Cassian smirked upon receiving the butler’s report that Yuriel requested to see him.

“Let her in.”

The butler tilted his head in confusion.

Honestly, he couldn’t even begin to guess what this young master was thinking.

It was this very young master before him who had suddenly ordered the demolition of the house.

To ‘specifically’ demolish that desolate house tucked away in a corner, unnoticed by anyone.

It was clearly an order given knowing that girl was living there.

After all, this young master had been receiving reports about the events around that house and that girl’s movements for days.

Occasionally, the young master would personally follow that girl.

The coachman had complained so much because he was ordered to drive through alleys to avoid overlapping with that girl’s work route.

And after following her like that, all he did was quietly observe.

With an expressionless face, the young master would stare at that girl for a long time before silently returning to his place.

This eccentric behavior had already occurred several times.

That’s not all. Today, he had procured what the young master told him to get, what that girl wanted so desperately.

The medicine for that girl’s mother.

To demolish the house of such a girl? When he first heard that order, he thought he must have misheard something.

To demolish the house of a girl who lived alone with her dying mother, and was even acting as the head of the household.

Wasn’t that no different from telling them to die on the streets?

Although nobles could treat commoners like ants to be stepped on for fun, generally ignoring them was more common.

In other words, they don’t usually pour so much attention into driving an ant into a desperate situation so cruelly.

He wondered if that girl had done something particularly wrong to warrant this, but if so, why did the young master order to get that medicine?

Even more perplexing was the young master’s behavior after that girl disappeared.

Since that girl left, he had dismissed every single attendant who came to serve him in less than an hour.

As if no one but that girl could stay by his side.

Because of that, he had been so troubled trying to find new pages, constantly hearing complaints from the lord.

In truth, from the butler’s perspective, Yuriel’s return was a welcome event.

However… having seen the tearful girl himself, he could only click his tongue.

Wondering how one could be so cruel.

The butler momentarily pitied Yuriel. Behind that pity was also a sense of relief that he wasn’t the young master’s prey.

The butler still had nightmares recalling the young master’s fierce glare as he gripped his collar.

How fortunate that there was another prey, not himself.

Today too, the butler quickly threw an excellent prey before the young master and slipped away.

Yuriel.

As expected, that girl crawled before him.

With the same expression she had worn when leaving this mansion that day.

The eyes that had asked how he could deceive her when he knew about that quack doctor were still vivid.

As was the sight of her shedding tears before him.

She said she would never come back.

‘See? You’ve come back to me after all.’

Though her lips trembled, Yuriel looked straight at Cassian.

It was that gaze that had irritated him from the beginning, and thus kept coming to mind.

How long would that girl continue to tremble like that before him, yet maintain such eyes?

That girl, who only crawled to his feet when she had something to confront him about, had once again entered his domain today to speak impertinently.

“How could you issue such an absurd order?”

Her expression was deeply furrowed, apparently still upset.

It seems she was that upset about the order to demolish that eyesore of a house.

Of course. That’s why he did it.

For the past few days, he had been constantly observing that girl.

Struggling desperately to save her birth mother, that girl had become dry and withered in her packed schedule.

Only very rarely did a smile appear on that expressionless face.

Only when that boy named Hael was in front of her.

A face with a pure white smile he had never seen before, scarlet lips curled upwards.

The stable manager’s devotion, even bringing a doctor in response, was quite admirable.

And so it was irritating.

If it was irritating, he should have just stopped looking. Yet unlike himself, he deliberately followed her around, searching for that irritating sight.

As if floundering in an inescapable thirst.

Come to think of it, he was nothing short of a pervert.

And now he was committing such troublesome acts again to quench that thirst.

Of course, not a single blemish would remain on the Blanchet’s nobility.

The lord would take all the blame.

The girl standing straight while looking at him enters his view.

Did she ask how he could do such a thing?

It’s all your fault.

As long as he was down here in this backwater called Alphonse, this place was as good as under the Blanchet’s command.

And yet a mere girl like you irritated him within his domain.

If you ran away from this room, you should have fled without looking back.

Instead of repeatedly smiling and sitting around as if you were happy anywhere but by his side.

“Did the adjutant not convey it properly? That shack of a house ruins the village’s appearance.”

The girl’s lips parted slowly, as if she had heard something absurd.

“So you’re saying you just demolished it for the sole reason that it looks bad.”

Yuriel’s voice trembled pleasantly at the end.

“Why are you confronting me about it? The lord must have said so.”

“The lord is not the type to care about such things.”

Cassian tossed down the book he hadn’t even looked at.

The girl bit her lip hard, taking in the sight fully.

It was to such an extent that one might worry blood would be drawn.

“I don’t know what grudge you have against me, but… please stop.”

“Why should I do that?”

“Young master!”

Whenever she has nothing to say, she shouts “young master.”

It’s quite pleasing to hear. Like a clear melody flowing from some high-priced orchestra.

Seeing her tearful appearance was pleasant, so as he remained still, her slender body turned away, staggering.

“Where are you going? You have nowhere to go.”

Cassian’s sarcastic tone was like a calm rock, completely contrasting with Yuriel’s trembling one.

The sneer that spread across his face was fully visible to Yuriel.

Feeling suffocated, Yuriel couldn’t move an inch.

How could a person be like this? How?

He’s trampled on someone else’s life like this, and he’s smiling so cruelly as if it were all a joke.

This young master.

A devil wearing an angel’s mask.

That description fits him perfectly.

She should never have met this person from the beginning.

She shouldn’t have rushed in with only the hope of curing her mother’s illness.

If it weren’t for that, she wouldn’t have made her mother’s last moments so miserable.

Feeling as if everything was her fault, tears endlessly poured out from within Yuriel.

Suppressing that while forcing strength into her trembling legs was her last bit of pride, not wanting to show such an unsightly display in front of this damned young master.

“I must leave for somewhere. Since you’ve destroyed my house, young master.”

“Well, as a Blanchet, I can’t just ignore a pitiful commoner.”

Cassian raised an irritating smile towards Yuriel, who was looking at him as if to ask what he meant.

And then.

“Stay here.”

“What did you just say?”

Her eyes, resembling a thicket, slowly widened as if she had heard something unbelievable.

“I said, stay here.”

Yuriel’s dress crumpled miserably once again.

After demolishing her house, now he’s telling her to stay here as if offering charity.

“Are you finding this situation amusing, young master?”

Cassian’s appearance, not even meeting her gaze and staring out the window, was incomparably dry.

“Sufficiently.”

In reality, Yuriel had nowhere to go if she left this place now.

But her stubbornness momentarily sent her sense of reality plummeting.

“I’ll… pretend I didn’t hear that offer.”

One of Cassian’s eyebrows noticeably curved.

As if he were the one who had been hurt.

The smile that had looked like a fallen angel suddenly changed to that of a noble devil.

It seemed like the same thing, but that subtle difference made Yuriel’s insides boil even more.

Looking at that expression alone, it seemed as if the victim and the perpetrator had been reversed.

Yuriel could only seethe inwardly, unable to even vent this incredulous feeling.

Because she didn’t have the courage to argue about such trivial matters in front of a Blanchet.

Meanwhile, Cassian’s face returned to its original dry light.

“Do you think I need something like your opinion?”

An arrogant and impudent voice resonated through the air.

Cassian, a voice that even he found too unpleasant, resembling his terrible father.

Hadn’t his father once shared a puppy love with a pretty woman?

His mother always expressed it as puppy love, but he knew better than anyone that it wasn’t just puppy love.

A woman who remained in his heart longer than the legal wife he had lived with for over a decade, skin to skin.

How could that be puppy love? First love, perhaps.

That vaunted first love that inevitably burrows into a man’s heart to the very end.

Would that great first love, enough to make even that lofty father’s eyes hollow, have had the same face as this girl?

The feeling of once resenting his father, following his mother, now seems only laughable.

How is he any different?

No. He is quite different.

In the end, he will never have the chance to recognize those cursed emotions his father experienced, as he’ll be dead.

The future precious legal wife, probably embedded somewhere in the capital by now, will gain relief instead of tears.

In that sense, it doesn’t matter how he lives.

Because all this time is limited.

So from the beginning, he never needed this girl’s opinion.

He gave an order, not sought an answer.

Someone like you should just cry, grieve, and wail as he desires.

While mourning his life with a time limit.

Not planning for the future while counting the brilliantly remaining life.

He wants her to remain in the past. Forever.

Of course, he knows well that such a thing won’t happen.

Still, she should show sincerity. At least while he’s alive.

But…

“Even if you are the young master of the Blanchet family, you cannot forcibly keep me here.”