Yuan looked up at the ‘monster’ former crown prince, feeling her tongue stiffen.

His face was as hideous and painful to look at as the rumors said.

Biting her tongue to hold back a scream, Yuan moved her limbs carefully to check if they had stiffened or started to rot, then finally looked at his face fully.

After facing him directly like that, she could notice things other than the hideous half of his face.

Messy golden hair. Eyes shining like expensive amethysts under languidly raised eyelids. Dark shadows under his eyes and pale skin.

A sharp nose bridge and tightly pressed thin lips.

While there was a sensitive aura about him, the other half of his face was not just normal, but beautiful even.

It was then that Yuan focused on the man’s gaze rather than his appearance.

A gaze she couldn’t help but feel pierced her like needles.

Such a gaze full of hostility was the first she’d seen since her rude cousins.

Yuan immediately understood the meaning of that gaze.

‘You don’t belong here.’

It was a very familiar gaze she had received for about 10 years.

“It’s, it’s nice to meet you for the first time. I’m Yuan Peliesse.”

At the end of the silence that seemed to last forever, Yuan managed to gather her stiff mouth and spit out the words.

Her voice trembled terribly, her fingertips that seemed about to break curled inward, and she couldn’t even sit up properly.

The man simply stepped one more foot into the carriage, as if he didn’t care what Yuan said.

As if trying to show more of his face.

Yuan was startled for a moment, but she didn’t move away or frown.

Was this a test from this man? To see if she could endure him or not?

Was he trying to scare her, who had lived facing demons for 10 long years, with just half an ugly face?

Yuan steeled herself in front of the gaze that clearly signaled for her to get out.

She couldn’t go back to hell like this.

“Please let me go home, it’s too… cold.”

She meant it sincerely.

With her frozen body, all she could do was dwell on the terrible memories from the Peliesse mansion and memories of Louise.

She didn’t want to do that.

She wanted to ask why and how Louise had died.

If that man was the reason Louise died, she wanted to curse him, and if not, she wanted to live without pain in a new home.

The man gave no answer.

His cold and indifferent face continued to send a cruel gaze without the slightest ripple.

It was a mouth that would never utter words like “come in” or “aren’t you cold?”

As the suffocating and cold silence continued, at that moment.

Her lips, though well-shaped but roughly dry, began to appear as two, then three.

It was fortunate. With nothing in sight, the words she had been muttering like a prayer all night came out well.

“I won’t go back home.”

Did you kill Louise?

Did you kill my sister?

Are you my enemy or my family?

The words she had vowed to say when she met him began to crumble in front of the warmth of a person who had come after days.

The desire to not upset the man’s mood and to get into a warm place first overcame reason and moved her tongue at will.

“Don’t abandon me like this.”

A voice close to begging escaped her lips.

The instinct to survive clung to the man’s eyes that rippled ever so slightly as she reached out, rather than the hard face that seemed ready to push her away at any moment.

“Please… don’t abandon me.”

In the end, her body, pushed to its limits, begged for her own well-being through her lips instead of questioning Louise’s death.

Her hands, on the verge of freezing and breaking, did not blame the cowardly thoughts but rather clung and held onto the warmth before her eyes.

Yuan instinctively reached out her hand more desperately.

The man gave her neither an answer nor his hand.

It didn’t matter.

As long as he was in front of her, there were plenty of places to reach out and grab onto.

Thus, the hand that had tightly grasped the wrinkle-free former crown prince’s clothes dropped with a thud after just a few seconds.

***

The sensation of terrible cold and heat sweeping through her entire body continued for a long time.

Yuan abruptly opened her eyes, as if escaping from the sensation of her palate drying and cracking. Intense light struck and focused directly on her retina.

“It’s hot…”

Yuan blinked her cloudy eyes several times, trying to adjust to the light of the antique chandelier hanging from the ceiling.

After staring blankly for a while, Yuan suddenly realized that this was not the carriage and turned her head in surprise.

“Are you awake?”

A young maid was arranging firewood next to the fireplace.

The maid was a short girl with dark brown hair and faint freckles on the bridge of her nose.

The maid called out loudly to someone outside, then stuffed a couple of dry logs into the fireplace and approached Yuan.

As Yuan blinked and looked around, the maid carefully helped her sit up.

The maid quickly brought a glass of water from the bedside to her lips, and Yuan gratefully drank it. As the terrible thirst subsided, she felt her vision clearing up as well.

Where Yuan had been lying was a bed.

A bed with warm cotton blankets.

She tried to feel the sensation under her palms, rustling at the soft and warm feeling she hadn’t experienced in a very long time, but her hands were wrapped in bandages.

When she blankly held up her neatly bandaged hands, the maid quickly explained.

“You almost died like a corpse in the middle of winter! We were supposed to notify Mr. Hille as soon as you woke up, but why hasn’t that old man come yet!”

“Is this… the Black Mansion?”

“Ah.”

A deeply sunken voice floated in the air.

As Yuan felt that her voice sounded strange and cleared her throat, the maid rolled her eyes.

“Don’t you remember? We don’t know the details either! The master never leaves his bedroom, except in very special situations. Even then, when he comes out of the bedroom, we must absolutely stay in our rooms. But this morning, wouldn’t you know it? There was just such a situation! Of course, we thought the ninth Highness… I mean, the Madam was returning to her family home, but the butler and guards brought Madam in.”

“…Madam?”

“Oh, right. The servants here call the new mistress ‘Madam’. The title ‘Former Crown Princess’ is a bit embarrassing, isn’t it?”

The young maid, who introduced herself as Henna, began to speak as if pouring out words.

“The former crown prince doesn’t like being called ‘Your Highness’, but he doesn’t like being called by any other name either, so we keep calling him ‘Your Highness’. Is there anything in this world that the master likes? Sometimes I wonder if he even exists!”

The maid girl, like a great storyteller, began to speak without taking a breath about what had happened after Yuan lost consciousness, as well as how worried the servants had been about Yuan’s carriage, and so on.

Yuan tried to absorb all the information pouring from the young maid without missing anything.

And within that, she tried to find if the former crown prince Clard Yufris, who was no different from a ghost in this black mansion, had said anything about her status.

Yuan replayed the maid’s words for a moment and then answered.

“…Where is His Highness now?”

“The master has locked himself in his bedroom again, of course.”

“So, can I live here now?”

“Ah, that-.”

Henna rolled her eyes again. And then, unable to meet Yuan’s eyes, she lowered her gaze to Yuan’s temporarily bandaged hands and mumbled.

“After your treatment is finished and your body recovers. They say you’ll return to your family home… But I just heard this! It’s the butler’s guess, so it might not be His Highness’s intention!”

Henna was a young but kind maid.

It was clear from her face that she didn’t want to reveal the cruel truth to the former crown prince’s wife who had just had a brush with death.

Yuan quietly listened to the maid’s voice as she poured out excuses again.

Henna’s voice was cut off abruptly by a man who entered through the urgently opened door.

“You’re awake!”

The man who appeared wearing dizzying glasses had curly khaki hair that sprang up like he had been hit by a shell on a battlefield.

He was not very tall and had a skinny build.

Yuan immediately recognized him as Dr. Hille, whom Henna had mentioned in her numerous pieces of information, from the huge medical bag in his hand.

“How can you come so late! It’s been ages since we called you!”

Hille, who immediately became gloomy at the young maid’s scolding, sat down very carefully next to Yuan, who was staring blankly at him.

Judging by his sparse beard trembling, he was clearly frightened.

“Y-Your hands and feet were especially badly damaged, so I applied medicine. But this is just a temporary measure, and you need to warm your body gradually in warm water. Aren’t you cold?”

Hille, who couldn’t meet Yuan’s eyes and only hurriedly examined her already bandaged hands, looked up at her for a moment, then held his breath with a ‘heek-‘ sound and lowered his gaze again.

Henna, who was watching this scene from the side while clicking her tongue, finally spoke up.

“Dr. Hille. Madam is completely different from the master, you know.”

Yuan then remembered the story Henna had chattered about the mansion’s recent events, where the new doctor Hille had wet his pants and collapsed as soon as he saw the former crown prince, then was sick for days.

This poor doctor was clearly scared and cautious just because Yuan was the wife of the former crown prince. Yuan introduced herself in a gentle voice to reassure him.

“I’m Yuan Peliesse. You must be the benefactor who healed me.”

“Pe-Peliesse?”

“Is the medicine applied to my hands made from paper mulberry? Or elm?”

“Are you really from the Peliesse family?”

Hille’s eyes widened as soon as he heard the surname Peliesse, and he raised his voice.