133 - Evil Husband (15th Anniversary Edition) Chapter 133
133
“…That’s what they’re saying.”
Ugh, Michele groaned in agony, clutching the beer mug in front of her. She lifted the mug, bigger than her face, and gulped it down before shouting, “Ughhh!”
“How can I say no to Aileen!”
At her resentful cry, Senon, who was drinking with her, took a sip of whiskey from his glass and replied.
“It’s definitely hard to say no to Aileen.”
Unlike the other knights holding beer mugs, Senon was alone with whiskey. Michele, wrinkling her nose at his prim sipping, muttered.
“You’re so annoying when you act like a noble young master.”
“I’m not acting, I am a young master,” Diego retorted, and this time Senon frowned. Senon mumbled with a slightly flushed face.
“Don’t tease me.”
Senon was the only knight from a noble family. His father was a local magistrate and a prominent figure in the area, but as the second son, Senon would not inherit the title.
His father and older brother wanted Senon to stay in his hometown and help with the family business. However, Senon chose Cesare. His family vehemently opposed it, and they even cut ties, but Senon did not regret his choice.
Senon put down his whiskey glass and turned to Rohan. Rohan was silently but steadily putting away the alcohol.
The knights’ drinking spot was Diego’s house. Decorated with cute props, the house was a frequent gathering place for the knights.
They had been too busy lately to gather, so they were drinking at Diego’s house after gathering for the memorial day. Aileen would have been with them normally, but she had gone in early to take care of Cesare.
Having witnessed Cesare’s palm being torn and then healing before their eyes, the knights thought Aileen was worrying too much. Cesare’s body had already transcended the realm of humans.
But unlike them, who were used to being sliced and pierced on the battlefield, Aileen had rarely experienced such things. The knights were well aware of this fact, so they simply kept their mouths shut and saw Aileen off.
Weoung, a cat meowed and jumped onto the table. Diego familiarly picked up the cat and placed it on his lap. The cat licked its paws on Diego’s lap.
“Rohan.”
At Senon’s call, Rohan finally raised his head. Diego and Michele also looked at Rohan. Rohan briefly touched the glass he was holding with his fingertips.
Rohan recalled the old past. It was Aileen who pulled Rohan out of the swamp of despair after losing his daughter. Aileen visited Rohan regularly. She would pick flowers and bring them to him, and she even saved up her allowance to buy him a teddy bear.
It was embarrassing, but Rohan was able to escape his grief because he regarded Aileen as his dead daughter. He had lived to this day thinking that Aileen was accomplishing the things his daughter could not.
Rohan said in a low voice.
“We serve His Grace, but it’s hard to refuse Aileen’s request.”
At Rohan’s words, the knights all fell silent and drank their alcohol. They, who feared nothing in the world, all became weak in front of Aileen.
It was when Michele was still rubbing her chest, complaining that her heart was still throbbing. Suddenly, Diego opened his mouth.
“But if all of this is really for Aileen’s sake…”
The knights exchanged glances. Diego, realizing that everyone had anticipated what he was about to say, continued.
“I can understand why you wouldn’t say it either…”
Diego’s faint words permeated the quiet house. It was truly a situation where they could neither do this nor that. In front of the knights who were deep in thought, Michele opened her mouth.
“Well, for now.”
Michele narrowed her eyes and said.
“How about we help Aileen… and get some benefits for ourselves?”
Cesare’s self-inflicted play, using his immortal body to deal with Count Bonepar, was understandable. But there was another puzzling part.
Cesare deliberately lured the beasts to destroy the altar of the Hunting Festival. It was as if he was blocking the passage through which God was trying to intervene with humans. For the knights, who knew Cesare was an unbeliever, this was the most unfamiliar part.
“In order to follow His Grace’s cause.”
Michele, emboldened by the alcohol, made a brave statement.
“We need to know what’s going on too.”
According to the stories, Morpheus, the god of dreams, can perfectly transform into the person the other party desires when he appears in human dreams.
He imitates not only the appearance but also the subtle habits, expressions, and voice, so humans cannot discern that it is a false illusion. They can only be played with as the god wishes in the fabricated dream.
What did Cesare see in his dream?
Aileen was curious about the version of herself that he had seen in his dream. She wanted to go into Cesare’s dream and examine everything, but she couldn’t, so she was frustrated.
“……”
She wanted to sigh, but she swallowed it down because she was in the middle of an experiment. Aileen bit her lip and carefully divided the crystals extracted from opium.
She divided the crystal-like substance into small pieces and weighed them. After dividing them into exactly 30mg portions, she fell into deep thought.
She had tried all sorts of experiments to extract only the analgesic components from opium. She repeated the experiment thousands of times until she obtained the result that crystals were formed when opium was extracted with hot water and then ammonia was added.
But Aileen had never thought it was difficult. She thought it was a natural process that had to be accepted if she could get the result.
But now that she had created the crystals and reached the human testing stage, she was even more troubled.
She couldn’t just inject people with it, so she was thinking of experimenting on herself first. The analgesic component was not toxic, and all the side effects were within the expected range. But she was worried that if even a small side effect occurred during the experiment, the employees or people around her would be surprised.
The second thing that bothered her was that Aileen was not experiencing any pain.
Even if she confirmed that there were no fatal abnormalities by experimenting on her own body, she would eventually have to inject it into a patient experiencing pain in order to confirm its efficacy.
But she wondered if there would be anyone who would easily accept an unidentified drug. It was an even more difficult problem because she couldn’t easily reveal Morpheus until it was completed.
‘It has to be someone trustworthy and suffering from pain because they haven’t found a suitable painkiller that they would readily accept for a clinical trial…’
Only then would it be a mutually beneficial experiment. Aileen was about to inject Morpheus when there was a light knock and the door to the laboratory opened. Aileen, who was just about to reach for Morpheus, was startled and turned around.
Cesare was standing there. He was wearing a comfortable shirt and pants, and his hair was naturally disheveled. Perhaps because he wasn’t as neatly groomed as when he wore his uniform, he had a different vibe about him.
As Aileen stared blankly with her lips parted, Cesare tilted his head slightly and asked.
“Am I interrupting?”
“No, no!”
Aileen hurriedly put away Morpheus, took off her gloves and apron, and washed her hands. She was so surprised that he had come to the laboratory for the first time that her heart was pounding. Aileen awkwardly approached and looked up at Cesare.
“What brings you here?”
Cesare frowned slightly and asked.
“Do I need a reason to come?”
Perhaps because of his disheveled clothes, Cesare’s tone felt like he was making a mischievous joke. Aileen didn’t know how to react and stammered.
“Ah, it’s not that, but I was just a little surprised.”
Since that night of passionate intimacy, Cesare’s shoulder had completely healed. There was no longer any need for even nominal care.
And that night, Aileen got a clear answer from Cesare.
“That’s impossible.”
It was an assurance that everything that had happened to him was not because of her. As Cesare said, that was impossible. He must have had some great purpose or goal, some grand plan that he couldn’t tell Aileen specifically.
Cesare never lied to her, so she should trust his words even more…
But Aileen kept having doubts. She scolded herself for being arrogant and overstepping her bounds as the Grand Duchess, but she couldn’t stop thinking.
But it was Cesare who had planted the seed of thought. Aileen obediently accepted the seed he had given her and nurtured it, and that’s how she came to have these doubts.
So she agonized alone and eventually asked Michele for help.
The knights cherished her, but their master was Cesare. There was a high possibility that they would not actively help Aileen, but if they could help even a little…
“His Majesty says he will come to the Grand Duke's Residence to visit.”
Aileen’s thoughts were cut off. Cesare, who had entered the laboratory, scanned Morpheus in the corner and continued.
“With the Parvellini Duchess Young Lady.”
