After losing his sight, he had given up on life.
He had the skilled ability to close his eyes and hit prey by throwing a sword at just the sound.
Just today, he had thoroughly beaten up thugs who had picked a fight with Rona using his cane. Although he couldn’t see, making it difficult to find objects with his hands, people with presences were exceptions.
Nevertheless, when he lost his sight to severe poison, Elleon couldn’t accept the fact that the honor of being the strongest knight of the empire was thrown into the gutter.
He lived like that for an indeterminable amount of time. Like a wounded beast hunched up in a cave.
It was during a time of aimless living when Rona first came to the mansion. Everyone who saw him trembled and ran away as if they saw a terrible monster. No new maid ever set foot in his room twice. But Rona was different.
Twice, thrice, four times.
She casually greeted him and came in to clean his messed up room. As someone who didn’t run away emerged, the feeling of embarrassment was the first to return.
It wasn’t so embarrassing to show any sort of neglect to a stranger. It wasn’t like they would see each other again, and just as I didn’t know him, he didn’t know me.
In such a relationship, it didn’t matter if someone saw his shocking appearance and ran away from the mansion within a day.
He found out the maid’s name was Rona. A fairly young woman. And she did not run away but looked at his rock bottom every day. As those days accumulated, Rona stubbornly pulled him out of his pitlike daily life.
Rona taught him a lot. She was an amazingly smart woman. It was also Rona who told him to practice walking by marking paths to the bathroom, bed, and sofa with tiles on the floor.
A year and a half of despair became colorless when Rona came to the mansion and in just six months, Elleon was able to live a somewhat human life again like before. But that was it.
Elleon waved his hand in front of his face. The terrible darkness wouldn’t even allow him to see the wavering of light and shadow.
So he often thought that he was not blind, but closing his eyes. If he tricked himself into thinking that he was not looking instead of not being able to see at all, he felt a little better.
“Didn’t you want to go to that cafe?”
Now, Rona was not a maid cleaning his room. She was his exclusive maid, a conversational partner and serving his needs.
Every day Elleon ate with Rona. Rona first served Elleon’s meal, then ate her share. If it were the old Bernar, he would have been outraged to share a table with a servant.
However, the butler who had seen Elleon’s bottom while staying with him during the long wandering time left the mansion obediently followed whatever he wished for. Now the butler also affectionately called the maid Rona ‘Miss Rona’.
When they ate together, Rona told various stories. Usually, when he asked something because he couldn’t see, Rona would explain it. But there was only once when Rona asked him something first.
「Have you ever been to Cafe Cardinal?」
Of course, he had not. When he later asked Bernar, he said it was a famous cafe not far from the mansion.
「A place where many lovers visit?」
「Yes, Your Highness. It is a place where many young lovers go. It is not a place for you to go, Your Highness. But how do you know and ask about such a place.」
A place where lovers go.
Why did she ask if I had been to such a place?
Could it be…… Does Rona want to go there with me? To a cafe known as a sanctuary for lovers?
His heart was throbbing irregularly.
After losing his sight, Elleon had never left the mansion. But today he went out for the first time to answer the call from the palace wanting to check that his condition had stabilized.
On the way, he went to Cafe Cardinal to find Rona. The reason he gathered the courage to do so was because Rona had been sighing more often these days.
“I wonder if I’m becoming a nuisance now.”
He relied on Rona. She became his eyes, his hands.
To her, he must have been a bothersome employer who demanded a lot of care.
As soon as they sat in the cafe, they felt the gazes pouring towards themselves and Rona. That bothered Illeon. It was a place where lovers came together, and he felt that he and Rona might not look like a couple. Then suddenly, he was curious about what Rona looked like.
“I stand out, that’s why.”
He extended his hand, filled with personal interest, under the pretense of checking what she looked like. To this, Rona offered her face without any discomfort.
Thump.
As his hand touched her soft, squishy cheek, his chest trembled. His rough hand, hardened from wielding a sword for a long time, seemed unworthy of touching her tender skin.
Still, he couldn’t take his hand off. He kept his composure and remembered Rona’s face with his hand. Then, when his hand touched her soft, plump lips,
Rona breathed as if nothing happened at all. And that upset Illeon. The excitement and anticipation he had when he left quickly sank when he realized it was a misunderstanding.
“A blind person like me.”
When scheming men desperately battle for her favor in the male harem
This one’s also on my reread list! The rivalry, scheming between the men in the imperial harem are just as intense and thrilling as in classic palace drama novels, where concubines fight to the death. Give it a read, girls! I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Synopsis:
“I am not worthy of her… but I still want to be by her side, even if only as a loyal dog…”
Those were the painful whispers of Yue Guanyi – the proud Crown Prince of the Great Qi, who was torn between deep love and a guilty conscience. Despite holding the supreme power of the Imperial Guard, he still could not forget the dark past when he was sold into a brothel.
Fate played a cruel twist when Qiu Shuzhi – a young female official who had just passed the imperial examinations with top honors – stepped into his life. She did not know that she was the one who had saved him from a tragic fate many years ago. And now, her heart was the target of pursuit for both Yue Guanyi and the powerful Empress Dowager Qin Qing.
While Yue Guanyi only dared to silently care for and protect the one he loved from afar, the Empress Dowager Qin Qing openly expressed his feelings and did not hesitate to take advantage of his power to approach Qiu Shuzhi. The covert struggle between the two most powerful forces in the imperial court began…
Trigger warning: All men in this novel are yandere style.
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