65. It’s You

2023.12.04.

“How can I possibly trust you?”

Yuan, whose anger had slightly subsided after Hile’s explanation, pressed her fingertips against her bloodshot eyes and asked.

Hile abruptly stood up, grabbed Yuan’s arm, and pleaded.

“I admit I entered the mansion with impure intentions… but I’ve never once forgotten that I am a physician. How could I easily accept an order to take someone’s life? They knew that, which is why they gave the same command to others as well.”

Seeing Hile clasp his hands together before her, Yuan met his gaze filled with doubt and resentment.

“Serve others, believing their suffering is your own. Whoever harms another with arrogance will surely pay the price.”

“…One who willingly embraces another’s pain shall find peace. One who tramples upon another’s pain shall wander forever in endless suffering.”

“You know it.

—

the very first passage in the first chapter. I always found it amusing, reading it as if it were a curse aimed at someone. Funny, isn’t it?”

“……”

“But aren’t these lines perfect guides in such a dire and exceptional situation?”

“……”

“The moment I learned Marquis Companni was Prince Bollonico’s man, I realized everything was part of Prince Bollonico’s scheme. He’s been watching over His Highness the Deposed Emperor so closely, always seeking chances to kill him. If I leave, someone else will take my place and target His Highness again.”

“……”

“The profits I’ve earned thanks to your ladyship’s generosity have long surpassed my debts. I’ve repaid everything. I no longer need to wonder whether I should stand upon another’s suffering or not.”

Hile’s eyes sparkled with desperation. It was the same kind, gentle face Yuan had always seen—the one that smiled when they chatted about medicine and shared jokes.

He rummaged through his robe and pulled out a small medicine pouch.

Yuan took it and sniffed. The scent was nearly identical to the medicine the royal physician had forced into Clade’s mouth earlier.

With that alone, Yuan realized Hile had been secretly mixing that drug into the painkillers all along.

Whether they made it together or Yuan made it alone, Hile had always been the one to deliver the final dose to Clade.

“If I’m to trust you, you’ll have to prove it through your actions from now on.”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t forgiven you. I’ll keep watching you—”

Suddenly.

The heart that had absorbed a fragment of Clade’s agony while he hovered near death began to ache as if splitting apart.

Yuan clutched her chest and doubled over. Hile, eyes wide with shock, rushed closer.

Yuan stepped back, exhaling sharply.

The pristine purple carpet, not a speck of dust upon it, began to spin dizzyingly.

“Ladyship!”

A sensation gripped her heart as if squeezed tightly. Then, just as she felt the blood inside her heart beginning to flow backward—

a thin trickle of blood forced its way through her tightly pressed lips.

“Ladyship! Ladyship!! Ladyship!!!”

Hile’s voice echoed, growing distant, then near again.

Trying not to rely on Hile as he kept advancing, Yuan stumbled backward until she felt the cold surface of the wall against one cheek.

Her body slid slowly down the wall and collapsed.

***

Yuan hadn’t been unconscious for long, but it was more than enough time for her heavyset uncle to rush over upon hearing of his niece’s condition.

“Yuan! Yuan!! Are you awake?”

“…Was it a nightmare?”

It wasn’t.

The sickly scent of cold sweat and the feverish heat of an agitated face were vividly apparent even to her eyes.

Though he’d seen her collapse before, the moment Yuan stirred, her uncle completely disregarded the fact that she was a patient in need of rest, rushing from the window where he’d been pacing as if flying.

Yuan, rising from the bed, made a mental note to warn Hile never again to connect her or her uncle to the Pelliese name.

Her uncle, oddly out of place in his attempt to help her, suddenly realized his own bulk and awkwardly stood beside the bed.

“Have you thought about what I said? How fortunate—attempted poisoning, right here in this solemn imperial palace! Now His Majesty has seen with his own eyes how dangerous it is for you to remain by that monster. If I ask him to grant a divorce, he’ll at least pretend to agree!”

“Still with that nonsense? I’m not leaving. And I need rest—please leave.”

The uncle’s face twisted grotesquely, like a demon’s.

“Even after seeing your husband vomit blood before your eyes, you still have no sense?”

“I do have sense. That’s exactly why I’m doing this.”

“Even if it kills you?”

Yuan stared at him quietly. The uncle glared back, his bloodshot eyes boring into her.

“Who’s afraid of some petty poison? We Pellieses have more antidotes than we know what to do with! You’re a terminal patient in urgent need of treatment! How do you expect to be cared for in a place where everyone is hunting your husband’s life? It’s a miracle you haven’t been poisoned already, you fragile thing with no resistance!”

The count, glaring at Yuan’s stubborn silence, finally seized her pale arm with brute force and dragged her away.

“If they only want your husband’s life, we’re lucky? They want yours too. Understand?”

Helplessly surrendering her exhausted body, Yuan was soon dragged into an unfamiliar room and locked inside what felt like a closet.

She pounded on the door at the sound of the lock clicking shut outside, but her weakened body had no strength to spare.

“I’ll let you out soon enough—just watch carefully!”

As her uncle’s heavy footsteps faded, Yuan slowly sank to the floor inside the closet.

Her stomach churned as if she might collapse again at any moment, and cold sweat broke out.

Had Clade awakened? Was he looking for her?

Where had Hile gone, who should have been guarding the door? Why had he allowed her uncle in?

And just as her anxiety reached its peak—

Yuan, clenching her teeth and about to pound the door again for help, froze.

Amid the fluttering sound of parrot wings, Prince Bollonico and Marquis Companni—whom she hadn’t seen since the debutante ball—appeared through a crack in the closet.

“Count Pelliese is loudly demanding a divorce. Says he’ll go straight to His Majesty the Emperor once this chaos ends. What should we do?”

“If he’s so desperate to take her, he must be dying of curiosity.”

“Huh?”

“That fat count who so willingly sent Louise Pelliese to the Black Mansion—why does he keep fixating on Yuan Pelliese? Is it genuine love for his niece? Because she’s unusually clever? Bollonico doesn’t think so.”

“Then—”

“Perhaps Bollonico has a strong premonition that the task Louise Pelliese failed to accomplish… Yuan Pelliese might succeed.”

Bollonico’s voice, as haughty and arrogant as ever, gripped Yuan’s breath.

‘The task Louise Pelliese failed?’

Not just controlling my husband’s life—

but the one who also hastened Louise’s death.

It’s definitely—

without a doubt—

‘…It’s you.’

Her bloodshot black eyes locked straight onto Bollonico’s slick face visible through the crack in the door.

***

The atmosphere in the party hall, now under Emperor Igor’s control, had gone beyond icy—it resembled a courtroom where everyone waited in line for execution.

The Emperor had summoned all palace staff and was conducting body searches without restraint. The high nobles endured the humiliation in silence, while the lower nobles, who had come to the debutante ball hoping to make an impression on the Emperor, were deathly pale.

Publicly, Emperor Igor was seen as the guardian of Deposed Emperor Clade, who had lost his parents at a young age and willingly stepped down from the throne.

Few outside his inner circle knew the true circumstances, so most nobles, though their reactions were extreme, believed the Emperor had reason to act this way.

Moreover, if the poison Clade had swallowed had been meant for the Emperor or Prince Bollonico, it wouldn’t have been just servants who lost their heads—it could have cost the lives of high-ranking nobles.

Count Pelliese watched as Marquis Companni, after finishing a conversation with him, hurriedly took Prince Bollonico toward the VIP lounge.

Since he had just groveled excessively in front of both Marquis Companni and Prince Bollonico, making grand declarations as if this were his last chance, Marquis Companni couldn’t possibly ignore him.

Among the nobles who had already undergone body searches and now huddled in small groups, Count Pelliese glanced sideways at the grim scene: bodies lined up in a row, each having just lost their heads in summary executions.

Each time a few guards collected a severed head rolling on the floor, another head soon followed.

Count Pelliese, with sharp instinct, looked at the trembling servants who had spent all day serving in the hall, now queuing up in fear for their turn—and instinctively touched his own unharmed neck.

‘I’m terrified, damn it!!’

He hesitated, wondering whether to wait a little longer, but fearing he might meet the Emperor’s mad gaze, he fled the ballroom as if escaping for his life.

The palace corridors offered many places to hide.

Crouching like a rat, he quietly held his breath near the VIP lounge where he had locked Yuan away.

***

The conversation between Bollonico and Marquis Companni didn’t last long.

Bollonico seemed to withhold certain things even from his closest confidant, Marquis Companni, speaking sparingly. And Marquis Companni showed no intention of pressing further.

But there was another exchange Yuan had clearly overheard, even in her dizziness.

“I don’t understand why you’re letting them live.”

“If you asked who in this palace wants Clade Euphris dead the most, Bollonico would naturally say—Bollonico.”

“Exactly my point. If I’d known it would escalate this far, it might’ve been better not to attempt it at all—or, when he collapsed, to just use more poison and finish him off.”

“Foolish talk. Did you really think Father wouldn’t intervene? My father, who’s still anxious about the remnants of the late Emperor’s faction and fears they might spark a rebellion? I helped him. This way, he can continue pretending to be the benevolent uncle—even if he’s a tyrant—someone weak toward his own family. Didn’t you see? He’s raging like a madman, eyes rolled back, as if his own son had died? Maybe he’s even happy—this could be his chance to eliminate everyone he dislikes.”