71. At Last, the First Night
2023.12.10.
Yuan walked to the safe the butler had recently installed and turned the dial.
With a loud clatter, the safe swung open, revealing gold bars packed tightly inside. This was part of the weekly profits from the that came into Yuan’s share.
Yuan scooped all of it into her pocket and tossed the bag at Hille’s feet. Hille, standing awkwardly, flinched and stepped backward in surprise.
“That should be more than enough for you to settle somewhere and live comfortably.”
Hille stared at Yuan with wide, astonished eyes.
“What?”
“I’ll handle things from here. Just leave. In this large mansion with few servants and guards, surely you can find a way out. Especially since you’ve gone so far as to receive such an order.”
“But my lady—”
What are you trying to do?
Overcome by a sudden wave of anxiety, Hille couldn’t bring himself to finish the question.
He had entered the mansion with disrespectful intentions, and though their meeting was accidental, his respect for the Pelliese family and his genuine fondness for Yuan were sincere.
He truly worried for Yuan.
Though he found it absurd himself.
“Disappear from around my husband.”
But Yuan’s voice was firm.
Hille picked up the bag of gold bars at his feet and carefully placed it back on a nearby console.
Then, with a bitter tone, he spoke.
“I won’t claim I’ll stay and serve the exiled prince until death, no matter my station. But I have one question I’d like to ask.”
Yuan’s face, pale to an unnatural degree, trembled as she glared at Bollonico’s order as if it were the most detestable thing in the world.
An ordinary person might not have noticed the difference, but Hille was not ordinary.
“Do you truly understand your own physical condition, my lady?”
Yuan’s dark eyes, meeting his, were as beautiful as ever—but shadowed by the aura of death.
Like someone who swallowed poison daily, the poison was focused solely on Clade Euphris.
The delicate, lovely face of this pitiful woman was filled with traces of a fierce battle between vitality and darkness.
“Didn’t you vomit blood right in front of me? I was shocked by how light you were when I carried you. This is not normal. Doctors usually appear when one neglects their own body—”
Yuan sneered and frowned.
“Are you lecturing me now?”
“I’m just—”
“My body is my own concern. Since it involves my family, outsiders should stay out of it.”
I want to help you. Wanting to see your gentle, spring-breeze-like smile again might be selfish, but at the very least, I don’t want our final farewell to be the sight of you dying like this.
Hille looked at Yuan with desperate longing.
But Yuan refused further conversation, turning her head away. Her neat profile carried stubborn determination.
Faced with such fierce rejection, Hille stood there for a long time, feeling utterly empty, then bowed his head and left the bedroom.
***
Yuan coldly stared at Bollonico’s order.
No matter how hard she tried to keep her composure, rage welled up from deep within her body, impossible to suppress.
She carefully folded the order she had taken from Hille, hid it away, and then took several deep, ragged breaths as if she had just finished running.
Only when the cold water, long cooled while waiting for her, touched her skin did her mind finally clear.
Lately, she had been handling bloody matters alone and hadn’t received bath assistance. She needed time alone to sort through her thoughts.
As Yuan turned the order from Bollonico over in her mind while in the water, she suddenly realized it had been quite some time since nightfall.
‘I need to go to His Highness.’
Yuan quickly dried herself.
She poured water over herself again and again, obsessively trying to wash away the scent of death and anxiety clinging to her.
The lukewarm, nearly cold water sharpened her senses even more.
She quickly wiped her face with a dry towel and glanced out the window.
The moon had already begun to sink.
Her heart grew anxious.
Yuan hastily dried her damp body and pulled on clean clothes.
In her haste, she couldn’t dress properly. Her hands and legs trembled—not just from urgency, but from helplessness.
Now that she realized this black mansion, which once felt safe, was actually far from it, her heart wavered.
At the same time, thinking of Clade, who had lived here for the past ten years walking on thin ice, made her chest ache as if it were being torn apart.
She had to go.
She had to protect that man, who had already suffered enough, who had already trembled in fear enough—just for as long as she remained here, she would hold him close and guard his night.
She was hastily tidying her wet hair and adjusting her clothes when—
-Thud.
-Thud thud.
A dull knocking sound broke through the suffocating silence, coming from the bedroom door.
Yuan tensed and stared at the door, and the knocking grew increasingly violent.
-BOOM!
-BOOM BOOM!
For a moment, Yuan suspected Hille’s betrayal, but then shook her head.
Hille had indeed committed a crime, but after handing her Bollonico’s order and even returning the gold, it seemed unlikely he would now summon Bollonico’s men to have her dealt with.
If someone was knocking so loudly out of urgent necessity, it was probably the head chef Ralph or the butler.
Yuan quickly scanned the room. Still, one could never be sure. If needed, she planned to grab a gold bar from the bag Hille had put back and strike whoever came in.
“Butler?”
Taking a deep breath, she cautiously opened the bedroom door—only for a massive silhouette, backlit by the corridor light, to forcefully push inside.
Yuan’s eyes widened in shock, her hand still reaching for the rope or the gold.
“Your Highness?”
It was Clade.
The Clade who had become the ‘monster’ people spoke of.
His once beautifully radiant face now sunken in terrible agony.
The blood vessels that had once streaked the whites of his eyes had all burst, leaving him with red, beautiful, monstrous eyes.
“Why are you so late?”
Clade asked, biting back a scream that slipped through his clenched teeth.
Yuan, startled by the sudden accusation, could only gape before regaining her senses and answering.
“I’m sorry. I should’ve come up sooner……”
“Why are you so late?”
When a strand of black, writhing like a mudsnake across a tidal flat, slithered across his cheek, his eyes glinted sharply.
This man, on the verge of losing his sanity.
At last, for the first time, had come to her bedroom on his own two feet.
His red eyes slowly swept over her face for a long moment, then began to gradually lose their grip on reason.
He let out a low, internal groan, like a beast crushed beneath a boulder.
At the same moment, his darkened hand seized the back of Yuan’s head and her slender waist, pulling her close in one motion.
What she clearly felt was his burning, firm hand—and the hard, erect desire pressing against her abdomen.
In his wide, black eyes, his towering face, stripped of reason, drew closer and closer.
His faded golden hair spilled onto her round forehead, and the perfectly sculpted tip of his nose touched Yuan’s small, round nose.
“Why didn’t you come?”
Hot breath passed between their touching noses.
With each slow blink of Yuan’s eyes, his once hard, dark lips softened and regained their natural hue.
Despite clearly being in pain, Clade, with eyes full of agony, pulled her even closer.
The beautiful man, glowing like moonlight, whispered to her in a low, firm voice.
“I won’t fall asleep.”
Is this man, who had lost his sanity and so clearly revealed his desire for her, doing this merely to forget his seething pain? Or perhaps…
“Don’t let me fall asleep.”
His arm, pulling her close as if refusing any refusal, felt suddenly, intensely large and hot. Their lips, just below their touching noses, were already drawing near.
Her mind, previously tangled, turned completely blank at the sudden change in this man who had never seemed like he would approach first.
The heat of the man pulling her close now felt stronger than the fear of the situation awaiting them.
Her husband, arriving at this moment when she was about to leave, felt resentful, tender, and confusing. Her uncle’s voice began echoing in her head again, like a curse.
‘There’s no reason to be confused, no need to hesitate. What reason could there be not to abandon such a mere monster?’
I can’t abandon him.
I don’t want to.
This person.
This man.
‘Unless, of course, you actually love that monster.’
Ah.
This man.
I… love this man…
“I love you.”
At the moist whisper, the man’s eyes sank deeply downward.
Beneath his lustfully lowered eyelids, deep violet irises and wet lips eagerly swallowed her words as if they had been waiting.
Hot, rough lips pressed tightly against hers. The moment they touched, a thirsty heat invaded every corner of her mouth, soaking Yuan’s entire body.
Hot breath coiled around her soul.
Pained moans escaped not only from his mouth but from hers as well.
A hollow laugh slipped through the seal of their locked lips.
‘I love this man.’
I’ve fallen in love after all.
Yuan slowly responded to his fiercely invading lips, wrapping her arms around his broad shoulders, unable to embrace all of him.
The damp, lingering heat, rubbing and circling, began earnestly exploring her lips, as if gulping down an oasis found in a desert.
The terrible pain he wished to escape pierced through her skin, traveled along her veins, and flowed into her heart.
In the end, my love…
is pain.
The man’s long-unnoticed longing completely consumed Yuan.
Just being swallowed by him filled her with both a deep, satisfying fullness and a distant, aching yearning.
When their lips finally parted, after a long time of devouring each other.
Yuan, like a broken doll, kept repeating the same sentence over and over, as if undoing the regret-filled past farewell.
“I love you.”
Then she gently closed her tear-filled eyes.
Thick tears rolled down from beneath her long lashes, trailing down her cheeks. The hot, wet lips met again.
She embraced the man who bent his large body to press into her, and this time, she resolved not to let him fall asleep.
It was the first and last selfish desire of Yuan Pelliese.
“I love you, Clade.”
At last.
It was the first night.
Male lead is a Destined Young Husband (Female-dominant)
One-sentence summary: Wife-master, listen to my explanation!
Li Ruantang, a young lady from a prestigious family, stumbled and fell. When she woke up, she saw a noble and beautiful young man sitting by her bedside, wiping away tears.
The young master had slightly reddened eyes, and his every move exuded charm.
The sight made Li Ruantang’s eyes hot and her heart flutter. After all, she had made a bet with the young master Meng from the neighboring family. If she couldn’t marry a husband before the end of the year, she would have to admit defeat and give up the jade she had worked so hard to obtain.
Outside the window, the flowers were in full bloom.
Rather than losing the bet, the jade, and her face, Li Ruantang calculated that it would be better to seek marriage with the young master in front of her, killing three birds with one stone.
…
Meng Jun never thought that an accident during a spring outing would lead to them rolling down a cliff and into a river, yet still survive.
Now they were trapped in an unknown village, and Meng Jun had overheard that the family who had rescued them had their own intentions.
After all, it was Li Ruantang who had lost her mind and sought marriage first. He was only trying to protect himself!
Glancing at Li Ruantang, who was listing her own merits, the young husband’s voice softened, and he blushed as he lied, “W-wife-master, Wife-master, don’t you remember me?”
The young husband’s voice was clear and handsome, coaxing Li Ruantang’s heart to be soft and sweet, and she spared no effort to protect him.
It wasn’t until they returned to the capital that Li Ruantang suddenly remembered.
When they had fallen off the cliff, in order not to implicate Wei Yunruo, whom he secretly admired, the young husband had instead pulled her, who was slightly farther away, down the cliff with him…
Short summary by Yuushi L: Initially, the male lead (ML) liked another girl, while the female lead (FL) liked the ML. Both fell off a cliff. The FL temporarily lost her memory, and the ML, fearing others might take advantage of him, claimed FL was his wife while they were staying in a village. Later, when they returned home, the FL regained her memories and remembered that the ML liked someone else, so she kept her distance from him. However, during their time living together in the countryside, the ML’s view of the FL had completely changed. From this point, his pursuit of the FL begins.
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