Chapter 48. Too Beautiful

2023.11.17.

Gustav, the butler who immediately followed out, swiftly opened the front door, firmly resolving to give his master a stern lesson on the very basic yet crucial etiquette that it was impolite to stare directly at one’s master.

The doorman servant was also stiffly frozen, staring only at Clade’s face—there was no other choice.

After a silence so still that not even the sound of a dropped needle could be heard, the maids sweeping and mopping the floor on the first floor were the first to gasp for breath like people just pulled out of drowning water.

“Did you see? Did you see it?”

“What did I just see?”

“I saw it! I saw it clearly!”

The young maids’ faces, pale with fear and trembling in terror, suddenly flushed red as if they had all agreed to ripen like red apples at once.

The silence didn’t last long. The hall, once left by Clade, was quickly filled with the voices of the servants.

“The master’s face……”

“He’s so clean, more than I expected!”

“I’ve never seen such a beautiful person in my life.”

This was the result of the endless suffering Yuan had endured.

Just like a lake frozen through winter, steadily warmed by spring sunlight until it cracked open from within.

The frozen atmosphere inside the mansion shattered with a single appearance of his.

It was only natural that not only the young maids, but even the servants who had just been scolded by Butler Gustav and returned to guarding the door, now crowded tightly around the windows.

The golden-haired man, shining so brightly under the sun that it hurt the eyes, was heading toward the west wing of the mansion.

***

“Madam. Even though it’s winter, the sunlight is too strong. Please take a break and rest a bit.”

“I’m almost done. Just this part left, and this whole section will be finished.”

In response to Hena’s concern, Yuan wiped the sweat streaming down her forehead against her shoulder.

Hena, who had been following Yuan with a bucket of diluted cleaning solution, quickly pulled out a handkerchief from her pocket and wiped Yuan’s sweat.

Yuan shyly smiled at her attentive care.

“Thank you, Hena.”

“You should just use my hands, really. Since you insist on doing everything yourself, the only thing I can do is this.”

Smiling gently, Yuan refocused her eyes and began scrubbing vigorously once more. For the past few days, Yuan had been throwing herself into cleaning like someone with fire at their heels.

Clade, who had seemed like he would never leave his bedroom, had finally stepped out on his own.

And not only that—he had comforted Yuan, who had lost Louise, as if she were truly family, and Yuan had clearly found great comfort in him.

Though after a single indifferent remark telling her not to worry, they hadn’t exchanged any further words, Yuan couldn’t forget the atmosphere inside the carriage that day.

When he told her not to care, she truly felt she didn’t need to care about anything at all.

And she wanted to see that clear light of joy shimmering in his crystal-like eyes as he gazed indifferently at the scenery outside the carriage.

As Yuan focused intensely, pursing her lips in determination and scrubbing with battle-like intensity, her loosely tied black hair strands threatened to slip down.

Hena giggled, “Again with that cute way of pursing her lips,” then quickly set down the bucket she was holding.

Rummaging through the front pocket of her apron, she found a suitable ribbon and quietly tiptoed toward Yuan, who had already moved several steps away.

Thanks to her diligent care, Madam’s dry, lifeless black hair had been gaining luster day by day.

Just as Hena proudly smiled and untied the ribbon dangling from the end of Yuan’s hair, Yuan’s scrubbing abruptly stopped.

Sensing the suddenly altered atmosphere, Yuan awkwardly stood up and turned around.

“Your Highness?”

Yuan found Clade standing tall at the entrance of the west wing’s fence.

The deep red interior of this small annex, which she had been clinging to day after day, was now fully exposed to his gaze.

There were still three days left!

It wasn’t even finished yet!

Yuan’s shock was completely understandable.

“Why so soon……”

Yuan stood there, mouth agape, unable to do anything with the brush in her hand.

Clade’s face, without even a mask, looked utterly perfect from this distance.

Bathed in the pouring sunlight, he resembled a painting painted entirely with golden pigment.

Even the cold air struggling at the end of winter seemed to turn into a warm spring breeze as it passed by him.

His slightly disheveled bangs suggested he had hurried here. His forehead, pale and glowing from having received no sunlight all this time, shone like ripe mulberries.

His neat eyebrows and delicate bridge of the nose led to deep-set eye sockets that looked almost decadent in their depth.

His eyelids, usually lazily drooping, seemed slightly more alert today.

Under the long lashes fluttering in the wind, his amethyst eyes, finely crafted like intricate engravings, repeatedly flickered with the vivid light Yuan had so longed to see.

Just as Yuan began to lose herself in his appearance, as breathtaking as a masterpiece by a renowned painter, she suddenly snapped back to her senses and muttered reproachfully.

“It hasn’t even been a week yet—.”

His vividly glowing purple eyes lingered on her flustered face for a long moment before sliding away.

They softly traced down her flowing black hair, the sunlight gathering on her rounded forehead, gliding across her delicate features, pooling in the hollow of her collarbone.

His slowly wandering gaze returned to her full lips, which were hurriedly spilling out words, then paused briefly on her forehead, dotted with faint greenish smudges like watercolor paint.

Then down to the dirty brush she awkwardly waved in the air.

Slowly, his gaze swept over the slender wrist exposed beneath her rolled-up sleeves, and her apron, once white but now soiled beyond recognition, resembling a rag.

Under his thick, lingering gaze, Yuan recalled how Clade, who had always been stingy about her appearance to the point of telling the butler to make her new clothes, was now looking at her like this.

Yuan let out a deep breath when she noticed Clade’s gaze had already returned to the outer wall of the annex.

“I wanted to show it to you when it was perfectly clean.”

“…….”

“Are you angry because I touched it without permission?”

Yuan cautiously approached Clade, who was still motionlessly staring at the annex.

“Your Highness.”

“I merely came out for a walk.”

Clade replied without taking his eyes off the annex.

His deeply resonant voice echoed faintly within Yuan’s chest.

“You can come out and see it again in three days.”

After that unexpected walk.

For over ten years, the master of the Black Mansion had never taken a single walk—now he began spending his daytime hours with his wife, who was cleaning the west wing.

Every morning, the servants, seeing their master descend the central staircase, began creating new rumors among themselves.

The rumor was that his face, hidden behind a mask all this time, wasn’t concealed because it was hideous—but because it was too beautiful.

***

Pelliese Mansion.

“The reply?”

“You know how it is, don’t you? That mansion has such strict security from the entrance. Even finding passing servants is difficult, making it hard to deliver letters.”

“How much money do you think I’ve spent? Any news? Any bodies carried out, or screams?”

“There’s no way such sounds could be heard outside the walls, and no bodies have ever come out.”

“What the hell are you good for, taking my money and doing nothing!!”

Gerret Pelliese, the plump-count, slammed his meaty fist down on the study desk with a loud thud!

The grubby-looking man standing before him didn’t even flinch an eyebrow at his violent outburst.

“If it weren’t me, would anyone else even dare take on such a job? That place is as isolated as an exile ground, far from any village, and the Emperor’s watchdogs are glaring red-eyed, watching every person who comes and goes.”

The man answered in a grumbling tone.

Indeed, it was true.

Gerret Pelliese had sent people multiple times, desperate to meet Yuan personally and persuade her.

But half were dragged off somewhere, and the other half fled, overwhelmed by fear.

Seeing the count’s rage slightly subside, the man raised his tone.

“It’s not just any place—it’s the Black Mansion, infamous in Euphris as the home of a monster. Even for someone who kills people as easily as swatting mosquitoes, it’s like an impregnable fortress. And the men surrounding and guarding it aren’t just one or two—they’re everywhere.”

The grubby man, the secret mercenary Kiyotel, whispered with calm menace and mischievous glint in his eyes.

He had lived by accepting all kinds of small assassination contracts and investigations, but this Black Mansion in the northwest was the first place he’d ever seen overflowing with such eerie energy.

The strange animals flying and crawling around with sinister eyes, and the so-called guards circling the iron fence—all bore a striking resemblance to Kiyotel’s own aura. In short, large, rough, low-class thugs.

Targets with many enemies were always hard to approach or investigate.

Kiyotel gauged whether this job was worth risking his life for, while his eyes swept over the fat nobleman fiddling with a golden pouch resting on his knee.

Under that thick, fleshy hand, the gold inside the velvet pouch clearly asserted its presence—enough to fatten Kiyotel’s own belly. As he salivated, a sharp gaze suddenly fell upon him.

Gerret Pelliese quickly hid the golden pouch from Kiyotel’s wolf-like stare and asked warily.

“First, the letter must absolutely! By any means! Be secretly delivered into the servants’ hands. And if you somehow manage to meet that girl, tell her her uncle knows the way to save her life. Deliver that message exactly.”

“For a letter, wouldn’t it be easier to just send it officially—”

“Just do as I say, damn it!”

The count roared, pressing his temples hard.

He had been so anxious that he’d sent letter after letter to Yuan, pretending they were from her family, but no reply had come.

But if he kept sending letters every day and accidentally got caught by that snake-like Marquis Companni, it would be the end.

If even a single line about the power of the Pelliese family appeared in his letter—or in Yuan’s long-overdue reply—and someone like Marquis Companni or another person saw it?

Just imagining it made the Count’s vision spin with dizziness. He tightly shut his greasy eyes, then opened them again.