75. Fortunately. You saved me…….

2023.12.14.

He briefly pressed his lips tightly together, held his breath, then extended a composed voice toward Yuan, who couldn’t meet his gaze.

“I will work now. You will change the mansion, and I will change the estate. I can receive the title and manage it entirely as my own domain.”

“It’s hard.”

Yuan swallowed dryly, as if gulping down bitter water, and barely managed to continue speaking.

“It was hard, all this time.”

How dare you toy with royalty? After clinging to me, saying you wouldn’t abandon me, saying you loved me—what is this now?

If only you had gotten angry, struck me once.

If only you had stormed out, crushed every fragile thing in your rage, and declared never to let that woman into my home again.

If only you had left me to die in the snow, I wouldn’t even know why you bothered saving me—regretting every memory tied to me, leaving them all behind as disgusting betrayal.

Instead of nightmares where someone dies, a lifetime of chewing on betrayal like this.

Yet, as if mocking Yuan’s hope, Clade remained as still as a windless surface of water.

His unwavering gaze pierced Yuan, firm and resolute.

Facing him, Yuan couldn’t be sure of her own expression.

After her blunt answer—“It was hard”—he silently twitched his lips for a moment, then very slowly nodded.

“That’s right.”

“Yes.”

When Yuan felt her cheeks burning under Clade’s steady gaze, she decided she could delay no longer and turned her head.

It was time to leave.

Then.

Clade’s low voice reached her.

“…What if it’s not like that anymore?”

Stop.

Stop, please.

Yuan straightened her back and looked directly at him.

She knew how much sorrow and pain lay beneath that calm, indifferent face.

Even if he saw her not as a ‘real’ wife, but merely as a friend or a useful subordinate.

The mere thought of Clade watching her—someone who had just begun to open her heart—cough up blood and die right before his eyes made it hard to breathe.

“What if you weren’t suffering anymore?”

She would certainly still suffer.

Clade would witness every detail of her dying, right beside her.

He would undoubtedly be tormented, and begin having nightmares again—just like before.

Because even if she brought him pain, she couldn’t possibly take away the wounds in his heart.

Eventually, he would surely think—she should just leave the mansion before dying in front of him.

This was a man who had endured ten years, repeating to himself that perhaps his mother and younger sister not dying before his eyes had been their kindness.

This was a man who had stood helplessly in his room, watching the death of a dog he considered family, unable to bear it any longer.

Was she more meaningful to Clade than they had been?

Yuan firmly shook her head.

“I will continue to suffer, Your Highness—because you don’t love me, and never will.”

At the mere word “love,” the man’s expression, previously as calm as a still pond, froze cold.

Though she was the one speaking of parting, Yuan felt her own heart hardening.

In suffocating silence, Clade twitched his lips only once.

It was fortunate.

If from that trembling mouth came even an impossible confession of love, she wasn’t sure she could remain standing.

“Your Highness, do you love me?”

Foolish Yuan Pelliese.

What did she hope to gain by asking such a thing?

Her greed had been enough for the past two nights.

Yet the last remnants of foolish hope and irrational longing, shameless, forced their way out of her mouth.

If Clade loved her, everything from now on might change.

I’m very sick.

I’ve been eating your pain bit by bit every day, and this morning, I finally took in the core of that suffering which tormented you for ten years.

At the same time, the illness that killed my sister is now slowly biting into me.

If things continue like this, I won’t be able to protect you—I’ll die right before your eyes.

But what I desire is to be by your side.

Only that—by your side, in this mansion.

If you loved me, could you at least watch over this final chapter of mine?

Might I even be able to ask that? To face this hardship together, like that.

But contrary to Yuan’s desperate final hope.

At her repeated plea for that one word—“love”—the mask of calmness that had covered Clade’s face cracked wide open.

“Love?”

The man’s face slowly twisted.

The corner of his mouth curled up, holding a dark, shadowed smile.

“Could we… like other people… like an ordinary couple… actually love each other?”

Yuan looked into Clade’s trembling eyes, pouring her last desperate hope into them.

The golden hair she once groomed, now shining brilliantly in the sunlight.

The forehead, now straight and free of cold sweat.

The amethyst-like eyes sparkling beneath long lashes.

The man who held all the world’s beauty and light upon his face ultimately gave her no answer she desired.

“Love.”

Only as if the word belonged to someone else.

He merely held it once on his tongue—hot, savoring her all night, tasting the word as if for the first time.

“I don’t do love.”

It was a firm, definitive answer.

With beautiful eyes, beautiful lips, the man severed even her final trace of longing.

It was fortunate.

“…I’ll go now.”

She had known.

Even after spending countless nights—fierce, burning nights as if there were no tomorrow.

Even after whispering “I love you” a thousand times with desperate longing.

He was a man who would never, not even once, return those words with “I love you too.”

“Thank you for everything until now.”

So she could only suppress this lonely love within herself and endure.

She would remain as the one who fulfilled the single wish he had ever asked of her.

Even if everyone pointed fingers at her.

Even if no one ever understood.

Yuan Pelliese would die, leaving this mansion and the cruel man named Clade Euphris deep within her heart—as her final home, her final family.

“Where are you going?”

“I decided to go to the capital.”

Yuan answered, biting the inside of her mouth.

Clade slowly rose from the rocking chair and approached her.

“Why?”

“Because I’m tired of Your Highness.”

Clade’s steps halted just a couple of paces away.

“Tired of you pushing me away. Tired of this town with nothing lively. Tired of this mansion that never feels clean, no matter how much I erase.”

Yuan continued, standing on the edge of a cliff, now secretly wishing he truly hated her.

“I’m tired of everything—so I’m leaving.”

Their breaths, once entwined passionately over two nights, now flowed far apart, each following its own rhythm.

Clade’s finely trembling eyes suddenly darkened, as if light had been extinguished.

Yuan was prepared to face whatever reaction he gave.

If he hurled insults at her, called her a traitor, pointed fingers, or even pushed her away or struck her—she intended to stand still.

It had to end like this.

So that when, one day in the future, he heard she had died far away.

He would think, “She betrayed me and ran off with another man—how laughable.” Only such a cruel, filthy farewell would suffice.

“…Was it all planned from the beginning?”

“….”

“From the beginning. Yes. I didn’t not suspect you were Bollonico’s or Marquis Companni’s pawn. Most people would have.”

Clade continued speaking with deadened eyes—a stranger.

It was Yuan who had done wrong, yet it sounded as if he were making excuses to her.

His low voice, saying her leaving was only natural, was filled with eerie certainty.

Yuan wished he would just explode with rage.

“Go.”

Clade murmured quietly.

The man, backlit by the blazing red sunset, was heartbreakingly beautiful.

His eyes, no longer trembling, stared straight at her.

“Leave.”

“…You can hit me or curse me if you want.”

The brief moment his calm face twisted was fleeting. Clade’s lifeless eyes flickered with faint contempt.

Yuan felt both relief and emptiness, thinking she preferred this look, and lowered her knees.

The air between them felt unbearably heavy.

Slowly, she bowed properly, looking up at Clade—whose calm mask had broken, if only for a moment.

Her only comfort was his clean face, completely free of any trace of suffering, as if he had shed his pain.

A perfectly clean face. A perfectly clean body. With this, Yuan Pelliese’s role in this mansion was over.

“Take care.”

Just as Louise’s death led me to you, as a dream.

May my death not be in vain, and someday lead you to a better place.

Seeing the contempt in his eyes grow deeper, Yuan finally felt as if waking from a sweet dream.

The lips that had first called her name, telling her not to die, now accepted this cruel farewell and passed judgment upon her.

“Never appear before my eyes again.”

Yuan turned around with a bitter smile.

Fortunately.

You don’t love me.

Right until the very end.

Because you never loved me.

Through the quickly closed door, a fresh, rich scent of anemones drifted out.

***

Dozens of eyes pierced Yuan like needles.

The servants, fully aware of the mansion’s affairs, were shocked, barely able to breathe.

Whether they had heard about Bollonico’s news, Marquis Rev, Eddie, and even Lancelot had already gathered among the crowd.

Marquis Rev’s face was pale and rigid. Eddie was flushed red, as if about to scream, glaring back and forth between her and Bollonico.

Head chef Ralph’s trembling eyes. Mrs. Mazarin standing dumbfounded, staring at their retreating backs.

Hena’s eyes, appearing the most shocked, swept past her one by one.

“My lady……”

Hena’s pitiful voice tugged at the hem of her dress.

Yuan quietly climbed into the golden carriage, following Bollonico who held her shoulders.

The carriage swiftly left the black mansion without hesitation, racing through the dense forest.

Bollonico began giggling, then casually wrapped his arm around Yuan’s shoulders and rested his chin on her crown.

Yuan silently leaned into him, gazing out the window.

The black mansion gradually receded from view.

Her stomach churned, as if she might go mad.

“Ah, Bollonico should’ve seen that face. I was too concerned with dignity to go up and look.”

Bollonico’s hand gripped her small jaw.

Her pale face followed as he guided it.

His crooked lips captured hers.

Bollonico devoured her breath greedily, like plunder, for a long while, then roughly stroked her shoulder with impatient hands.

Yuan remained still, but when his slick hand slowly slid downward, she pushed his shoulder away.

“Ah, got too excited—sorry. It was a celebratory kiss.”

Bollonico raised both hands in mock surrender, smiling contentedly.

Yuan faintly smiled and boldly took his hand—still wet from her lips—interlocking their fingers.

His thick golden eyebrows arched up in surprise.

Seeing Yuan turn her head to gaze out the window, Bollonico assumed she was embarrassed, and a smirk curled his lips.

He glanced at the knights guiding them outside, then straightened his disheveled clothes.

The excitement of holding the treasure of the Pelliese family made his entire body tremble.

It was like a powerful hallucinogen.

His stomach, which had never known motion sickness, suddenly churned violently.

“Hey. Drive the carriage more gently.”

Bollonico released Yuan’s hand and said toward the outside, his face pale.

When the speed showed no sign of slowing, he even pounded on the carriage wall.

His clenched fist began turning white.

“Damn it, I’m not some old lady—Bollonico getting motion sickness……”

His face rapidly paled and finally began sweating coldly, so Bollonico roughly opened the window.

Yuan, who had been staring only out the opposite window, turned her head slightly and firmly took Bollonico’s hand, which was fumbling to undo his cravat, and tightly fastened it again.

“Are you unwell?”

“Yeah, you’re a bit……”

Muttering miserably, Bollonico’s face suddenly turned deathly pale.

Finally, with a loud “Ugh—”, he flung open the moving carriage door.

A gut-wrenching nausea began.

The entire procession came to an abrupt halt.

Bollonico collapsed pitifully onto the dirt, vomiting as if trying to expel even the candies he’d eaten as a child.

Dozens of elaborately dressed servants and knights rushed around Bollonico in sudden chaos.

Behind the worried faces of the swarming crowd, the carriage door Bollonico had vomited from stood wide open.

Inside the dimly shadowed carriage.

Yuan Pelliese sat upright, her black eyes calmly looking down upon the commotion.

Her cold face, lips curled crookedly, unhidden.

-Part 1: The Crow and the Treasure Complete.