While Count Peliesse sighed, stroking his goosebump-covered arm, Priscilla picked up where he left off.

“Sigh. It’s a bit of a shame to lose the help—”

Priscilla clicked her tongue, regretting the loss of Yuan who did more than just simple tasks, but she held back from telling her husband that she had entrusted all the bookkeeping to Yuan.

“At least we don’t have to worry about marrying off that girl anymore. The thought of having to provide dowries for two useless girls pretending to be nobles made me sick to my stomach.”

“Mother, you’re too kind. You even thought about that? Why bother with such things when they haven’t even made their social debut? Just treat them like they don’t exist!”

“Wouldn’t it be nice to receive an estate as a dowry? We could put it in your father’s or Frederick’s name, and then we’d truly be nobles with land! It was perfect timing when the third son of Count Trelloni took a liking to Yuan! You know, don’t you? That family has nothing but land. If we played our cards right, we could have gotten rid of her and taken their land!”

“What? The Trelloni family? Where did they see Yuan? Why are you only telling me this now?”

“Where do you think? He must have come as a guest and asked the maid about her after seeing her somewhere.”

“Ah, will you all be quiet!”

Count Peliesse exploded in anger at Priscilla and Regina’s conversation. Where would he send her off to get married? How could he give away that goose that lays golden eggs? What a waste!

“Father, what’s wrong with you? Are you actually looking out for your niece?”

Frederick asked, facing Count Gerret Peliesse, whose face was turning red and blue.

Though his speech was slurred from alcohol, his voice was loud enough to draw attention.

Priscilla and Regina’s gazes focused on Count Peliesse’s mouth.

“That’s not it…!”

How will we take reservations without her? Who will manufacture the medicine we’ve been supplying? Who will write a speech worthy of presenting at the upcoming Academy symposium?!

Count Peliesse examined the bleary-eyed gazes of his family members one by one and swallowed the words rising in his throat.

Compared to the old days when he had left Peliesse and married Priscilla, a merchant’s daughter, without a penny to his name and lived cautiously, he had now become much more established as the head of the family.

At this point, he couldn’t possibly say that the true capability of Peliesse lay not with him, the family head, but with Yuan Peliesse, his niece.

“She has something important for my research, that’s why! She left the house so unpleasantly and went off to some remote place without any means of communication, so I’m in a very difficult situation!”

“That thieving b****!”

Frederick, who had been draining the last of his alcohol, stood up angrily.

As the large man moved, a wave rippled through the sofa.

“I knew she would steal something from our house one day out of greed! Mother, didn’t you say that the necklace passed down through generations of our family disappeared from the warehouse last time? I’m sure she took that too!”

Regina flinched, lowered her eyes, and sipped from the teacup in front of her.

Frederick’s face flushed red as he shouted with rising momentum.

“We shouldn’t try to reason with her nicely! Everyone’s too soft! This time, when that b**** comes back, leave it to me, the eldest son. This is what happens when you treat something that’s not human like a person.”

“Now, now, Frederick. Calm down and sit. There’s no need to get so angry over Yuan. Where would she go? She should know how hard it is to get married without the support of her family, so she’ll come asking for help, won’t she?”

“What family? If she can’t be a good stepping stone for my success, then it’s all meaningless!”

Frederick threw the wine bottle on the floor and staggered back to his room.

Priscilla followed him, stamping her feet worriedly lest her sturdy son might fall.

“That girl needs to be punished. How dare she bring such rude people into this house and take their side. And to steal something important from Father. If she comes back whining this time, don’t let her off easy! Let’s make her grateful even for a position as an old noble’s second wife in some remote area! The Trelloni family, the former crown prince’s wife? Ha, ridiculous.”

Regina also left her seat, pouting.

As Regina ran down the corridor, images of herself meeting the third son of the Trelloni family instead of Yuan began to flood her mind.

She could almost vividly see herself marrying into a family with a great estate, living luxuriously as a noblewoman, and dominating the capital’s social circles.

Count Peliesse narrowed his eyes as he watched the retreating figures of his family members, who were thoroughly misunderstanding the situation.

There’s no way the monstrous former crown prince would accept Yuan.

It was always a place of rejection at the door or where brides escaped on their own.

Louise, who lasted for a year before returning as a corpse, was a rare case.

‘There were people who died suddenly without reason, though.’

Unless that monster knew of Yuan’s abilities, there was no reason to accept her.

Gerret Peliesse intended to crush any thoughts of escape this time by presenting Yuan with despair if the former crown prince sent her back.

‘And this time, I’ll hide her away where no one can find her.’

Before the third son of the Trelloni family sends another marriage proposal or the First Prince Boloniko starts asking questions about Yuan.

Count Gerret Peliesse’s pitch-black eyes gleamed coldly, reflecting the flickering light of the fireplace.

***

After Duke Mosan Lev left, the horse and coachman standing behind Yuan, and the guards who had been whispering among themselves, locked the iron gate firmly and departed to change shifts.

The bitter cold pierced through the ear muffs and into Yuan’s ears.

Despite the bone-chilling cold, Yuan stubbornly stood her ground. The feeling in her toes had dulled. The desolate wind made eerie sounds as it whipped through the cracks of the black mansion.

Whooooosh—

It was a gloomy and cold sound.

‘Louise.’

Looking at the tightly shut iron gate, Yuan called out to Louise in her heart.

‘Since you brought me here, I’ll consider this my home.’

Even if the rumors were true and the former crown prince was a terrifying person.

Even if he tried to take my life.

I’ve abandoned the home I’ve protected all my life, and the people closest to family are gone.

Did Louise also wait here indefinitely for her husband?

Or did her condition worsen as the rumors said, with her body rotting and her limbs shriveling up as soon as she looked directly into that man’s eyes?

Hazy clouds brought a dark purple darkness. It wouldn’t be long before the night’s waves, surging from the edge of the winter forest in the distance, engulfed the white snow field.

Long after it had grown dark.

The door still wouldn’t open.

Wrapping her thin cloak tightly around herself, Yuan stopped watching the second-floor window where a faint light leaked through a tiny gap.

Though she was clearly standing on flat ground, she felt as if she were standing alone on the edge of a thousand-foot cliff.

Yuan stood like that for a long while before dragging her half-frozen body into the carriage, which now had neither horse nor coachman. As she sat down and curled up, her frozen body sent waves of pain as if it might shatter.

A cold sensation, whether from the chill or something else, tore at the surface of her body.

‘This is nothing.’

Compared to being submerged in a sea of pain for the past 10 years.

‘This really is nothing.’

Yuan closed her eyes, repeating those words like a desperate prayer.

The eerie wind sound flowing from the mansion followed her into the carriage and scratched at her ears. Curling up her stiff body, Yuan quickly fell asleep to that sound as a lullaby. In her dream, Yuan lay dead side by side with Louise.

On a cold winter night.

In a white forest where no one came looking.

***

The winter night was cruel to everyone.

Only a few servants remained in the mansion.

Thick groans of suppressed pain leaked out from the bedroom.

Mixed with the sound of the fierce snow storm outside, the groans were no different from the cries of a beast.

A chilling voice that seemed both like one person’s and not.

A voice like monsters howling burst forth one after another.

“Your Highness, please open the door.”

Outside Clard’s bedroom stood Hilea, the royal physician who had recently arrived from the capital Cielo, holding his medical bag.

From inside the door came the sound of someone banging their head against the bedpost, trying to endure the pain.

Hilea stamped his feet anxiously. But he couldn’t bring himself to open the door and enter, instead fidgeting outside.

“Your Highness—”

“F*** off, all of you!”

A voice at the peak of sensitivity leaked out. Since it penetrated the thick door, it must have been a desperate cry.

“Please tell me your symptoms in detail! Please let me in!”

Bang—!

The door that seemed like it would never open suddenly flung open in front of the concerned Hilea.

As soon as the door opened, the smell of rotting animal carcasses numbed Hilea’s nose.

As he hesitated at the terrible stench, a giant shadow pooled on the floor.

Hilea flinched and slowly raised his head. He screamed without even opening his mouth.

“I told you to f*** off, didn’t I?”

The figure in the dark room was closer to a beast than a human.

Not only was his hair like trampled late autumn leaves, but there was no human color left beneath it.

Eyes so bloodshot that the whites were barely visible due to burst blood vessels.

Lips stained red from biting his tongue to endure the pain came into Hilea’s view one after another.

In fact, it was hard to even call it a mouth.

Is this what it would look like if you burned a wooden doll carved in human shape and turned it to charcoal?

Or is this what a rotting corpse would look like if dug up from a pit?

The former crown prince, who had lost even the half that had remained somewhat intact, was the very embodiment of living death.