s face flushed bright red.
Not from anger. From shame.
But Canna didn’t stop. She continued mercilessly.
“Even so, I pretended not to hear anything out of consideration. Yet you grab me by the collar just because I looked at you a few times?”
Kallen quickly regained his composure. With an icy expression, the corners of his lips curled up.
“If it bothered you, I apologize. I’m afraid my blood is rather vigorous and difficult to control.”
He answered slowly.
She was right. Kallen had shuddered with defeat, self-loathing, and humiliation more times than he could count.
He had never been like this before. Ever since meeting this woman, his body refused to listen to him.
Suppressing his strangely rampant urges had become incredibly difficult. He had nearly gone mad.
It was probably because of that intimate contact on their first night.
It was absurd. To think that such a minor touch could leave him burning like an inexperienced adolescent for days.
Kallen picked up the sleeping bag and began packing his things.
“Since I seem to be a disturbance, I’ll disappear now.”
Canna clicked her tongue.
‘Well, after hearing something like that…’
That had been a bit too harsh.
When she had given sex education to Prince Lorenzo, hadn’t she taught him that such urges were perfectly healthy and natural, and that he must never feel guilty about them?
Yet here she was, using that very thing to attack him.
As a result, Canna was overcome with self-reproach for doing something unbecoming of a doctor.
‘I should have just cursed him out instead.’
Besides, she had unintentionally stimulated him on their first night as well.
Canna watched Kallen’s back as he stood up to leave after packing his belongings.
Even if he was going, she at least needed to give him the map.
“Ren.”
But the moment she called that name, a realization washed over her.
The reason she had been examining her own actions and feeling guilty.
And the reason she had stopped him by calling his name.
‘This guy isn’t Kallen.’
There was no way she would feel guilty toward Kallen.
Only now did everything truly sink in.
Whether he was Kallen or not.
Kallen Addis was gone.
By losing everything he possessed, he had vanished from this world.
Kallen had lost his wealth, his knowledge, his emotions, his status, his honor, his power, his connections, his family, his future, his past, his memories, his name and surname—everything.
All of it. Every last thing.
He had even wished to lose his own life. The moment he chose death, Kallen Addis had ceased to exist.
Carrying painful memories and guilt, he had disappeared from this world forever.
‘The Kallen Addis I hated is nowhere to be found anymore.’
Because he had lost even himself, he was no longer Kallen.
“……If you called me, you should say something.”
Ren.
At that single word, he stopped in his tracks. He planted his feet, which had been about to carry him away, and waited.
Canna remained silent for a moment before speaking.
“You were the one who grabbed my collar first.”
“……”
“I am your client.”
Ren couldn’t say anything.
A moment later, a short curse slipped from his lips. Fuck. Then he turned back and spread out the sleeping bag again.
“It’s not because you held me back that I’m staying.”
He glared at her fiercely and stubbornly spat out the words.
“I’m simply completing the request as you said. So don’t misunderstand.”
“Medicine!”
The Emperor screamed.
“Bring me the medicine! The medicine!”
He glared at Silvian while gasping for breath.
“Duke! Am I not begging you like this?!”
“Your Majesty.”
“Please go to that doctor and bring me the medicine. I cannot endure without it!”
The Emperor’s desperate cries echoed throughout the audience chamber.
It was a frenzied struggle bordering on madness, yet Silvian, facing him, remained perfectly calm without the slightest disturbance.
“That doctor belongs to the imperial palace. I do not understand why you are ordering me.”
“Only you can help me, Duke!”
The Emperor slammed his fist on the desk and shot to his feet. Spittle flew as he shouted.
“That doctor refuses to make the medicine for me! Even when I issue an imperial command, she stubbornly refuses!”
In a way, she was a doctor of tremendous conviction. To defy even an imperial decree. She must be withholding the medicine out of concern that the Emperor was losing his mind.
“It is medicine from the Eastern Continent! Only that doctor, who is from the Eastern Continent, can make it!”
“I shall take my leave now.”
“No!”
The Emperor rushed toward him in a panic and grabbed Silvian’s arm desperately.
Silvian narrowed his eyes. The hand clinging to him was trembling violently.
Moreover, up close, the Emperor’s condition was extremely severe.
His lips were parched, dark shadows layered heavily beneath his eyes, and white, foamy saliva had gathered in the corners of his mouth.
“Please! Please, Duke! I will give you anything you want! Please!”
The Emperor begged with bloodshot eyes. They were the eyes of a madman.
“Please, Duke!”
How had it come to this?
“Doesn’t that doctor listen to everything you say, Duke?! Just say one word to her, please!”
Silvian looked down at the Emperor quietly.
The emperor of this empire, who had once possessed a hot temper and stubbornness but had never lost his dignity, had now become—
“The medicine… without the medicine… I can’t… it’s too painful… I can’t live like this. I simply can’t.”
—nothing more than a drug-addled addict. He had reached a point where he could not maintain his sanity without it.
“……Understood. I will request it from her.”