Chapter 48
Too Beautiful
Gustav, the butler who immediately followed, quickly opened the front door, vowing to strictly enforce the very basic and important education that it was not polite to stare intently at one's master.
He couldn't help it, as even the gatekeeper footmen were frozen stiff, staring only at Klaud's face.
After a silence where you could hear a pin drop, the maids who had been sweeping and wiping the floor on the first floor were the first to gasp for breath, as if they had been pulled out of the water.
"Did you, did you see it?"
"What did I just see?"
"I saw it! I saw it clearly!"
The faces of the young maids, pale with terror, turned as red as apples, as if by agreement.
The silence was only temporary. The hall, now vacated by Klaud, was soon filled with the voices of the servants.
"Master's face..."
"He's so much cleaner than I thought!"
"I've never seen anyone so beautiful in my life-"
It was the result of Yuan's relentless efforts to bring him comfort.
Like a frozen lake in winter that cracks from within under the steady warmth of the spring sun.
The frozen atmosphere inside the Mansion cracked and shattered with his single appearance.
It was only natural that not only the young maids but also the footmen, who had been scolded by Gustav and had returned to guarding the door, gathered at the windows, sticking close together.
The man with the golden hair, sparkling blindingly in the sunlight, was heading towards the west Annex of the Mansion.
***
"Madam. Even though it's winter, the sunlight is too strong. You should take a break."
"I'm almost done. Once I finish here, this part will be mostly done."
In response to Henna's concern, Yuan wiped the sweat from her forehead with her shoulder.
Henna, who had been trailing Yuan with a bucket of diluted Cleaning Potion, quickly pulled a handkerchief from her bosom and wiped Yuan's sweat.
Yuan smiled shyly at the attentive care.
"Thank you, Henna."
"You should let me help you, really. If you're going to do everything yourself, all I can do is this."
Yuan smiled brightly and then focused her eyes again, starting to scrub with all her might. Over the past few days, Yuan had been engrossed in cleaning as if her feet were on fire.
Klaud, who never seemed to leave his bedroom, had finally come out on his own.
Moreover, he had comforted Yuan, who had lost Louise, as if they were truly family, and Yuan had clearly received great comfort from him.
Although he had said nothing more than a nonchalant "Don't worry about it," Yuan could not forget the atmosphere in the carriage that day.
Because he told her not to worry, she felt like she really didn't have to worry about anything.
And she wanted to see the clear light of joy reflected in his crystalline eyes as he indifferently gazed at the scenery outside the carriage.
As Yuan concentrated and pursed her lips, starting to scrub aggressively, the loosely tied black hair seemed about to fall down.
Henna chuckled, thinking, "She's making that cute face with her lips again," and quickly put down the bucket she was holding.
She rummaged through the front pocket of her apron, found a suitable string, and crept towards Yuan, who had already moved several steps away.
Thanks to her diligent care, the Madam's dull black hair was becoming shinier day by day.
Just as Henna smiled proudly and untied the ribbon hanging from the end of Yuan's hair, Yuan's scrubbing stopped abruptly.
Sensing the sudden subtle change in the air, Yuan awkwardly stood up and turned around.
"Your Highness?"
Yuan discovered Klaud standing tall at the entrance to the Iron fence of the west Annex.
The red flesh of this small Annex, to which she had clung for days, was now completely captured in his eyes.
There were still three days left!
It wasn't finished yet!
It was only natural that Yuan was shocked.
"Why already..."
Yuan could only gape, unsure what to do with the brush she was holding.
Klaud's face, without even a mask, looked perfect from this distance.
It was as if he had been painted with golden paint, assimilated into the pouring sunlight.
He sparkled as if even the cold air struggling at the end of winter would turn into warm spring if it passed him by.
The slightly fallen bangs, perhaps from walking quickly. His ivory forehead, shining white because it had not received a single ray of sunlight.
Past his neat eyebrows and delicate brow, his eye sockets were deeply sunken, making him look almost decadent.
His eyelids, which were always languidly drooping, seemed a little less so today.
Beneath his long eyelashes, swaying in the breeze, his amethyst eyes, meticulously crafted, repeated the process of letting in and letting out the clear light that Yuan had so longed to see.
Just as Yuan was momentarily mesmerized by the sight, like a masterpiece by a famous painter, she snapped out of it and muttered at him reproachfully.
"It hasn't been a week yet-"
The clear, bright purple eyes lingered on her flustered face for a long time before sliding here and there.
The sight of the soft, flowing black hair, the sunlight falling on her plump forehead, gathering on her delicate features, and pooling in her hollowed collarbone.
His wavering gaze returned to her plump lips, spilling out hurried words, lingered there for a moment, and then moved to her plump forehead, leaving a watercolor-like green stain.
The dirty brush she was holding and waving around in the air in confusion.
He slowly scanned her slender wrists revealed beneath her rolled-up sleeves and the tattered apron, the original color of which was hard to discern.
At the lingering, slow gaze, Yuan recalled Klaud, who had been so stingy with her appearance that he had told the butler to get her some new clothes.
Yuan took a deep breath, which she had been holding, when she saw Klaud's gaze turn back to the outer wall of the Annex.
"I wanted to show it to you when it was perfectly clean."
"..."
"Are you angry that I touched it without permission?"
Yuan cautiously approached Klaud, who was still staring at the Annex without moving.
"Your Highness."
"I just came out for a walk."
Klaud said, still not taking his eyes off the Annex.
His deeply immersive voice echoed in Yuan's heart.
"You can come out and see it again in three days."
After that surprise walk.
The master of the Black Manor, who had not taken a walk in over ten years, began to spend his days with his wife, who was cleaning the west Annex.
Every morning, the servants watched the master coming down the central staircase and created new rumors among themselves.
The rumor was that the face he had been hiding behind the mask was not hideous, but hidden because it was too beautiful.
***
Pellieresse Mansion.
"The reply?"
"As you know, security is too tight from the entrance of that Mansion. It's hard to even find a passing servant, so delivering a letter is not easy."
"How much money have I poured in? What about the trends? Anything like a corpse being carried out or screams?"
"There's no way such things would be heard outside the Iron fence, and corpses have never come out."
"What the hell are you guys doing with my money?!"
Count Geret Pellieze's plump fist slammed down on the desk in the study!
The dirty man standing in front of him didn't even twitch an eyebrow at his boisterous movements.
"If it weren't for me, who else would take on this kind of job? It's a remote place like an exile, far from the village, and the imperial dogs are watching with bloodshot eyes to see who's coming and going."
The man replied in a grumbling tone.
Indeed, it was.
Count Geret Pellieze had sent people several times to meet Yuan personally and persuade her somehow.
But half of them were dragged away somewhere, and the other half were overwhelmed and ran away.
As Geret Pellieze's momentum seemed to subside slightly, the man raised his voice.
"It's not just any place, it's the Black Manor, rumored to be where the Monster lives, all over Euphris. Even Jiheon, who kills people for money like swatting mosquitoes, considers it an impregnable fortress. There are more than a few guys surrounding it and watching it."
The dirty man, the secret mercenary Kiyotel, whispered with eyes full of subtle murderous intent and playfulness.
He had made a living by taking on all sorts of murder contracts and background checks, but he had never seen a place as full of eerie energy as that Black Manor in the northwest.
The animals flying and crawling around with eerie eyes, and the guys patrolling the Iron fence as guards, were all very similar to Kiyotel's energy - in short, a lot of big, rootless bastards.
A target with many enemies is difficult to eliminate or investigate.
Kiyotel weighed whether this job was worth risking his life for, his eyes scanning the amount of gold the fat nobleman was fiddling with in the pouch on his lap.
Beneath the plump hand, the gold that would fatten his belly just as much was showing off its clear presence in the velvet pouch. Just as he was licking his lips, a sharp gaze fell on him.
Geret Pellieze hid the gold pouch from Kiyotel's wolf-like gaze and asked with a wary face.
"First of all, the letter, no matter what! Send it secretly into the hands of the servants. And if you ever meet that girl, tell her that her uncle wants to see her. Tell her that her uncle knows the way for her to live."
"Wouldn't it be better to just send the letter officially-"
"Just do as I say!"
The Count shouted and pressed his temples.
He had been so impatient that he had sent a string of letters to Yuan, pretending they were from her family, but no reply had come.
But if he sent letters every day and Marquis Compagni, that snake, caught wind of it, it would be the end.
What if even one line about the power of Pellieresse was written in his letter or Yuan's reply, which might never come, and Marquis Compagni or someone else saw it?
Count Pellieresse closed his greasy eyes tightly and opened them, his vision blurred by the mere thought.
