Chapter 3
An Opportunity That Will Never Come Again
Marquis Kompani, who had been scanning Yuan's pale face, urged her to leave.
Instead of answering, Yuan very slowly turned her head towards her aunt.
Her red-painted lips twitched as if to say it was impossible.
"Marquis? How can you be so rude!"
"It would have been better if you hadn't lied from the beginning."
Marquis Kompani replied coolly with a smile.
Unlike his mouth, which stretched towards his hairy ears, his eyes did not curve at all.
"Requesting, getting permission. Wasn't all that over a year ago?"
"Even so, even so..."
"If it were true that the late Count and Countess Pellieresse had only one daughter, I could have just held the funeral and left. But the situation is different, isn't it?"
"I can't let you take that child!"
A rupture-like scream mixed between Marquis Kompani and Countess Pellieresse.
Count Pellieresse had finally come out of the room.
As he was helped down the stairs by two servants, Marquis Kompani's eyes gradually sharpened.
Finally, the uncle, panting, stepped onto the first floor and shouted.
The sound was directed at the Marquis, but the gaze, as if shooting fire arrows, clearly reached Yuan.
"That child is my niece! The blood of my brother! She's as precious as my life!"
"Honey!"
The Countess supported the Count as he swayed greatly, being as fat as a pig.
The skinny Countess was soon buried in her husband's body.
"His Majesty is very angry, Count."
"I offered my niece, who is like my lifeline! Wasn't what His Majesty wanted 'the daughter of the late Count Pellieresse'? I didn't send some distant relative's child! In what part is he angry?"
"Didn't you say that there was only one daughter between the late Count and Countess Pellieresse? Besides, that precious person..."
Marquis Kompani scanned the fat Count Pellieresse up and down, then spread his arms and stepped back as if introducing Louise's coffin.
"She passed away so quickly. Even if you bring a dog and it dies early, you can go to the farm and complain. Let alone..."
The Marquis seemed about to shout loudly, but he looked around and shut his mouth tightly.
However, he strode towards Count Pellieresse, who was on the verge of collapsing, and muttered in a very small voice.
"I think you're mistaken. The person I said was angry is not Klaud, the Deposed Emperor."
Count Pellieresse's complexion, which had been red with anger, turned dark.
"His Highness, the First Prince Bolonico, is very, very angry."
The mention of the First Prince plunged the mansion into a deep silence.
Marquis Kompani smiled softly again at the frightened Count and Countess.
It was a smile that anyone could see was forced.
"His Highness, the First Prince, is very sensitive right now. The Emperor entrusted him with a task, and he is desperately trying to accomplish it without a single mistake, but a subject dares to leave a blemish? He ordered you to bring out Pellieresse's treasure, but instead of a treasure, you send a troublesome patient?"
"M-Marquis Kompani. I, I..."
"It's a good thing. Since I found out, all you have to do is correct the mistake."
Count Pellieresse looked up at Marquis Kompani like a man facing the god of death.
The momentum from before had disappeared, and as soon as he heard the story of the First Prince, he wiped his damp hands on his wife's clothes and took a breath.
But he couldn't let Yuan be taken away like this, so he mustered his last courage and shouted.
"I will ask the child. She's not just some commoner girl. I'm not a cruel uncle enough to force my niece into a marriage she doesn't want!"
"Gentlemanly."
Marquis Kompani scoffed and sneered.
Everyone's eyes on the first floor turned to Yuan.
"Deposed Empress, what will you do?"
Ignoring the Marquis's voice, Yuan looked up at her aunt, avoiding her uncle's gaze.
As soon as their eyes met, her aunt raised her thickly painted eyebrows and shook her head.
But her voice was very soft and kind.
"Yuan. You don't have to go if you don't want to. Don't you want to live here with your aunt and your cousin like you do now?"
This time, she looked at her cousins, who were hiding their fierce momentum behind her aunt.
They looked like they wanted to grab Yuan's hair as soon as possible once the troublemakers left the house.
Since she was young, Yuan Pellieresse had only one wish.
A beautiful mansion and a complete family.
And over the past 10 years, her wish had gradually reduced in expectation and volume, leaving only the essence.
Home. Family.
This mansion, which was no different from a living hell, was Yuan's only home, and those rude people were her only family.
So she thought that if she did well, the situation would improve.
She did her best to help her uncle's research and maintain Pellieresse's reputation.
She didn't hesitate to serve her aunt and cousins, who had become family on paper.
It was what her new family wanted, and that's how she was able to stay in the mansion.
Some days, she was in so much pain that she wanted to ask, "Uncle. Are we really family?"
Yuan always waited, pressing down the words that rose to her throat along with the pain.
She felt like if she helped her uncle's research and cured her sister's illness, all this pain would end.
She thought she could become a real family, be recognized as family in this mansion, and be happy.
But...
"Yuan. This uncle will definitely solve it. You just tell me what you want."
Louise is not in this strange and scary conversation.
They erased Yuan's existence and sent Louise out of the mansion.
Even though she is now dead and returned, no one asks about Louise, and no one mourns her death.
Relatives, Louise, and Yuan.
The price for deceiving herself that it was still the most perfect form of family under the name of Pellieresse was terrible.
"Isn't family something that no one can break apart?"
Uncle, aunt, and cousins.
They had never been Yuan's family.
The thought that they were still an unavoidable family was only in Yuan's mind.
"Didn't you want to go to the Elloyd Dress Shop? Even to that desolate 'Rockenhardt'... How can you go there? How can you, who lived luxuriously here, live there serving him in a place where even the imperial family's support has been cut off?"
Her aunt's voice buzzed in her ears, and her head was bleached white.
Her thoughts were cut off, and no voice came out.
'Family? Our home?'
The words she had wanted so much that she had tattooed them on her heart were all erased.
Only the fact that she could escape this beautiful and terrible mansion with just one word remained, heating up her mind.
She no longer had to endure all the moments she had sacrificed to help her uncle in order to find a way to save Louise and not be kicked out of this house.
For the entire year without Louise, no, for the entire time she had been crushed since her parents died, she could neither belong to nor escape this mansion, and only the time she had endured the pain passed haphazardly through the silence.
She still felt like the pain of complete strangers that she had brought yesterday remained in her heart.
The terrible pain had already passed and only the painful memories remained, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt.
"Yuan, you don't want to be separated from your family yet, do you?"
She didn't want to hurt anymore for her uncle or for Pellieresse.
If it had been normal, she would have gladly accepted even the fake warmth mixed in that voice, but not now.
One corner of her heart flickered as if sensing a danger signal, but more than that, her whole body refused to be in this mansion.
She had a place to go.
A place that even her uncle couldn't dare to reach.
An opportunity that would never come again.
'I'll come to pick you up.'
Louise's voice filled her head and kept pulling her outside.
Her white teeth, which had been biting her lower lip until it turned blue, parted, and finally a thin voice flowed from Yuan's mouth.
"I'll... go."
"Y, Yuan?"
A house without parents or Louise.
People who take my pain for granted and lie without feeling a single bit of guilt...
The trembling of her lips stopped, and Yuan, her eyes bloodshot, raised her voice.
"I'll go."
It was not a difficult word.
It took a long time to utter that one word.
The anger that had been burning her head subsided for a moment.
Perhaps it was because she thought she could leave this house without any regrets.
Or maybe it was because of her uncle's foolish face, as if someone had hit him in the back of the head.
"You've made a good decision."
Marquis Kompani relaxed his frowning forehead and gestured to the servants.
The somewhat chaotic surroundings were quickly tidied up.
It was the moment Yuan was about to get up with Marquis Kompani's escort that her uncle finally opened his mouth.
"No way!"
Her uncle's face was burning like a piece of iron that had just been taken out of a furnace.
He didn't even remember being supported, and he quickly waddled over and grabbed Yuan's wrist tightly.
As if snatching Yuan away from Marquis Kompani, her uncle pulled her and breathed hot air into Yuan's ear.
"You, dare!"
Her uncle, reading the fear that was seeping into her eyes, twisted his lips and whispered strongly.
"What are you going to do there, you little thing? Deposed Empress is also an Empress, huh? Do you think you'll be treated well if you go there? I didn't send you to a place where such a monster lives, but you're repaying kindness with evil. You could die if you go there. No, you'll definitely die! You can only live here!"
Yuan's eyes, which had been ignoring her uncle, slowly moved to him.
Count Pellieresse hesitated for a moment.
"I'll go."
It was because Yuan's eyes, which had always been filled with fear and obediently looking down, were bloodshot, unlike usual.
As if she dared to resent him.
"I don't want to die or live here anymore."
Her eyes, filled with empty anger, met her uncle's eyes for the first time.
