My Insolent Shadow (22 Chapters Left to Complete) - Chapter 7
Not a single speck of dust remains on my hand after brushing across the windowsill.
She’s more disciplined than any maid I’ve ever known.
So much so that I wonder if she was born to be a maid.
The fleeting image of her hands—chapped and cracked—flashed through my mind.
They’re the hands symbolizing how her life rests at rock bottom.
They also show just how vastly different her standing is from mine.
And yet, the only ladder connecting that girl to me is none other than the obscure House of Viscount Vilord—what an absurd notion.
And yet, simultaneously, a rather amusing one.
After all, the moment that family was mentioned, the girl—who always seemed so confident—turned deathly pale in an instant.
I know exactly what her ashen face is trying to say.
She’s desperate to keep even that flimsy ladder, just to stay by my side.
Or rather, to stay near Blanchet and covet his noble fortune.
According to her logic, she’d do anything—even if it meant scraping up just a single drop.
Though her core motivation is undeniably pure—caring for her ailing mother—I’ll set that aside for now.
Because it’s far more satisfying to torment her if she’s merely a mischievous little liar.
Yuriciel, whose lips had been trembling slightly, finally spoke, her voice heavy.
“I suffer from mysophobia.”
Despite lying, her eyes remained utterly straight and unwavering—without the slightest tremor.
To any onlooker, she’d appear precisely like a refined noble lady, one who’s never once done anything so menial—utterly convincing.
Did she learn that kind of lie from the gutters too?
Meanwhile, Cassian’s eyes caught the frilly sleeve of her dress, faintly trembling. Beneath it surely lay those long, cracked fingers he’d seen before.
It pleased me immensely to know I alone held this secret about her.
I couldn’t say why—but that girl clearly had no idea how much it made me want to tease her further.
“Really? How fascinating—a noble lady whose hobby is cleaning.”
My reflection appeared in the mirror across from me, freshly polished by the girl.
The smile I wore was malicious to the core.
Would she see it the same way? Of course she would.
No one before her had ever dared stand before me without trembling or bowing their head. Especially not when I wore this expression—they’d usually cower as if facing the reaper himself.
Yet, this girl somehow managed to conceal her trembling. Or rather, her clumsy attempts to hide it were almost comical.
When I raised my hand beside me, as if surrendering, her face once again drained of color.
I stared blankly at the sight, as if testing whether she could endure without flinching.
In response, she bit down hard on her lip.
“I said it’s not a hobby—it’s mysophobia.”
“Ordinarily, refined young ladies summon maids to handle such tasks. They wouldn’t step forward so naturally.”
“Well….”
Her shoulders trembled ever so slightly—annoying to watch, yet oddly satisfying.
It was clear she was lying, and that irked me—yet the frantic way she tried to hide it was amusing.
After all, I’d gone to great lengths to have the butler give her this very lie. The least she could do was put on a decent performance.
A false attendant, picked out of sheer boredom, ought to entertain their master, shouldn’t they?
Especially one as brazen as this commoner girl before me.
After a moment of silent staring, her tightly closed lips parted as if making a decision.
“I moved because I worried you’d be uncomfortable.”
“Oh, really? I was just wondering—has House Vilord fallen so low they can’t even afford servants?”
Her lips, pressed together so tightly, looked as if they might bleed. And again, I found that sight pleasing.
Like some depraved creature.
“Imagine how heartbroken the viscount would be to learn his only daughter is scrubbing floors here.”
Cassian’s tone held no inflection—just cold, mocking indifference.
Yuriciel felt as if he’d wrapped his hands around her throat, cutting off her breath. She’d suspected from the moment she entered that this young master hadn’t summoned her without cause.
She thought she’d steeled herself—but apparently, her resolve had been shallow.
His frail appearance contrasted sharply with his razor-sharp words, piercing her like a needle.
She had no right to protest—after all, it was her own conscience that burdened her.
Yet, the unsettling illusion persisted—that this frail young master somehow knew everything.
Even though she knew full well he wasn’t the type to feign ignorance if he truly knew.
If, by any chance, it were revealed here and now that she wasn’t truly Lady Vilord—if he were to find out…
What would happen then?
Just thinking about it made the ground beneath her feel as if it were sinking into an abyss.
The butler, and ultimately Lord Alphonse himself, had arranged this deception—but such schemes always end with someone taking the fall.
If that happened, she and her mother might very well be exiled, unable to set foot in this town again.
Worse still, if he so desired, they might not escape execution for deceiving House Blanchet.
But for now, House Alphonse had granted them noble pretenses to hide their true status—so it should be fine. It had to be.
Unaware of the pain in her cracked hands, Yuriciel clenched her fists tightly inside her maid’s dress.
Forcing a smile onto her face was hardly difficult.
“…Of course. Father would never permit such a thing.”
“…”
“I suppose I overexerted myself today.”
Her mouth, which had to speak lies without batting an eye, felt bitter.
As Yuriciel’s once-vibrant complexion darkened, Cassian’s face seemed to brighten by precisely that amount—as if he’d stolen her vitality.
A faint, translucent smile finally spread across Cassian’s features.
In stark contrast, the girl before him still trembled—yet held her ground.
She struggled to steady her unsteady stance, clearly searching for something to do.
Her emerald eyes darted about, plainly clueless about how a noble lady ought to entertain a young master.
Did she even realize how she appeared to me?
She must not—otherwise, she wouldn’t bother trying to deceive me while covering her eyes.
Even now, her little head was surely brimming with schemes to fool me.
Every one of those thoughts would be directed solely at me—and that, at least, was rather satisfying.
No—precisely for this reason, I’d lent her the name of House Vilord, entirely on my own whim.
Now it was time to strip away her facade. And that, too, promised to be immensely entertaining.
Cassian tossed a book toward Yuriciel, who remained blinking silently.
“Read this.”
It was a book she absolutely shouldn’t be able to read.
After all, it was written in Luvre—the language reserved exclusively for nobles in the Lissetium Panteon Empire.
Reducing the leverage I’d painstakingly secured to mere day’s amusement seemed almost wasteful.
But since I never intended to hold her breath in my grip for long, this was my way of showing some kindness.
Yesterday, I’d fully intended to strangle that breath from her—forever, even beyond death—but releasing it now held little significance.
It was simply what Blanchet’s nobility demanded.
Out of habit, I still hadn’t managed to cast it aside.
For her, it was a stroke of luck—though she’d surely cry a great deal today.
The girl opened the Luvre-written booklet and, trembling as ever, settled into place once more.
A long sigh escaped her small face before, after a brief pause, her crimson lips parted gently.
“Love, unbeknownst to us, flows and carves a deep boundary between us…”
She… read Luvre? Her unexpected reaction twisted something inside me momentarily.
How could someone who’d scraped through life in the gutters have found the time to learn such script?
Had some other highborn noble interfered in her life before me?
The more I speculated, the more tangled my thoughts became.
“You.”
“Yes?”
“Do you know how to read Luvre?”
“Ahh…” A tiny sigh escaped the girl’s lips.
Her emerald eyes met mine, then blinked slowly—just a beat too late.
“Of course.”
It was the most natural answer—if she truly were Lady Vilord.
But a commoner girl like her shouldn’t understand Luvre at all. Seeing her read it so casually, as if it were her due, made me laugh out loud.
“Have you read this book before?”
A dull classic novel titled *The Last 365 Days of Laphiron*.
A romance with no place in Yuriciel’s life, where every hour was consumed by labor.
All she knew of books came from the bestseller lists in the daily papers she’d occasionally distributed.
She’d memorized those lists by habit—since she was often required to copy them.
But this book wasn’t among them.
She’d never even seen a book buried so deep in some bookstore.
Probably nothing unusual about that.
“No. I’ve never read it.”
Cassian’s gaze slid from the book and climbed slowly up to Yuriciel.
His eyes were sharp—as if demanding confirmation.
The intensity of his stare pricked at Yuriciel’s skin.
Ah—only now did she truly grasp this frail young master’s intention.
He’d been testing her—using Luvre to see if she was truly a noble lady.
Or an imposter.
Realizing this, Yuriciel’s breath caught in her throat once more.
It felt as if the sickly young master lying on that bed had just squeezed her throat shut.
My Arch-enemy Sealed My Memory and Said That He is My Husband
This is an incredibly captivating story that you absolutely shouldn’t miss! I’ll give a brief introduction here, and below you’ll find a detailed synopsis of the plot.
The female lead is a fierce and powerful demon king. The male lead is a once-in-a-millennium celestial lord, admired by the entire cultivation world.
They are equally matched, legendary rivals who have battled for centuries.
In the final duel, the female lead is gravely injured. The male lead saves her, seals her memories, and hides her true identity. He tells her that he is her fiancé. His entire life has been flawless—except for the one thing he never expected, never controlled, and never wanted to control: falling for his greatest enemy. She is his inner demon, his obsession.
When the female lead regains her memories, she is furious at his deception.
She makes his life a living hell.
And somehow, the male lead—possibly a total masochist—doesn’t mind at all. In fact, he’s happy she’s paying attention to him.
Yep, we’re back to my favorite trope: male lead suffering. If you love this kind of story, jump into the pit with me now!!!
Intro
Dong Xia lost her memory.
Her handsome and extremely powerful fiancé Li Qing comforted her: “It’s okay if you can’t remember. I’ll always be with you.”
Everyone thought Dong Xia’s ancestors must have burned incense to get such a perfect fiancé. He was the number one person in the immortal realm, yet he remained chaste and only loved her.
…
The day before marrying her fiancé, Dong Xia finally remembered everything.
She wasn’t suffering from memory loss at all.
Her arch-enemy had made her fake her death, destroyed her cultivation, replaced her memories, and pretended to be her deeply in love fiancé.
No wonder he said, “It’s okay if you can’t remember”!
Dong Xia laughed coldly as she pulled out her long knife: Li Qing, prepare to die 🙂
*
Li Qing, as the supreme being of the immortal realm, was the people’s shining beacon.
The only unknown stain in his life was his affection for Dong Xia, the ruler of the demon realm.
In the final battle of the war between immortals and demons, the sky collapsed and the earth shattered. The ruler of the demon realm was finally slain under the sword of the supreme being of the immortal realm, and everyone in the immortal realm applauded.
The cultivation world lost a ruler of the demon realm.
And in the back mountain of Li Qing’s cave dwelling, he secretly hid away a fiancée.
Notes:
1. The female lead is white on the outside, black on the inside, and the queen of flattery; the male lead repeatedly tests the edge of darkness, a VIP guest at the crematorium.
2. Fantasy cultivation world setting.
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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