Compared to the past days when I lived with my eyes closed and ears blocked, I found myself unfamiliar with listening to outside sounds these past few days.

This morning.

Clard acknowledged that he had lost his virginity, which he had preciously guarded—or rather, been unable to be close to women—until the age of 24, when he could be called an old bachelor in the capital city of Cielo.

“It seems the madam has toppled the master more than once.”

“They must have really hit it off.”

“Why on earth?”

“They must be a good match! It’s so embarrassing every night.”

“Don’t act coy, I saw you all giggling and pressing your ears to the door without sleeping!”

To Clard, the chatter of “Why on earth?” naturally translated to mean they couldn’t understand why a man like him would pick up something like a dried-up crow.

He should have listened to the maid who said such things, but Clard was already incapable of normal thought.

Only his hypertrophied self-rationalization dominated his glittering head.

‘Yes, why did I?’

But unlike the first night when he was in a monstrous state wrapped in pain and drunk, yesterday he was in a very sober mind, and his memories before they were cut off were not mixed up.

He cupped his scarred cheek, which had no sensation, with his hand.

That woman’s impudent lips had touched here.

‘You expect me to believe that nonsense about human intimate warmth being prescribed, let alone medicine?’

But the effects were too powerful to deny this unbelievable series of tricks.

He had spent two nights, including the first night, without pain or nightmares.

Was it just sleep?

It was also true that the pain, which would inevitably wake him up even if he poured sleeping pills close to a lethal dose into his mouth, had noticeably decreased.

An image that only loose-bottomed fellows like Lancelot Lev would imagine unfolded in his mind.

‘As the pain subsided, did your hidden desires emerge, and by releasing what had accumulated to me, did you sleep well?’

It wouldn’t be so unfair if I could at least remember.

How on earth did she use such trickery that everyone knows about the intense and hot night, but I can’t even remember it?

He wasn’t stupid enough not to know what that woman meant by “human intimate warmth.”

‘Did I really sleep with ‘that’?’

Clard suddenly pulled open the curtains he always kept closed and stood askew.

He also stuck close to the wall next to the window so that he couldn’t be seen from below.

The chattering voices suddenly stopped, and the woman who had made him uneasy was already wandering around the garden.

Her neat face was moving around with little change in expression, standing near the small field where cooking herbs were planted near the garden trees.

“What’s keeping her so busy?”

The butler Gustav, who had been observing the unfamiliar sight of his master, who usually lay sprawled in a rocking chair looking at the ceiling or with his eyes closed, getting up on his own and pulling back the curtains, not to mention looking out the window, faithfully answered.

“She says she wants to tend to the garden.”

“I’m talking to myself.”

Embarrassed, Gustav weakly replied “Yes…” with the same face he had answered yesterday when his master had asked the absurd question of whether he and his wife had spent the night together.

“Isn’t that something the servants do?”

Gustav answered “Yes…” again this time, but flinched at the chilly silence.

“Yes-?”

“Yes…?”

“How are you disciplining the servants?”

Since when did you care about such things? You’ve been wandering around like that yourself for who knows how long.

In reality, it was just picking a fight to vent his anger without really caring much.

Gustav, well aware of his prickly personality, apologized without a word.

But Clard’s gaze didn’t linger long on Gustav and circled back to the window.

Either his mood was twisted, or he was troubled, or both.

Gustav, who had been guessing based on Clard’s temperament, was startled to see Clard suddenly flinch and pull the curtains shut as if to tear them off.

…Surprisingly, Clard’s face was very red.

“Tell them I’m sleeping.”

“Yes.”

“Get out.”

But who was he telling to say such things to?

Gustav received the familiar order to leave and left the bedroom, but he couldn’t help but express his belated question.

Yuan was in the midst of bringing two pieces of firewood from the storehouse, pushing through the busy servants.

Two pieces were just right to bring quite large chunks of wood without being noticed by people.

“What are you doing?”

“Ah, butler.”

Just then, she ran into butler Gustav, who was lingering in front of her bedroom.

The butler looked at the firewood in her arms and her face alternately with a bewildered expression, then turned pale and took it away as if snatching it.

As Yuan’s face showed a slightly gloomy look, he hurriedly explained.

“I don’t mean to take it away, but such work should be left to the servants.”

“Everyone looked so busy…”

“No matter how much work there is in the house, taking care of the madam is the top priority.”

Yuan looked at the butler with a dazed expression.

Gustav started to lecture for a while, but then suddenly remembered his errand here and cleared his throat with an “oh” face.

“Although you hardly brought any luggage… I’ll send someone to pack for you.”

“Luggage?”

Yuan’s voice rose slightly.

Clard had a comfortable sleep and didn’t look for her the next day.

So she had been anxiously circling the room and ended up helping the servants again.

Even though she had shown everything she could, does she really have to be kicked out like this?

“Yes, now you should officially move to the madam’s bedroom. It’s not good for others to see you staying in the guest room.”

“I don’t want to. No. What, what did you say?”

Yuan asked again with a slightly stupid face.

Butler Gustav mildly smiled and chided her.

“And please, speak comfortably. I may be old, but I know well enough that you are above me, madam.”

Gustav then bowed his head and left, saying he would move the firewood to the new bedroom.

Soon after, Monica and Canaria moved her simple luggage and belongings. Yuan followed the direction they were going.

The second floor where Clard’s bedroom is.

The huge room at the very end of that corridor.

“We hurriedly decorated it from this morning. How is it, madam?”

Yuan lost her words for a moment and looked at the room where sunlight poured through the large window.

The white chiffon curtains welcoming the wind puffed up and shrank repeatedly like Yuan’s heart.

Every place touched by light and not touched was filled with elegant and antique furniture, tapestries, and carpets.

Yuan marveled once at the huge bedroom size, almost matching Clard’s bedroom, and once again looking up at the masterpiece painting filling the tall ceiling.

“This was Hile’s idea. We didn’t hear instructions to furnish an office, so we set up various things in this side room here.”

Hena, who seemed more excited, pulled the dazed Yuan towards the side room attached to the bedroom.

Medical books and local herbal books she often borrowed from Hile. And small silver pots, mortars, braziers, droppers, clear beakers, and so on were placed.

It was a small laboratory just for her.

“Hile went out to the Central Roksenhart commercial district this morning to buy these things.”

“Hena…”

“And this!”

Hena picked up a large walnut pie placed on the makeshift table and held it up high with a broad smile.

“When I said it would be nice if there was a good smell in the madam’s room, Grandpa Ralph made a pie with the walnuts he roasted in the fall! He said to eat it secretly with just the madam and me, because if the other kids see it, they’ll make a fuss about why he didn’t bake for them. Hehe.”

In a corner of the spacious bedroom, Hena stood with shining eyes, brewing only Yuan’s tea at the tea table, which was decorated quite tastefully, contrary to the chef’s words.

Yuan repeatedly urged Hena to eat together, and the two shared the still warm walnut pie.

Yuan’s white face, which had been stiff with tension, finally flushed red.

It was her first room of her own since she was 10 years old.

When she was at Peliesse, she shared an old room with Louise, and even that was hard to call a proper room because all sorts of people came in and out.

“Can I decorate this place as I like?”

“Of course! The butler said he’s already called for a merchant, didn’t he?”

Hena’s chattering voice. Chewing and swallowing the savory and sweet pie while basking in the pouring sunlight.

Finally, Yuan’s place was created in this mansion.

Yuan enjoyed the warm and peaceful atmosphere, laughing and chatting with Hena for a long time.

And all the while, she felt an unbearable tickling sensation in her stomach.

“Hey. Let’s talk.”

It was exactly three days after spending the last night that Clard spoke to Yuan.

It was right after two merchants in splendid carriages visited the black mansion, met with Yuan, and left.

Yuan, who had been watching them disappear for a long time after coming out to the garden, heard the voice flowing from the wide open window and thought that what was bound to come had finally arrived.

Clard, whom she looked up at earnestly, looked more haggard than when she saw him three days ago.

The shadows under his eyes, which had faded slightly, had returned to their place, and his bloodshot eyes were like balloons about to burst.

Yuan went up to his bedroom at Clard’s sudden call.

“I need to use you.”

Before she could even sit down, Clard stated his business.

Just looking at the scattered painkillers, bloodshot eyes, and trembling hands, she seemed to know what he wanted now.

In fact, Clard had become as miserable as he could be with the pain that had assaulted him for three days.

During the period when he resisted, saying he wouldn’t fall for tricks and deception, his body, which had enjoyed a comfortable sleep for the first time in 10 years, was different from before.

The same pain as before clearly felt two or three times more painful.

If he hadn’t endured by stabbing both backs of his hands, Clard might have already rushed into Yuan’s bedroom two days ago and ordered her to carry out that damn prescription immediately.

“Do you remember? The first night and the next day.”

Yuan asked, knowing he wouldn’t remember.

Clard was silent for a moment, then nodded.

He thought it was a man’s shame not to remember two nights that were noisy enough to spread rumors throughout the mansion, but Clard never wanted to reveal his weakness.

It might be better not to remember.

How much that crow had violated this hideous and pure body.