“Whew-. Confirmed kill!”

“Get out!”

After sending out the bewildered butler, Clard collapsed into a chair.

His outstretched hands barely supported the golden head that couldn’t handle the sudden news.

“This can’t be.”

“Why deny it when everyone but you agrees? What’s so shameful about it? This is the natural order for married couples.”

The chattering voices of maids outside the window tormented his ears even more.

As if stabbing at his troubled mind, unspeakably vile rumors began to torment him, seeping through the walls.

They say Madam’s agonized voice was heard down to the first floor. On the contrary, not a sound was heard from the Master. How long has it been since the Master slept so soundly this late? Madam’s face has become pale. How intensely…

Eddie Lev, who had been quietly observing Clard’s reaction, finally spoke up.

“You were hasty, Clard Yufris. It’s troublesome to do this without consulting us. We left you alone because you always handled things well, but to go as far as proving your wedding night to the imperial family. You have no idea how shocked we were when we heard the news at dawn.”

“Eddie, Clard is a man too.”

Lancelot started to chime in, pretending to take his side.

“So what if he’s changed wives eight times? He’s still a virgin. Besides, his wife didn’t run away after the wedding night, right? Isn’t this a match made in heaven?”

“One flower garden in the head is enough with just you, Lancelot.”

At Eddie’s retort, Lancelot added while picking his ear.

“Your night skills, which have become famous enough to make the whole mansion buzz, must have been exaggerated. It doesn’t make sense for this Lancelot Lev’s cousin and friend to be a log in bed.”

The more explicit Lancelot’s words became, the more Clard’s face turned ashen.

The strangely excited atmosphere of the mansion.

The chattering maids and that woman’s shy voice heard among them.

For her to walk around so nonchalantly even after seeing his worsening condition at night, it’s clearly impossible without the premise of having gone through what they call a wedding night.

She must have something to rely on to laugh and chatter like that…

“But it’s not a lie, your face really does look better! Take a look. You too, Eddie.”

I don’t know why a man would have a hand mirror, but Lancelot approached with a sly grin and held up a hand mirror.

As Lancelot said, the disgusting half of his face was still there, but the other side had a strange vitality to it.

“Surprised? The shadow of fatigue under your eyes has half disappeared? What did I tell you? You were more tired because you didn’t have a woman?”

“Get out.”

“Me? Not Eddie, but me?”

Lancelot made a “Huh?” sound and pointed at himself with his finger.

That disgusting expression made Clard even more agitated.

“See? I told you I was right? Your face looks much better now because you’ve really found your match? It often happens when you meet a well-matched partner. It’s not common, but. Look, you’re not even talking about nightmares. You didn’t have nightmares, right? As I said, people need proper physical activity, day or night…”

“Nonsense.”

“The power of love is really amazing-”

“Love?”

Clard laughed as if dumbfounded.

One corner of his lips curled up crookedly.

Lancelot stepped back with an “oops” expression.

Clard’s eyes, which had been close to irritation, suddenly became as distant as an abyss.

A mistake was made.

“I don’t love anyone. You know that.”

Lancelot, staring at the gloomy smile, acknowledged his mistake and let out a deep sigh.

Clard glared at Lancelot’s back as he left dejectedly, as if he were his ninth bride.

Eddie closed the bedroom door with a deep sigh.

Evening came quickly.

After collecting his complicated thoughts, Clard concluded that rather than being swept up in absurd rumors, he should meet the person directly and settle things.

He had just heard from the butler that the uninvited guest had started roaming the mansion in earnest from today.

His prediction that she might be in the garden since the snow had stopped proved correct.

Clard, who had been waiting for the uninvited guest leaning against the window, roughly flung it open as soon as he saw Yuan appear in the garden without any maid following her.

The woman was absentmindedly looking at the garden trees, wearing only a thin shawl in the cold winter.

It seemed odd that she would be looking around a place where not a single flower was blooming in the dead of winter, and which wasn’t even properly maintained, but Clard had more important issues on his mind.

“Hey.”

The start was extremely rude.

But there was no courtesy to be shown to a woman who, after being allowed to stay at the door, had performed something like a wedding night proof completely against his will.

He had to end this quickly as he felt a headache coming on.

The small body that had flinched at the “Hey” slowly turned towards him.

A terrified expression.

But Clard was now certain that this frightened expression wasn’t because of his hideous half-face.

For her to walk around so normally after seeing this appearance twice, it had to be one of two things.

Either this woman was blind or she had an incredibly strong stomach.

“You have something to say to me, don’t you?”

He decided to give her one last chance. The last chance for the woman to confess and leave on her own.

But the woman, apart from flinching slightly, stared straight at him without moving.

As if she had to say what needed to be said no matter how scared she was.

Not knowing that he could see her finely trembling cheeks.

“You said I could stay if I was useful to this mansion, didn’t you?”

The woman was quick to understand.

The fact that such an answer came immediately to his question about having something to say clearly showed that she had inferred the meaning of “get out of this mansion” from his question.

“Don’t you remember sleeping well thanks to me yesterday?”

Clard quickly scanned the woman’s tired face with his eyes.

He felt a chill down his spine as the impossible assumption seemed to become reality.

The “intense wedding night” that the maids and Lancelot had been babbling about tangled up his mind.

It was a more terrifying imagination because he couldn’t remember anything.

“…Don’t try to pull anything. There’s no way I would do that.”

“Should I remind you?”

As he shook his head denying reality and objected, the woman immediately replied.

The woman’s face looked truly pitiful as if hurt, and her large dark eyes were filled with indignation.

He felt like he had become the world’s biggest jerk in an instant.

The Peliesse mansion, after Yuan Peliesse’s departure, looked no different from usual on the outside.

Compared to the time of the frugal previous Count and Countess, it was not only filled with dazzling and beautiful decorations, but also had many servants for the size of the mansion, so it was always kept clean.

But the inside story was different.

“How desperate must I be to come here in person? My father now refuses to receive treatment from anyone but Peliesse and won’t even take medicine. What am I to do? And I tried to understand when he said he wasn’t feeling well, but look at the Count’s face now! How can he truly be sick with such a healthy complexion?”

“That’s right. Since yesterday, even the weekly medicine deliveries have stopped completely. What are you trying to do? All the servants we sent were chased away. I rode here myself. Count, do you know how much gold our family has poured into Peliesse?”

“What about the gold our family invested? While my son had a major fall from his horse and had to get eight stitches on his face, what were you doing locked up in your mansion, Count? If you’ve taken that much gold, shouldn’t you at least give us our money’s worth?”

Count Peliesse, who had been receiving guests in the room next to his laboratory almost daily, watched as the nobles who used to beg just for an appointment in front of him suddenly changed after he locked his doors for just a few days.

Having greedily divided the guests by rank according to their investment amount, the nobles who had paid a lot of gold couldn’t bear even a short break and rushed to this remote Peliesse mansion.

“Now, now. Please calm down. Haven’t I been pushing myself too hard all this time? I only have one body, but the Academy keeps calling me here and there for academic festivals and whatnot, and the imperial family keeps pressuring me to develop cheap treatment medicines for the people-. Even ten bodies wouldn’t be enough. How could I not fall ill? I don’t even have time to eat these days.”

It wasn’t something a person with a plump body should say, but as the panting breaths gradually subsided, the Count lamented, pretending to be pitiful by drooping the ends of his eyebrows.

“Making just one medicine is no ordinary task. Do you think we can use the same ingredients that commoners eat for what we eat? The medicinal ingredients that come over mountains and across waters are brought with utmost care, fearing even a single scratch. Do you know how much money goes into transportation costs even if you pour in gold?”

“Ahem, even so-”

“In the north, we can’t bring precious medicinal ingredients because of fear of magical beasts. To the west is only desert, so we’re left with just the east and south, but the passage fees are no joke. And the inspections are always strict. How can we openly advertise that we’re bringing these precious ingredients into the capital just for noble people? If rumors spread that Peliesse gives special prescriptions to special people, do you think the imperial family would stand by? Would wealthy commoners stay quiet? I have many worries too.”

“We’re just saying that suddenly cutting off like this is hard for us too- We’re not trying to blame you, Count.”

Count Peliesse, with an expression as if he were truly wronged, showed off his tongue as smooth as if oiled, cooking the people who had barged in.

After spending the entire morning like that, he had no choice but to lie down completely drained, but even lying down, the gold he had just missed kept flashing before his eyes, driving him crazy.

If only the uninvited guest had come and kept him up, the Count had started to feel anxious and lethargic after Yuan cut off contact for over a week.

He tried to make urgent medicine alone in the laboratory, but it was always in vain.

Even if he compounded according to the prescription, that one final touch that Yuan used to finish with made the quality completely different.

‘If I had known this would happen, I should have remembered a bit too.’

He thought he could keep his niece captive for years under the pretext of treating Louise.

And he never imagined she would grab such an opportunity and leave without a single contact.

Feeling bitter and resentful, he was lying down with his head in his hands.

‘How could she do this to me.’