Chapter 26
Whether You Sell Your Body to the Monster or Not
Yuan curled her chilled fingertips into a fist.
There were many eyes watching.
Regina always made remarks that grated on people's nerves, and today was no exception.
"But seeing you today, I understand a little better. It looked desolate from the outside, but coming into the Mansion, there are quite a few valuable things. I can't say I don't understand why you betrayed your family and sold yourself."
"Shall we go outside and talk for a moment?"
Sophia's face was even paler than Yuan's, and she looked utterly distraught. Yuan finally rose from her seat.
A corner of the spacious Annex hall.
Yuan led Regina to a spot far away from the Pellieresse people.
"You look like you're living the good life. Wearing clothes that don't suit you."
Regina scanned Yuan's attire and spoke through twisted lips.
"Is that what you get when you sell yourself to a Monster? You're quite resourceful. Just like how you stole our father right out of my house."
"I never stole your father."
"Of course, you didn't."
Regina sulked.
Yuan stared at Regina, who was acting exactly as she had in Pellieresse, and replied,
"Shouldn't you be happy that I'm not in Pellieresse?"
Regina, who had never tolerated Yuan uttering even a single word of rebuttal, blinked rapidly.
"What?"
"Well, isn't it? If you're going to make such a scene in front of everyone with the intention of humiliating me, it seems like you hate me and care about me more than I thought. Wouldn't it have been better for you if I had just disappeared?"
"You… a beggar who lived off scraps in my house, how dare you!"
"And it was you and your family who stole. Your mother took over my mother's bedroom, and my bedroom became yours. There wasn't a single thing inside that you didn't steal."
Regina's large green eyes widened in shock, as if she had been slapped across the cheek.
Yuan continued to speak, unwavering despite Regina's gaze piercing her like an arrow.
"I never begged. Your father used me because he needed me. I was useful enough to live there. If I were useless, your parents wouldn't have glared at me like that. They would have said it was good riddance to a child who only ate and did nothing."
"Needed? What need could you possibly fulfill? What use is someone who only writes down the prescriptions Father dictates? How difficult is it to pour tea into a cup that the maids have already brewed? What great thing did you do to be so arrogant? A Crow, of all things?"
So, she still doesn't know anything.
Yuan refused to continue the conversation, seeing that Regina still didn't understand the power of Pellieresse. This exploitation could only be understood by those who knew that power.
"Tell me, huh? Yes, let's hear it. What exactly is that great assistant work of yours?"
Assistant?
Yuan smiled bitterly, dumbfounded.
Assistant, she says.
It was her uncle who was always busy writing down Yuan's research.
It was her uncle who took Yuan's prescriptions and presented them to the nobles as his own.
It was also her uncle who chose the path of a merchant rather than a physician, touting the medicine as containing Yuan's abilities.
It was also her uncle who turned the proud Pellieresse family business, built by her parents, into a mere means of making money.
"If you don't know that, I don't want to talk to you anymore. Please stop making a scene. His Imperial Majesty the Emperor is here."
Regina opened her mouth for a long time and shook her head.
She couldn't believe the reality that a girl who always lowered her eyes timidly and only looked at the ground was acting so arrogant just because they didn't live together.
However, after confirming Yuan's pale face and trembling hands, she soon regained her composure and calmed her anger.
"You dare lecture me?"
A Crow is a Crow. Even if she lives in a big house and wears nice clothes.
"We stole? Ha, you're mistaken."
Regina crossed her arms leisurely, looked down at Yuan askance, and raised her chin.
"You've always run away and hidden like this. You selfish bitch."
Regina spoke as if pouring out her feelings to Yuan, who was standing still and listening.
"You always—always think you're the only one in the world who's unhappy, don't you?"
Regina sneered, recalling Yuan, who always lowered her gaze and lived like a maid, always wearing a pathetic expression.
"You never accepted the gutter-like reality. Not knowing your place. Even if we had kicked you and your sick sister out to the orphanage back then, no one would have blamed us, you know? Even if we had sold you off to an old man like marrying you off, people would have applauded us for sending you, an orphan without parents, to a good match, you know?"
Regina glanced at her family, who were watching her and Yuan closely from afar, and pushed Yuan even harder.
A face shining brightly as if she were living well. Seeing Yuan's accessories and clothes, which she couldn't have dreamed of before, made her spite grow twofold.
"An orphan without parents. A noble without a title. A woman without a penny to her name, what kind of ending do you think you'll have… isn't that why you clung to our house, knowing it so well yourself?"
Yuan was quietly staring at Regina.
Those unlucky black eyes.
"You've always been like that."
Regina moved her lips into an even more sullen expression.
"You always choose the best option among the choices you have, and yet you're not satisfied and you crawl up desperately."
"I did?"
"Yes. You pretend to have lost everything, pretend to be pitiful, but in the end, you live by replacing everything, don't you?"
Regina's spirits rose as Yuan's black eyes finally began to ripple slightly.
"Do you think you're the only orphan without parents? Do you think you're the only one living without a single room? You clung to my house because you thought you would lose the Mansion where you lived with your parents. You relied on Louise instead of your parents. You're so cunning. How do you find your way so well? You flattered our father and went in and out of the lab. When you're lonely and in pain, you lean on Louise. What were you lacking?"
Regina took a step towards Yuan, who had her mouth tightly shut. Their faces were very close.
"After your sister died. Now that you've lost your place to go, you wanted to replace everything, didn't you?"
"No. No."
"A husband instead of your sister. This Black Manor instead of the Pellieresse Mansion. You must want to settle down."
Yuan's eyes quickly became bloodshot.
A smile grew even wider on Regina's lips.
"That's just your nature. A hopeless beggar's nature. You're a cunning Bat. I don't know what you stole, but why don't you give it back quickly instead of clinging on so miserably? Our father is suffering every day because of you, grumbling and complaining."
"……."
"You can replace everything, so you don't care about us, do you? Did we make you leave the Mansion because we tormented you? No! You just want to settle down in another place now. Selling yourself to the man who might have killed Louise!"
"!"
The man who might have killed Louise.
That one sentence darkly stained Yuan's heart.
Regina wouldn't miss that sign.
"You're so quick to move on, aren't you? Do you think I wouldn't know?"
Regina, staring straight into Yuan's lowered eyes, which had sunk low, brought her face, covered in heavy makeup, even closer.
"So what if Louise died? Yuan Pellieresse, you didn't shed a single tear even when Louise died, did you?"
Regina approached so close that their noses, similar yet different, almost touched, and only after discovering the guilt rising beneath the black eyes did she open her mouth.
"In the end, you only care about your own comfort, Yuan Pellieresse. You don't care what happens to your family. Whether it's us who took you in, or Louise!"
Finally, Regina, who had stiffened Yuan's entire body, stepped away gracefully and fanned herself with a fan, spreading it wide.
From behind the hidden fan, her fresh green eyes turned towards the Deposed Emperor Claude Euphris, who was standing far away.
"A half-wit met another half-wit. You look good together, very good."
Yuan clenched her fists tightly at the sight of Klaud beyond Regina's thick red hair.
Regina shrugged her shoulders behind the fan, as if mocking her.
"You're hiding a dark secret inside your kind face, aren't you? Your husband is the same. What's the point of just having a good physique? Everyone knows that there's a disgusting, ugly appearance behind that mask. Besides, he's a Deposed Emperor who was kicked out without any right to succession, and he's trapped here without a title, living a life where he's just a spectacle for people to watch for the rest of his life."
Even if he wasn't a great noble, the man she would have in the future was much better than the man Yuan had.
At least Draycoop Treloni would have an estate or title to inherit when he got married.
At least he wouldn't have a face so ruined that he had to wear a mask to go to parties.
"You're a very well-matched couple. Keep doing well like that. I don't care whether you sell your body to that Monster or not. However."
Clack-!
Regina, who had folded the fluttering fan at once as if clapping, put strength into her whole body and leaned towards Yuan, who was enduring the insult.
"I'm warning you. You'd better reply to Father's letter soon. If my house suffers any more damage because of you, I won't stand still either. You don't even deserve the nickname Crow anymore. You Bat-like bitch."
Regina then hit Yuan's shoulder hard, as if she had never said anything, and returned to her family's seat.
Yuan clutched the pain remaining on her shoulder and stared at the piercing gaze.
Her uncle's face was flushed.
It was a face filled with the expectation that his daughter might have accomplished something.
Yuan instantly contorted her face at that disgusting sight.
