My Insolent Shadow (22 Chapters Left to Complete) - Chapter 6
Eyes followed me the entire time as I walked down the narrow alley.
The fishmonger’s wife, the sundries shopkeeper, the stall owners whose names I only knew….
It was only natural. Anyone wrapped in a cloak so lavishly embroidered with golden thread—bearing the Alphonse crest, no less—was utterly out of place in such an alley.
Though no one dared speak it aloud, their curiosity about why the Alphonse manor had sent for me was plain to see.
Even though we all lived beneath the same Alphonse sky, to these villagers the Alphonse manor was as distant as the heavens themselves.
An unreachable sky.
Though merely one among countless nobles across the Empire, here in this village the Lord was unquestionably the highest authority.
Even a mere servant of that household walked past with his back perfectly straight, and merchants from the guilds would halt their work to bow deeply to him.
Trailing behind him, I inevitably received their bows as well, which only made me feel awkward.
It felt as though I was accepting something I shouldn’t.
If merely standing behind a servant of House Alphonse felt this strange…
I suddenly wondered just what kind of world that Young Master came from.
In Blanchet, such things must be as mundane and ordinary as breathing.
Even the Lord of Alphonse, who made all the villagers kneel like this, knelt before him.
Not only that—Lord Alphonse himself, whom someone like me could never hope to even glimpse once in a lifetime, apparently fumbled helplessly before that Young Master.
Thinking about it now, that Young Master was precisely the kind of person one only reads about in novels—someone never seen in our village.
Yesterday, I must have clearly been out of my mind.
To say such things to someone like him—how utterly ridiculous.
I’d foolishly acted out of misplaced pity, merely because I’d thought of him as just another child my age.
I hadn’t realized at all that the gap between that Young Master and me stretched as far apart as heaven and earth—a horizon I could never hope to touch.
And yet, his order to bring me along now fills me with fresh fear.
It’s laughable how I’d refused his proposal before, thinking I’d had any real choice in the matter.
In truth, someone like me should simply move when Blanchet commands it, and feign death if told to die—but I’d momentarily forgotten that.
That Young Master—no, Blanchet himself—deserved respect simply for bestowing upon me an overly generous salary and compensating the fishmonger.
That must be why Uncle of Liordeen’s fish shop smiled apologetically yet warmly.
Cassian had preserved his noble reputation in the uniquely Blanchet way.
It struck me anew how easy it is for someone with money to be seen as good.
That Young Master, who could summon his butler with a mere flick of his finger, would surely have become a genuinely good person by the time I walked down this alley again.
Then again, compared to Lord Alphonse, that really was true.
After all, this Lord of Alphonse frequently dragged villagers to work for him during harvest season without ever paying them a single copper.
Since he was the only noble the villagers ever knew, they assumed all nobles were alike.
Most nobles do occasionally scatter money to protect their reputations—but even that rarely happens outside the capital.
And even then, only for those deemed worthy of such treatment.
In that sense, that Young Master’s minor deed carried considerable weight.
At the very least, it was the sort of event that would be the talk of the village for a full year.
Everyone now thinking so highly of Cassian as a good person left a sour feeling in my chest.
Truthfully, as someone hired precisely because of that money, who was I to judge whether he was good or bad?
How utterly despicable of me.
He’d cut my job without even asking my opinion—but then gave me an even better one.
While whether a job is good or bad is subjective, and I couldn’t strictly say one was better than the other, as someone who always prioritized money, I knew I’d still have chosen this regardless.
And even if I didn’t prioritize money, it would’ve been the same.
Not a single villager would pass up the chance to meet Blanchet face to face.
If anyone else in the village heard me now, they’d call me ungrateful.
I’d received more than I deserved—so why complain?
Yet my thoughts kept drifting that way.
Was it me who was twisted, or the situation itself?
It was painfully obvious that the Young Master’s intentions in bringing me along weren’t transparent.
Just recalling his profile—so cold like winter—and his sculpted front, which he never even let me see properly—confirmed it.
Cassian. All those lofty things that man possessed now filled me not with envy but fear, stirring up crude, tangled emotions.
As these petty, tangled thoughts clustered together and began interpreting the Young Master’s motives however they pleased—
the manor finally came into view.
Even though I’d seen it yesterday, it still felt utterly unfamiliar. No—even after living through all four seasons here, that vast estate would likely still feel foreign. Today, as always, it glowed blue.
Inside, the finely carved statues stood aligned in the same poses as yesterday.
Yesterday, they might have caught my eye—but today, they hardly registered.
My mind was too clouded by the countless unanswered questions stemming from his incomprehensible motives, which I still couldn’t grasp.
Everything grew more contradictory the more I thought about it.
Come to think of it, even the butler walking ahead of me all the way here had been the same.
His expression clearly showed he found me undesirable.
Just glancing occasionally at his profile—so stiffly set—was enough to tell.
I’d known yesterday he was a rigid man, but today he seemed even more so.
The problem was that despite this, his formal courtesy toward me had only increased.
Looking back, I realized he’d even used respectful speech with me.
Him—the personal butler of none other than Viscount Vilord, Lord Alphonse—treating someone like me with such deference.
He was clearly wearing a mask in front of me.
‘Why?’
Masks are usually worn only when one must face someone of higher status.
Was it because, aside from me, he couldn’t find anyone else capable of handling that Young Master?
He’d clearly looked at me yesterday as if I were a nuisance.
So it was plainly absurd to think I’d somehow proved capable of handling that Young Master.
These thoughts piled up and led me to conclude that the butler’s behavior wasn’t truly his own choice.
‘Could the Young Master’s orders have included even this?’
The notion was so absurd even I let out a faint laugh.
Why would that illustrious Young Master issue such an order just for my sake?
At the end of the corridor—past the manor’s long fountain and garden—we finally reached Cassian’s room.
Before the tall, pure-white door, the butler at last stopped walking and turned toward me.
“You haven’t forgotten the precautions I mentioned earlier, have you?”
“Yes.”
Just as he moved to open the door, he sighed and added another warning.
“Don’t forget—you are the young lady of House Vilord.”
For a moment, I was stunned. His tone was so certain I nearly believed I truly was Lady Vilord.
Then I remembered he was only repeating what he’d said yesterday and nodded.
“I understand.”
I suppose I needed to pass myself off as Lady Vilord just to be remotely worthy of serving as that Young Master’s page.
The gap between him and me suddenly felt painfully stark.
It wasn’t new—I’d mulled over this very thought multiple times while walking here.
After that, he handed me a prepared maid uniform.
Putting on the lace-trimmed dress, I saw my reflection in the mirror—this time fitting perfectly, unlike yesterday.
They’d already prepared even this?
Cassian must have changed his mind yesterday.
Preparing something like this would require at least a full day.
My tongue nearly clicked in amazement at how the butler had already procured a dress tailored to my size—all from a single order by that Young Master.
When we finally reached the westernmost wing where Cassian resided, the butler at last swung the door open.
Tension overwhelmed my body as I drew a deep breath that pierced straight to my lungs.
Now was the time to focus only on Mother’s medicinal herbs.
Don’t cause trouble like yesterday.
If I just avoided trouble, I could surely survive a month somehow.
With that thought, I stepped calmly inside.
[This is the timeline separator]Beside the sun-dappled bed, golden-haired Cassian slowly turned his head.
As usual, his clear face glanced briefly toward Yuriciel before softening into a smile.
Without even realizing it.
After that, Yuriciel busied herself in silence, searching for something to do.
She repeated pointless cleaning tasks as always and needlessly shuffled back and forth past the bookshelf.
Though I knew she was the most diligent servant, all her movements irritated me immensely.
For a page hired under such a hollow pretext, why was she so eager to work?
The daily report the butler gave me about her was shockingly detailed.
With those tiny, fragile legs, she apparently handled every task in this village single-handedly.
And now that she’s here, why is she still fussing over chores?
Especially ones no one asked her to do.
Her complete absorption in work—as if she held no interest in me whatsoever—made my irritation flare.
After all, I’d thought about her quite a lot yesterday.
Shouldn’t a commoner girl be thinking of me far more often than I think of her?
A jumble of utterly ridiculous feelings swirled together inside me.
“Why do you think I hired you?”
“Huh?”
Those round rabbit-eyes slowly turned toward me,
as if asking what I meant.
The loud, defiant girl from yesterday was gone—replaced by some docile lamb. It was infuriating.
“Do you even know how many maids are assigned to clean this room?”
“Oh….”
Only then did she seem to understand, and the dry cloth slipped from the girl’s hands.
“Then… what should I do?”
The look on her face—as if expecting me to tell her—left me speechless.
Perhaps that was why my feelings toward her kept turning base and petty.
“Well… normally, young ladies of noble houses know such things instinctively.”
A faint, sardonic smile curled at the corners of my lips.
My reflection in the opposite mirror looked like pure villainy incarnate.
“I wonder why the esteemed Lady Vilord shows more interest in cleaning than in matters like that.”
When yandere male lead believes she loves him — but she never did
“How dare you!”
“How dare you make me love you, only to cast me aside as nothing more than a friend?!?
“I will never accept that.”
“I will never let you return to him.”
“Even if I have to burn myself to ashes.”
“Even if I must shatter my purity, my dignity, my very soul.”
“I will never let you escape me!”
This was the first novel that introduced me to the matriarchal genre. I’ve read it three times already!
At first, the male lead despised the female lead. Later, he misunderstood that she liked him, so he condescendingly and reluctantly reciprocated her feelings.
Then, he suddenly discovered that she was kind to everyone in the same way, and there was already someone she cherished in her heart, and that person was not him.
The male lead couldn’t believe it, he became angry and crazy. He was determined to capture her body and heart by any means necessary.
Synopsis:
Want to see how a green tea bitch male lead falls in love with the female lead?
Want to see how he flirtatiously pursues the female lead?
Want to see how he gets slapped in the face repeatedly?
The male lead is a green tea bitch, a poisonous lotus, jealous, ruthless, unscrupulous, with a venomous heart, and he’s also a delusional maniac.
The female lead is righteous, positive energy-filled, kind, a holy mother.
Let’s see how two people with extreme personalities come together~
_____
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Damnnnnn why is this so interesting am I a masochist for liking this haha
I feel like the young master is probably going to get her back one way
I feel bad for Hael, he likes her so much but I feel like it’s hard for the FL to return that type of love