26. Whether to Sell Yourself to the Monster or Not

2023.10.26.

Yuan clenched her cold fingertips.

There were too many watching eyes.

Regina always spoke in ways that grated on people’s nerves—today was no exception.

“Though now that I see you, I somewhat understand. Outwardly, you seemed barren, but coming into this mansion, I see it’s full of valuable things. It’s not hard to grasp why you betrayed your family and sold yourself.”

“Let’s step out for a moment and talk.”

Sophia, whose face had turned even paler than Yuan’s, looked utterly lost—until Yuan finally stood up from her seat.

***

In a secluded corner of the large guest hall.

Yuan had led Regina far away from the other Pelliese family members.

“You look well off. Even wearing clothes that don’t suit you.”

Regina sneered through twisted lips as she eyed Yuan’s attire.

“If you sell yourself to a monster, is this what you get to wear? Clever. Just like you stole our father right from under our roof.”

“I never stole your father.”

“Of course you’d say that.”

Regina pouted.

Yuan stared back at Regina, who behaved just as she always had in the Pelliese household, and replied calmly.

“Shouldn’t you be glad I’m no longer in the Pelliese residence?”

Regina blinked rapidly, unable to accept that Yuan—the girl who used to cower in silence—had dared to speak back at all.

“What did you say?”

“That’s right. If you’re going to humiliate me publicly like this, it means you hate me more than I thought, and actually care about me. Wouldn’t it have been better for you if I just disappeared?”

“This—! You, who used to beg for scraps in my home like a stray dog, how dare you—!”

“And it was you and your family who stole. My mother’s bedroom is now your mother’s. My bedroom is yours. Not a single thing inside was left untouched by your hands.”

Regina’s wide green eyes widened further, as if slapped across the cheek.

Yet Yuan continued firmly, unshaken by Regina’s piercing gaze.

“I never begged. Your father used me because he needed me. I was useful enough to survive there. If I were useless, your parents wouldn’t have looked at me with such hatred. They’d have praised me for leaving, calling it a relief that the girl who only consumed food was finally gone.”

“Needed? What use could someone like you possibly have? Just copying down prescriptions my father wrote—what’s so valuable about that? Pouring tea that the maids already brewed into cups for guests—how difficult could that be? What grand deed have you done to act so proud? You filthy crow?”

Of course she knows nothing.

Yuan refused to continue speaking, looking at Regina, who still had no understanding of the power within the Pelliese family. This exploitation could only be understood by those who knew that power.

“Go ahead, tell me. Let’s hear it. What exactly was your so-called ‘assistant’ work?”

Assistant?

Yuan let out a bitter laugh, incredulous.

Assistant?

It was her uncle who had always been busy copying down Yuan’s research.

It was her uncle who had taken the prescriptions Yuan wrote and presented them to nobles as if they were his own.

It was her uncle who chose the path of a mere apothecary instead of a physician, boasting of carrying Yuan’s abilities within his chest.

It was her uncle who turned the noble legacy of the Pelliese family—built by Yuan’s parents—into nothing more than a crude money-making scheme.

“If you don’t even know that, then I don’t want to speak with you any longer. Stop causing a scene. His Imperial Majesty is present here.”

Regina gaped, shaking her head in disbelief.

She couldn’t believe that the timid girl who used to keep her eyes lowered and walk only on the ground now acted so arrogantly—just because they no longer lived together.

But after seeing Yuan’s pale, trembling face and her shaking hands, Regina quickly regained her composure and calmed her anger.

“How dare you lecture me?

A crow is still a crow—even if it wears fine clothes in a grand house.”

Regina casually crossed her arms, tilted her chin up, and looked down at Yuan.

“We stole from you? Hah, there’s a limit to delusions.”

“You’ve always run and hidden like this. Selfish girl.”

This time, Regina poured out her words at Yuan, who stood silently listening.

“Have you always lived thinking you’re the only unfortunate soul in this world?”

Regina mocked Yuan, recalling how she used to keep her eyes downcast, living no better than a servant, always wearing a pitiful expression.

“You never accepted reality, never knew your place. If we had sent you and your sick sister to an orphanage back then, no one would have blamed us. If we had sold you off like an old woman’s daughter-in-law, people would have clapped for us, praising us for finding a good match for an orphan with no parents?”

Regina glanced sideways at her family, who were watching her and Yuan intently from a distance, then pressed harder.

Yuan’s smooth, radiant face—once something Regina could never have dreamed of—along with her jewelry and fine clothes, only doubled Regina’s spite.

“A parentless orphan. A noble without a title. A woman with not a single coin to her name—surely you know better than anyone what kind of end awaits someone like that? Isn’t that exactly why you clung to our household?”

Yuan silently stared back at Regina.

Those wretched, pitch-black eyes.

“You’ve always been like this.”

Regina twisted her lips further.

“Even when you picked the best option available to you, you never felt satisfied—you always crawled your way higher.”

“Me?”

“Yes. You pretend to have lost everything, pretend to be pitiful, but in the end, you’ve replaced everything and survived.”

When Yuan’s dark eyes finally flickered slightly, Regina felt her momentum rise.

“You think you’re the only orphan without parents? The only one living without even a single room to call home? You clung to my house because you were afraid of losing the mansion you once lived in with your parents. You relied on my sister Louise as a substitute. How clever you are. How well you’ve always found your way to safety. Flirting with our father to enter the laboratory. Leaning on Louise when you felt lonely or hurt. What could you possibly have lacked?”

Regina stepped forward sharply toward the silent Yuan. Their faces were now extremely close.

“Now your sister is dead. You’ve lost your place. So you want to replace everything again, don’t you?”

“No. That’s not it.”

“You want a husband in place of your sister. This black mansion in place of the Pelliese estate. You want to settle down comfortably.”

Yuan’s eyes quickly filled with bloodshot veins.

A wider smile spread across Regina’s lips.

“That’s your nature. A twisted, rotten nature. You’re a cunning bat. I don’t know what you’ve stolen, but stop clinging on so pathetically—just hand it over quickly. Because of you, our father is suffering every day, enduring sounds and words he despises just to keep holding on.”

“……”

“You think you can replace everything, so you ignore me. Did we really torment you so much that you had to leave the estate? No! You just want to settle down comfortably somewhere else—by selling yourself to a man who might have killed Louise!”

“!”

A man who might have killed Louise.

That single sentence darkened Yuan’s heart.

Regina couldn’t possibly miss that reaction.

“You’re quick to feel, aren’t you? Did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

Leaning even closer, Regina stared directly into Yuan’s lowered eyes, her own face brimming with fury.

“What about Louise’s death? You didn’t shed a single tear either, did you, Yuan Pelliese?”

So close their noses nearly touched, Regina finally saw the guilt blooming beneath Yuan’s dark eyes—and only then did she speak.

“In the end, all you care about is your own comfort, Yuan Pelliese. What happens to your family means nothing. Whether it’s us who took you in, or Louise!”

Finally stepping back with a crisp motion from the stiffly standing Yuan, Regina snapped open her fan and hid her face behind it.

Behind the fan, her fresh green eyes turned toward the distant Crown Prince Clade Euphris.

“Half meets half. A perfect match.”

Seeing Clade beyond Regina’s deep red hair, Yuan tightly clenched both fists.

Regina snickered, her shoulders shaking behind the fan.

“You hide a dark heart beneath that fake kind face, don’t you? Your husband is the same. What good is a handsome exterior when everyone knows what a repulsive, hideous face lies beneath that mask? And not only that—he’s a disowned crown prince with no inheritance rights, trapped here with no title, destined to spend his life as a spectacle for others to gawk at.”

Even if not a great noble, the man she would have in the future would be far better than any man Yuan could ever have.

At the very least, Dreykub Treloni would inherit a territory or a title when he married.

At the very least, his face wouldn’t be so ruined that he’d need to wear a mask just to attend a party.

“You two make a perfect pair. Keep enjoying yourselves. Whether you sell yourself to that monster or not is none of my concern. However.”

Snap!

Regina sharply closed her fluttering fan like a clap, leaned her body toward Yuan—who stood enduring the insult with all her strength.

“I’m warning you. You’d better reply to my father’s letter soon. If my household suffers any more because of you, I won’t stay silent. You’re not even worth the nickname ‘crow’ anymore. You filthy bat.”

And just like that, Regina sharply brushed past Yuan’s shoulder—as if to say, “Did I even speak to you?”—before returning to her family’s side.

Yuan clutched her shoulder where the pain still lingered, staring back at the piercing gaze.

Her uncle’s face was flushed.

It was the face of a man who believed his daughter might have finally achieved something.

Yuan instantly twisted her expression in disgust at the sight of that loathsome face.