Chapter 9. Don’t Abandon Me
2023.10.09.
Yuan Pelliese looked up at the ‘monster’ Crown Prince, feeling her tongue stiffen.
His face was as hideous and painful to look at as the rumors claimed.
Biting her tongue to suppress a scream, Yuan Pelliese writhed slightly, checking whether her limbs had stiffened or her body was rotting away, before finally gazing fully into his face.
Only then, facing him directly, could she begin to notice things beyond his grotesque half-face.
Tangled golden hair. Languidly raised eyelids revealing eyes that sparkled like expensive amethysts. Deep shadows beneath his eyes and pale skin.
A sharply defined nose ridge and lips pressed tightly into a straight line.
The other half of his face, though tinged with sensitivity, was not just intact—it was even beautiful.
It was then that Yuan noticed not the man’s appearance, but his gaze.
A stare impossible to ignore pierced into her like a needle.
Such hostility—she hadn’t felt anything like it since her rude cousins.
Yuan immediately understood the meaning behind that gaze.
“There is no place for you here.”
It was a look she had received for nearly ten years—terribly familiar.
“It’s my first time meeting you. I am Yuan Pelliese.”
After an eternity of silence, Yuan finally forced the words out, her mouth stiff and dry.
Her voice trembled terribly, her fingertips curled as if fragile, and her posture remained awkward, unable to straighten.
The man, as if indifferent to her words, simply stepped one foot further into the carriage.
As if deliberately trying to show her more of his face.
Yuan flinched instinctively, but did not pull back or frown.
Was this the man’s test? To see whether she could endure him?
Did he think he could intimidate her—someone who had faced demons for ten long years—with nothing but a half-face, grotesque as it may be?
Before his unmistakably dismissive gaze, Yuan steeled her heart.
She couldn’t go back to hell like this.
“Please let me come inside. It’s… too cold.”
She meant it.
With her frozen body, all she could do was replay the horrifying memories of the Pelliese mansion and memories of Louise.
She didn’t want to do that.
She wanted to know how and why Louise had died.
If this man had caused Louise’s death, she wanted to curse him. If not, she simply wished to live without pain in a new home.
The man gave no reply.
His cold, indifferent face showed not the slightest ripple, continuing only to send cruel stares.
It was a mouth that would never utter words like “come in” or “aren’t you cold?”
Just as the suffocating, icy silence stretched on.
His lips—though well-shaped—rough and dry—began to appear double, then triple.
Fortunately, with nothing in sight, the words she had muttered like prayers all night now spilled out easily.
“I won’t return home.”
Did you kill Louise?
Did you kill my sister?
Are you my enemy, or my family?
The words she had sworn to say the moment she met him began crumbling before the warmth of someone who had come to her after mere days.
A desperate desire—to not anger the man, to simply get inside somewhere warm—pushed past reason and moved her tongue on its own.
“Please, don’t abandon me like this.”
A voice close to begging slipped from her lips.
The instinct to survive clung not to the man’s rigid face that seemed ready to cast her out at any moment, but to the faintest flicker in his eyes whenever she reached out.
“Please… don’t abandon me.”
In the end, her body, pushed to its limit, pleaded not for answers about Louise’s death, but for the safety of her own.
Her hands, nearly cracking from frost, didn’t blame themselves for their cowardice—they clung instead to the warmth before her.
Yuan instinctively reached out more desperately.
The man gave her neither answer nor hand.
It didn’t matter.
As long as he was there, everywhere was something she could grasp by stretching her hand further.
Thus, the hand that had tightly clutched the Crown Prince’s perfectly unwrinkled robe dropped abruptly after only a few seconds.
***
For a long while, she felt a terrifying sensation of extreme cold and heat sweeping through her entire body.
Yuan snapped her eyes open, as if fleeing the feeling of her palate drying and cracking. Harsh light struck her retina directly.
“It’s hot…”
Blinking several times through the blur, Yuan struggled to adjust her eyes to the ornate chandelier light hanging from the ceiling.
After staring blankly for a while, Yuan suddenly realized this wasn’t the carriage and jolted, turning her head.
“Have you woken up?”
A young maid was tidying firewood beside the fireplace.
She was a small, petite girl with deep brown hair and faint freckles across her nose.
The maid shouted loudly toward the outside, then shoved a couple of dry logs into the fireplace before approaching Yuan.
As Yuan blinked drowsily and looked around, the maid carefully helped her sit up.
Quickly bringing a glass of water from beside the bed to her lips, the maid let Yuan drink it gratefully. The terrible thirst faded instantly, and her vision felt refreshingly clear.
The place Yuan had been lying on was a bed.
A bed with a warm cotton blanket.
After such a long time, the soft, warm sensation was so unfamiliar that she tried to feel the texture beneath her palms—only to remember her hands were bandaged.
Staring blankly at her tightly wrapped hands, she was quickly explained by the maid.
“You nearly froze to death outside in the middle of winter! We were supposed to inform Master Hile the moment you woke, but why hasn’t he come yet?”
“This place… is it the Black Mansion?”
“Ah.”
A deep voice floated vaguely in the air.
While Yuan cleared her throat, feeling her own voice strange, the maid rolled her eyes.
“You don’t remember? We don’t even know the details! Our master never comes out of his bedroom, except in very special circumstances. And even then, we’re required to stay in our own rooms. But this morning—bang!—such a circumstance occurred. Naturally, we thought the ninth noble lady—the mistress—must have returned to her parents’ home. But instead, the butler and guards brought the mistress here.”
“…Mistress?”
“Oh, right. The servants here call the new lady of the house ‘Mistress.’ Calling her ‘Her Highness the Crown Princess’ feels too awkward, you know?”
The young maid, who had introduced herself as Hena, began speaking rapidly.
“The Crown Prince dislikes being called ‘Your Highness,’ but he doesn’t like being called anything else either, so we just keep calling him ‘Your Highness.’ Is there anything in this world the master actually likes? Sometimes I wonder if he even exists at all!”
The girl spoke like a gifted storyteller, pouring out every detail—how Yuan had lost consciousness, how the servants had worried endlessly about her carriage, and more—without pausing for breath.
Yuan strained to absorb every word the young maid said.
And within that flood of information, she desperately searched for any mention of what the Crown Prince Clade Euphris—the ghost-like figure of this Black Mansion—had said about her fate.
Yuan mentally rewound the maid’s words for a moment before asking.
“…Where is His Highness now?”
“Our master has locked himself back in his bedroom again, of course.”
“Then… can I stay here now?”
“Ah, that—”
Hena rolled her eyes again. Avoiding Yuan’s gaze, she lowered her eyes to the makeshift bandages on Yuan’s hands and mumbled.
“After your treatment is complete and your body recovers… you’ll probably return to your parents’ home. But I only heard this secondhand! It’s the butler’s guess, not necessarily the Crown Prince’s will!”
Hena was young, but kind-hearted.
Her face clearly showed she didn’t want to deliver the cruel truth to the Crown Prince’s wife, who had just survived near death.
Yuan silently listened again as the maid poured out more excuses.
Hena’s voice cut off abruptly when a man rushed in through the suddenly opened door.
“She’s awake!”
The man who appeared wore glasses so dizzying just to look at that his khaki-colored hair stood up in wild curls, as if he’d been hit by cannon fire on a battlefield.
He was not very tall and had a thin, gaunt frame.
Seeing the large medical bag in his hand, Yuan immediately recognized him as Doctor Hile—the personal physician mentioned among the many details Hena had provided.
“How could you come so late! How long have we been calling you?”
Scolded by the young maid, Hile instantly looked crestfallen. He approached Yuan cautiously and sat down.
His patchy beard trembled visibly—clearly frightened.
“Y-Your hands and feet were especially damaged, so I’ve applied medicine. But this is only temporary. You need to slowly thaw your body in warm water. Aren’t you still cold?”
Avoiding Yuan’s eyes, Hile nervously examined only her bandaged hands. When he finally glanced up at her, he let out a sharp “Hiiik—” and held his breath, quickly looking down again.
Hena, watching from the side with an annoyed click of her tongue, finally spoke up.
“Doctor Hile. The mistress is completely—different from the master.”
Yuan then recalled Hena’s earlier chattering—about how the new physician Hile had wet his pants and fainted the moment he saw the Crown Prince, and remained ill for days afterward.
This poor doctor was clearly terrified and cautious solely because Yuan was the Crown Prince’s wife. To reassure him, Yuan introduced herself in a gentle voice.
“My name is Yuan Pelliese. You’re the one who saved me, aren’t you?”
“P-Pelliese?”
“Is the ointment on my hands made from dogwood? Or elm?”
“Are you truly a member of the Pelliese family?”
Hearing the name “Pelliese,” Hile’s eyes widened, and his voice rose in shock.
Turns Out He’s Been Secretly in Love with Me
One-line summary: He acts like he doesn’t like her but is actually playing hard to get.
Synopsis:
Xu Muzhou like her. He has liked her for a very long time, and through repeated schemes, he finally closed the distance with her.
But this is still far from enough.
He wants to be the one who stands out among her many suitors, to fight for her attention, and to make her take the initiative to pursue him.
_____
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