‘Ah, it’s warm.’

The fireplace blazing with the logs Henna had carefully stocked.

The bandages that Hille had thoughtfully reapplied with medicine.

And the stomach filled with Ralph’s heartfelt soup.

‘It’s too warm…’

My body must be thawing.

The sensation of warmth seeping through the melted skin finally made my mind drowsy.

Between the fading memory of the man and the warm blanket, Louise’s voice floated.

‘Next winter, you’ll be able to sleep comfortably in a warm place.’

Elder sister always kept her promises.

…But why does that make me so angry?

As Yuan’s eyes began to close again,

Her dry lips crumpled and crinkled as if suppressing emotions.

The winter in the capital Cielo was not particularly harsh.

Instead of white snow, bright colors lined the well-ordered streets, and the squares and commercial districts were full of people clearing snow every day to welcome visitors.

After crossing several squares to enter the palace, Count Kompani clicked his tongue at the line stretching from the entrance of the First Prince’s palace.

It was widely known in Cielo that unless one was influential enough to attend the ministers’ meeting, one had to go through First Prince Boloniko to gain an audience with the Emperor.

It was partly true.

The First Prince’s palace was full of jaw-dropping decorations and golden silk, from never-before-seen pink peacocks to black ivory that seemed to have been cut from afar, a collection of the world’s most rare and bizarre things.

‘Is this an imperial palace or a circus, tsk.’

Count Kompani ignored the fierce glares warning him not to cut in line and stretched his foot towards the entrance at the end of the long queue.

The foreign servants with uniformly unhinged expressions recognized him and made way.

He briefly savored the envious gazes, adjusted his attire, and quickly went to the audience chamber.

First Prince Boloniko, with the golden hair characteristic of the Yufris imperial family and blue eyes resembling the Emperor, looked especially radiant today.

Under his bangs cut sharply enough to cover his eyebrows, his nose bridge soared high, and his face, knowing full well how handsome he was, was filled with inexplicable pride.

His neatly cut short golden hair shimmered and swayed annoyingly each time he slightly turned his head.

“May eternal glory be upon the great Yufris-. Your Highness. I, Harold Kompani, have come after completing the task you commanded.”

“Ah-. The moldy Count.”

Kik, kik.

At the voice of Prince Boloniko, who was sitting on a dancer’s lap eating grapes, the servants lined up like wings on both sides covered their mouths and laughed.

They had to laugh it off to avoid upsetting Prince Boloniko’s mood, but Count Kompani stiffened.

Such childish name-calling was evidence that First Prince Boloniko’s mood was twisted.

“Boloniko is disappointed.”

The servants reacted noisily to First Prince Boloniko’s sentiment.

“Ooh-.”

“Oh my. To disturb His Highness’s mood.”

‘Those low-born foreign servant bastards…’

Count Kompani muttered inwardly while forcibly pulling up the corners of his mouth.

And the most annoying one was the noisy parrot sitting on Boloniko’s shoulder.

-“Execute-! Execute-!”

Repeating the same words and grating on one’s nerves.

“I confirmed Gerret Peliesse’s machinations and led the second daughter of the late Count Peliesse to the Black Mansion.”

“Who doesn’t know that.”

First Prince Boloniko rose from the dancer’s lap and tucked his shimmering golden hair behind his ear coquettishly. Then, like an angry child, he folded his arms and looked down at Count Kompani, who was bowing deeply.

“You know that’s not what Boloniko is curious about.”

Count Kompani wore a puzzled expression for a moment before opening his mouth with a look of realization. What Boloniko was curious about must be the former prince’s reaction to the new bride and the situation in that mansion.

“It’s the same. That mansion is exactly the same, nothing taken away, nothing added. Duke Lev was in the bedroom, but the former prince wasn’t even looking at him. He seemed unmotivated, as always.”

“Yaaawn-.”

Boloniko stretched out his white fingers as if to show off his well-manicured nails and tapped his mouth.

He skillfully hid his wide-open mouth and slowly blinked his long eyelashes, clearly expressing ‘boredom’. Count Kompani’s already thin face grew even paler.

“Boloniko is bored. The same report every time.”

“Moldy, boring!”

-“Boring, boring!”

“What can I do? I can’t forcibly drag out and display a monster who’s locked himself in his room. Right?”

“Monsters don’t suit beautiful places!”

-“That’s right! That’s right!”

The foreign servants and the parrot Lorenzo noisily agreed with Boloniko’s words.

Kompani, who was vowing not to let even one of those spectators go if they were ever dismissed, glanced at Prince Boloniko, who was curling up the corners of his mouth while swaying his short hair.

“Boloniko heard an interesting piece of news.”

“Yes?”

“While the moldy Count was crawling here like a 150-year-old turtle, ‘the bird’ on that side told me the news first.”

Indeed.

Behind where Prince Boloniko was sitting, a bird with yellow feathers as shiny as his golden hair was busily eating feed in a cage.

“The monster moved directly and brought the ninth bride, whom the moldy Count had taken, into the mansion.”

“What-?”

“Boloniko was shocked. I don’t get surprised easily, right?”

-“Shocked. Really shocked.”

“Boloniko is certain. There’s something about Peliesse.”

-“There’s something about Peliesse. There’s something about Peliesse.”

“Boloniko is about to seek an audience with His Majesty the Emperor. Want to come along, Count Kompani?”

Count Kompani was surprised once at the news that former Prince Clard had personally brought the new bride into his home.

And surprised once more at seeing Prince Boloniko’s face rarely sparkle with interest at that news.

‘There’s something about Peliesse.’

The reason why the Emperor suddenly wanted to give a Peliesse woman as a bride to the former prince one day.

The reason why, even after being deceived by Gerret Peliesse, the imperial family tried twice to bring a Peliesse woman into the Black Mansion.

The reason why that Boloniko, who is sensitive from not receiving the Crown Prince’s investiture until the age of 23, is rushing to tell the Emperor that the former prince has accepted the Peliesse bride.

It’s suspiciously strange even if I just try to do what I’m told to pretend not to know.

‘There really is something about Peliesse.’

Something tremendous enough to pique the interest of that nutcracker-like Boloniko!

Count Gerret Peliesse had been locked up in his research room for days, staying up all night with his eyes wide open.

Even if he couldn’t receive ‘special’ guests in the next room right away, it didn’t mean there were no sources of income at all.

“Yuan Peliesse. Do you think this Gerret Peliesse would go bankrupt right away just because you’re gone?”

Gerret Peliesse ground his teeth, thinking of Yuan who still hadn’t sent even one letter.

This research room, passed down to the head of the family for generations, was a precious treasure trove that he wouldn’t trade even for the grand library of the Academy.

Just by reaching out, research materials full of the wisdom of his ancestors poured out.

Unfortunately, Gerret Peliesse lacked the knowledge to understand such specialized materials, so he had been focusing on manufacturing medicines rather than prescriptions and putting effort into commercializing them and supplying them to merchant groups.

Because of this, there were times when Peliesse was criticized in academic circles for trying to take the path of a merchant rather than that of a noble medical scholar, but in Gerret Peliesse’s view, it was all just jealousy.

He had increased Peliesse’s wealth using commercialized medicines and consultations for special guests.

He was a proper head of the family who managed this great family.

With the groundless confidence he had built up over 10 years, he didn’t think the family would collapse right away without Yuan’s abilities, even though they were needed in many ways.

“I did exactly as written, why isn’t it working!”

Until he realized that all the medicines he needed to supply immediately were not normal.

The Count, staring at the new products that he had Yuan research, became irritated.

The colors of the ones Yuan had made in advance and the ones he had just made were different.

It was a simple cold medicine that had been formulated in the generation of his father, that is, the late Count Peliesse.

It was a medicine that sold like hotcakes because it tasted sweet and was effective but had no side effects…

“Ptui! Ptui!!”

Not only was the color different, but it tasted terribly bitter and had strange granules.

Only then did Yuan’s voice flash through Gerret Peliesse’s mind, saying that something about the ratio was off and rewriting the prescription.

“Damn it! I can’t remember anything properly!”

It was natural.

He had relied too much on Yuan Peliesse all this time.

“Priscilla! Priscilla-!!”

Finally, as the delivery date approached, he urgently began to look for his wife.

He needed to check the ledgers.

He had been thinking for a while that he should take out the medicines that were scheduled to be delivered to relatively less important families and send them to influential ones instead.

“Mother, what’s wrong?”

“Regina. You came at the right time. What should I do about this?”

Regina was startled to see her already thin mother looking noticeably gaunt and approached her.

“You’re good with numbers, so help your mother a bit.”

“What?”

Priscilla nervously opened the ledger she had been clutching to her chest.

The ledger, which maintained neat handwriting up to the middle, became more like a scribble pad towards the back pages with sparse blank spaces and scrawled writing.

“What is this?”

“Led- ger-!”

Priscilla whispered very softly.

“Your father said he needs to look at the ledger, but I’m in trouble because I didn’t organize it in advance!”

“Mother, how could you not do this in advance and put it off…”

Regina alternately looked at the pile of documents and ledgers Priscilla handed her, then widened her eyes.

It was because she glimpsed the household finances that had noticeably decreased in just a few days among the illegible writings.

“Why is the revenue like this?”