“How can I trust you?”

Yuan asked, pressing her bloodshot eyes, her vigor dampened by Hille’s explanation.

Hille sprang up, grabbed Yuan’s arm, and pleaded.

“My intentions for entering the mansion were impure, but… I’ve never once forgotten that I’m a doctor. How could I easily accept an order to kill someone? They knew that too, so they gave the same orders to others.”

Hille clasped his hands together as he looked into eyes full of doubt and resentment.

“Consider others’ pain as your own and serve. If you hurt others with an insolent heart, you will surely pay the price.”

“…Those who willingly embrace others’ pain will find peace, while those who trample on others’ pain will wander in eternal suffering.”

“You know it. The passage from the first page of ‘Peliesse Medical Ethics’. I always thought it was like a curse on someone and found it amusing. Ironically.”

“…”

“But aren’t these good sentences to use as a guide in such urgent and special situations?”

“…”

“The moment I realized Count Kompani was Boloniko’s man. I understood everything was Prince Boloniko’s plot. He’s been so intent on monitoring the former prince and trying to kill him at every opportunity, so if I left, someone else would take my place and target His Highness.”

“…”

“The business profits I gained through Madam’s consideration far exceeded my debt. I’ve paid off all my debts, and I no longer need to worry about whether to trample on others’ pain.”

Hille’s eyes sparkled with desperation. It was the same kind face that always smiled and talked about medicine and joked with Yuan.

He rummaged through his clothes and pulled out a medicine pouch.

Yuan took it and sniffed it, noticing it smelled very similar to the medicine the court physician had forced into Clard’s mouth earlier.

Yuan realized from this alone that Hille had been putting that drug into the painkillers all along.

Because even when they made it together or Yuan made it alone, he always finished it and brought it to Clard.

“If I’m to trust you, you’ll have to show it through your actions from now on.”

“Yes.”

“I haven’t forgiven you, so I’ll keep watching you−.”

Suddenly.

The heart that had absorbed some of Clard’s pain as he struggled between life and death began to ache as if it would split.

As Yuan clutched her chest and folded her body in half, Hille’s eyes widened and he drew closer.

Yuan stepped back from him and exhaled a ragged breath.

The purple carpet, without a speck of dust, began to spin.

“Madam!”

It felt like someone was squeezing her heart tightly, and soon she thought the blood in her heart was flowing backward.

A thin stream of blood seeped through Yuan’s lips, which she had hurriedly covered.

“Madam! Madam!! Madam!!!”

Hille’s voice alternated between fading away and coming closer.

Yuan quickly pressed against the wall, trying not to rely on Hille who kept approaching, and felt the cold wall touch one of her cheeks.

Yuan’s body slid down the wall and crumpled.

Yuan hadn’t been unconscious for long, but it was more than enough time for her heavy-bodied uncle to rush over upon hearing of his niece’s illness.

“Yuan! Yuan!! Are you feeling better?”

“…Is this a nightmare?”

It wasn’t a nightmare.

The unpleasant smell of sweat wafting over and the heat from his flushed face were clearly visible even to the eyes.

Although it wasn’t the first time he’d seen someone collapse, her uncle seemed to have forgotten that she was a patient who needed to rest as soon as she got up. He came rushing over from the window where he had been pacing.

Yuan thought she should warn Hille never to associate her uncle and herself with the Peliesse name again as she rose from her place.

Her uncle, uncharacteristically, tried to help Yuan but realizing his own body was heavier, he awkwardly stood by the bed.

“Have you thought about what I said? This is perfect timing. An assassination attempt! And in this sacred imperial palace! Now that the Emperor has seen with his own eyes how dangerous it is for you to be near that monster, he’ll at least pretend to listen when I ask for a divorce!”

“You’re still saying that? I’m not going. And I need to rest, so please leave.”

Her uncle’s face contorted almost like a demon’s.

“You still don’t realize after seeing your husband coughing up blood right in front of you?”

“I do realize. That’s why I’m doing this.”

“Even if you die?”

As Yuan quietly glared at him, her uncle stared down at her with bloodshot eyes.

“Who’s afraid of mere poison? Peliesse has antidotes to spare! You’re terminally ill and need treatment urgently! How do you expect to get treated in a place full of people constantly plotting to take your husband’s life? It’s a miracle you haven’t been poisoned yet, with no immunity!”

The count, glaring at Yuan who stubbornly kept her mouth shut, finally grabbed her pale arm roughly.

“You think they’re only after your husband’s life? They’re after yours too, huh?”

Yuan, who had no choice but to let her exhausted body be dragged by him, was soon pulled into an unknown room and locked in what seemed like a closet.

She tried knocking on the door when she heard the lock click from outside, but her body that needed rest had no strength to muster.

“I’ll let you out soon, so you just watch carefully!”

As her uncle’s heavy footsteps faded away, Yuan slumped down inside the closet.

She started feeling nauseous and breaking out in a cold sweat, as if she might collapse again at any moment.

She wondered if Clard had woken up, and if he had, whether he was looking for her.

She was frustrated, wondering where Hille, who she thought would be guarding the door, had disappeared to, allowing her uncle to visit.

And just when her anxiety reached its peak.

Yuan’s hand, which was about to knock on the door to call for help while gritting her teeth, stopped.

With the sound of parrot wings flapping, First Prince Boloniko and Count Kompani, who hadn’t been seen throughout the debutante, appeared through the closet gap.

“Peliesse Count is singing about getting a divorce. He says he’ll go see the Emperor as soon as this commotion is over. What should we do?”

“He’s so desperate to take her away, it makes me even more curious.”

“Pardon?”

“Why does that fat count, who gladly sent Louise Peliesse to the Black Mansion, seem to be so obsessed with Yuan Peliesse? Is it really out of love for his niece? Because she’s particularly bright? Boloniko doesn’t think so.”

“Then−”

“I have a strong feeling that Yuan Peliesse might accomplish what Louise Peliesse failed to do.”

Boloniko’s voice, as arrogant and haughty as ever, choked Yuan’s breath.

‘What Louise Peliesse failed to do?’

Not only holding my husband’s life in his hands.

But also hastening Louise’s fate.

It really.

Certainly.

‘…was you.’

Black eyes with burst blood vessels stared straight at Boloniko’s smooth face visible through the closet gap.

The atmosphere in the party hall, controlled by Emperor Igor, was beyond tense, resembling a courtroom awaiting a string of death sentences.

The high nobles swallowed their shame at the behavior of rummaging through all the palace servants without restraint, while the lower nobles who had come to make an impression on the Emperor using the debutante as an excuse looked deathly pale.

Publicly, Emperor Igor’s image was that of a guardian to the former prince Clard, who had lost his parents at a young age and voluntarily given up the throne.

Since only his closest confidants knew the exact circumstances, most nobles thought that while the Emperor’s reaction was excessive, it was understandable.

Moreover, if it had been the Emperor or Boloniko who had swallowed the poison instead of the former prince, it might have escalated to the beheading of high nobles rather than mere servants.

Count Peliesse watched as Count Kompani, who had just finished talking with him, hurriedly took Boloniko away towards the VIP lounge.

He had lowered himself significantly in front of Count Kompani and Boloniko, spewing all sorts of words and raising his tone as if this was his last chance, so Count Kompani was unlikely to ignore this.

Mingling among the nobles who had already been body-searched and were gathered in small groups, he glanced at the sight of bodies lined up after losing their heads in summary judgment, accompanied by a slicing sound.

After a few guards cleaned up the rolling heads, the next head would fall.

Count Peliesse, with keen observation, stroked his intact neck as he watched the servants who had been bustling around the party hall all day trembling as they waited for their turn.

‘I’m scared to death, damn it!!’

He considered killing more time like this, but fearing he might accidentally meet the Emperor’s crazed eyes, he fled the party hall.

The palace corridors had quite a few places to hide.

Curled up like a rat, he quietly held his breath near the VIP lounge where Yuan was locked up.

The conversation between Boloniko and Count Kompani did not last long.

Boloniko seemed to be keeping secrets even from Count Kompani, his closest confidant, and was sparing with his words, while Count Kompani showed no signs of probing further.

However, there was a conversation that Yuan heard clearly despite her dizziness.

“I don’t understand why you’re keeping him alive.”

“If you ask who in this palace wants to kill Clard Yufris the most, Boloniko would naturally say it’s Boloniko.”

“That’s why I’m saying this. If we knew it would get this big, we shouldn’t have attempted it at all, or maybe we should have used poison once more to kill him when he collapsed−”

“Don’t be foolish. Did you think Father wouldn’t step in? Father, who still trembles in fear of a possible rebellion from the handful of remaining former emperor’s faction he hasn’t been able to exterminate? I helped Father. So he can continue to act like a kind uncle who’s weak to his family, even if he’s a tyrant. Did you see? How he went berserk, his eyes rolling back as if his own son had died? Maybe he’s even happy that he can kill those he didn’t like using this opportunity?”