Cassian’s gaze remained fixed on one side of the alley for quite a long time.

The place where his gaze was fixed was the alley where Duke Deviron was located.

Among the bustling crowd, he stood out conspicuously and couldn’t help but catch the eye.

The frantic patter of footsteps, as if possessed by a ghost, came to a halt in front of a certain stall.

Opposite the stall where his father’s verdant gaze had settled was a long, stretching alleyway. He soon disappeared into it.

‘It can’t be.’

‘It shouldn’t be.’

Cassian, who had alighted from the carriage, trudged along the path that Duke Deviron had taken.

The previously unseen alley on the opposite side gradually came into view.

Unlike the warm, spring-sunlit main street he had just passed through, it was a desolate alley without a single person.

In the middle of it stood his father.

Not even recognizing his son who had come all this way to find him.

His constant looking around was quite different from his usual aristocratic movements.

His eyes, trembling as if he had seen Satan after losing his soul, were clearly entranced by something.

And so he dashed across the alley once again and disappeared.

To somewhere unknown on the far opposite side.

As if searching for a lost jewel.

A smile broke out on Cassian’s lips as he watched the fluttering of the suit fading away.

That smile hardened in just a moment.

‘Damn it.’

Blood vessels bulged over his clenched fist.

It’s ridiculous how you finally make me open the box I tried so hard not to open.

Only that woman and her birth mother had entered this alley.

The quiet alley was empty, and of course, no one is there now either.

So the jewel you were looking for…… was that woman?

No, to be precise, it should be that woman’s birth mother.

The jewel you were looking for is an object that belongs only in memories, and the person most fitting for those memories is that person.

Doesn’t everything fit together infuriatingly well?

If I had seen her for the first time today, I wouldn’t have thought she looked about a dozen years younger, but I had seen information about her birth mother in Alfonse.

Just the right age to match my father.

A Cinderella of commoner status.

Ah, not Cinderella. Should I say a failed Cinderella?

Ha, it was mind-boggling.

A large hand swept through the blonde hair.

With each stroke, the crease between his brows became more pronounced.

The large hand soon roughly pulled at the shirt that was making it hard to breathe.

Rough breaths rose and fell over the disheveled shirt.

At the same time, a sneer curled on his lips.

Even in God’s words, there was something right.

Didn’t they say not to open Pandora’s box?

Is this the situation thrown before me for not listening to that one thing?

In reality, it was so ridiculous to call it a coincidence that I wondered if I was really under some curse.

Come to think of it, it wasn’t a big deal.

‘It’s probably just a woman who looks like her.’

It was a problem that could be resolved by simply concluding it that way.

If only the absurd assumption that suddenly crossed my mind wasn’t true.

“Are you alright, sir?”

Even at Tiobe’s voice, Cassian remained silent as if he hadn’t heard anything.

The master’s appearance – laughing inexplicably, then frowning deeply, then showing an unpredictable expression – was clearly different from usual.

“Young master?”

After a moment, as Cassian raised his head, his eyes were filled with a red hue resembling blood.

A crooked smile bloomed on Cassian’s lips, his eyes calmly settled.

That woman and her birth mother flashed through his mind in turn.

That woman was the spitting image of her birth mother.

And that woman said she never had a father to begin with.

The name of the woman with a father whose circumstances were unknown was Yuriel.

Though without a surname, that excessively aristocratic name……

He faintly calls out that name.

Was that damn pretty name possibly given by my father?

Perhaps because I’ve seen such an absurd sight, such nonsensical delusions are floating in my head.

For some reason, at this moment, my mother’s voice, screaming about Cinderella enough to write a critique, overlaps.

[Find that wench. Even if you have to go to the ends of hell.] [What if that wench had a child?] [Then what would you do if she came looking for you later with that child?]

In the wind, that woman, Yuriel, scatters.

Throughout uttering that name, an incredulous laugh crumbled and dissolved into the air.

Well, it’s not yet at the stage to laugh about.

Such emotions are just filthy things to be felt after analyzing whether there was really divine intervention in this unbelievable incident, or if it was just a simple error of coincidence.

Cassian picked up a cigar and lit it with a flick.

The smoke disperses into the air.

Each time, Yuriel, that woman’s last face, blooms and fades over it repeatedly.

As if possessed by a curse.

A low murmur was exhaled into the void.

Crazy bastard.

Tiobe’s face, who had been quietly following and watching this scene, was filled with concern.

He was hesitating whether to report the content he had just received to his master.

The head of the family suddenly jumped out of the carriage and dashed into the alley…..

And then the young master too.

‘Are they playing hide and seek or something?’

However, these father and son were people who were far too unsuited for such antics.

How could the Blanchet bloodline, excessively aristocratic and noble, engage in such play?

These were certainly not the kind of people who would learn Louvre at the age of three and walk gracefully with aristocratic gait.

Even in this situation, the young master was laughing like mad, then becoming seriously rigid, then showing unpredictable expressions again.

What on earth was happening?

Let’s go back step by step to before that.

The young master saw her.

The one who frequently visited the young master’s hotel and was presumed to have made his mind unsound.

She too was looking at the young master in the carriage window, for quite a long time.

The young master likewise couldn’t take his eyes off her.

It seemed their relationship was still the same, making the cold war state after Lady Fiocel’s visit seem meaningless.

One side looking pale and the other seeming to enjoy it.

Such a still strange and still incomprehensible relationship.

But that was the young master’s problem, so why did the head of the family suddenly…

The emotions of the two people, swaying in a large emotional veil, were simply impossible to know.

Are both of them going through puberty again?

Thinking such a ridiculous thought, Tiobe examined Cassian’s serious-looking side profile and sighed.

Well, it’s understandable for him to be like this.

After all, she turned pale as soon as she saw the young master today and disappeared as if running away.

[This is the timeline separator]

After seeing that man, I couldn’t even breathe properly.

There was never a time when I didn’t feel this emotion while entering the hotel.

But… if it was usually just quickened breathing, this time it felt like someone was completely choking me.

Perhaps it’s natural since entering the hotel and the weekend meetings were predictable, but this encounter on Raphianle Island was completely unexpected.

The moment I discovered that man, my heart sank.

My body trembled like prey caught in a trap while trying to escape.

Even though we were separated by a carriage window, those red eyes seemed to pierce through me, tying me up tightly.

Not knowing what I was thinking, I just ran away with mother as if escaping.

Of course, it was better than before.

Or more accurately, I managed to act as if it was better.

I succeeded in not avoiding his eyes and even greeting him until the end, not wanting to give him any opening.

I didn’t want to waste the precious time I had somehow gained with mother because of that man.

Fortunately, until we returned to our lodgings across the center of the island, that man did not pursue me.

My heart, which couldn’t relax thinking he might follow me like that day, finally started beating again only after I was out of his sight.

As my pulse gradually returned and I caught my breath, my breathing finally found its rhythm.

Only then did mother’s frightened appearance come into view.

Mother’s gaze, with a pale face, slowly lifted.

A turbulent wave was rising in her pupils, which were filled with me.

“E… El.”

Ah. I suddenly ran without any explanation, so it must have been bewildering from mother’s perspective.

Belatedly realizing this, I hurriedly began to make excuses.

“Mom, the reason I ran just now is…”

While I hesitated, not knowing how to explain, mother’s voice cut through the air.

“Mom saw that person.”

“That person… you mean?”

Could the person mother said she saw be that man?

But only I should be surprised and terrified at seeing that man.

Mother doesn’t remember much about the Alfonse incident, does she?

Even if she did remember, until recently mother even said she was thankful to that man.

It must have been him who saved mother from the lord.

So mother… had no reason to regard that man so terribly.

She probably doesn’t even know how I spend nights rolling around with that man.

No, she shouldn’t know.

I raise my gaze, filled with tension, to look at mother.

The trembling emerald eyes had already regained their calm and were fixed on me.