Surviving as the Adopted Daughter of the Genius Duke (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 5
For a moment, I doubted my ears, but the contempt rising on the viscount’s face said it all.
Instead of shrinking back, I confidently held out my small hands together.
“Yes, I have to be this greedy already if I want to be independent.”
But the people around me couldn’t stay as composed and calm as I was.
“What on earth are you talking about?”
The duke shouted abruptly.
“I had no idea you were so greedy you couldn’t even spare pocket money for a child.”
Even the duchess, who always spoke with refined politeness, joined in.
I was secretly startled. No matter how much the duchess had originally wanted a daughter, I never expected the duke and duchess to raise their voices at a guest—and a relative—because of me.
Though I could understand if it were because disrespecting me meant disrespecting the duke’s household that had adopted me.
While I silently shook my head inwardly, the viscount, his face flushed red, finally picked up his wallet again and pressed a single gold coin into my hand.
“There, is that enough?”
“Yes.”
I stuffed the coin into my pocket with great satisfaction, but those around me clearly weren’t pleased.
“I’ve heard rumors lately that the Humphrey family’s business hasn’t been doing well—it seems that’s true after all. Here, Reina, let me give you pocket money in your uncle’s place.”
The duke placed ten gold coins into my chubby little hand.
“Reina, this is a custom-made doll. We specially ordered it from an artisan the Humphrey family could never commission—so I hope you like it.”
The duchess gestured, and the maids placed a doll as tall as me beside me.
I didn’t need a doll, but upon closer inspection, the doll’s skirt seemed studded with real gemstones.
This could probably be resold for a high price later.
Worried Kirian might be upset by my parents’ barrage of gifts, I glanced over—and luckily, Kirian was too busy glaring at the viscount.
Now I could look at the viscount again with fresh eyes.
That’s exactly how you feed the fish.
Go on, go on—be even more outrageous! Go on and look down on me!
But no matter how long I waited, the viscount only stared at me with a displeased expression and refused to say another word. While I felt disappointed, dinner ended, and only then did I notice Kirian watching the viscount intently.
Sensing my gaze, Kirian turned to me and smiled brightly. For some reason, a chill ran down my spine.
“Kirian, shall we sleep together?”
Eventually, overcome by anxiety, I knocked on Kirian’s door that night.
My resolve to maintain a proper distance while keeping a good relationship with Kirian had completely fallen apart because of Olivia. From the very first impression, she’d been unpleasant—and remained utterly unhelpful to the end.
Kirian rubbed his eyes and let out a small yawn.
“Huh? Whaaat?”
I couldn’t possibly say, ‘Because I don’t want to wake up to a corpse tomorrow morning.’
“Haha… I’m scared to sleep alone.”
In the end, I came up with a completely nonsensical excuse.
Fortunately, Kirian obediently opened the door. Perhaps the strange smile he’d shown in the bathroom had just been my imagination—he even took my hand and led me to the bed.
“You’re such a scaredy-cat, Nuna.”
“Yeah. That’s right. A scaredy-cat.”
Blessed are those who let go of everything.
I let out a deep sigh and crawled onto Kirian’s bed. To keep him from slipping away while I slept, I firmly held onto one of his arms and closed my eyes. Just as sleep began to gently overtake me after a long day—
“Nuna, why do you like Olivia?”
“Olivia?”
Failing once more to find a plausible reason, I made up a flimsy one.
“Because she’s cute.”
Though my eyes, spoiled by Kirian’s beauty, knew no bounds, I lied with absolute conviction.
“But she was mean to you, Nuna.”
“Well… there’s a saying that cuteness forgives everything, right? Something like that.”
It was a line that suited Kirian far better than Olivia.
“What about me, then?”
“Kirian is handsome.”
My face grew thicker by the day.
“Aren’t I cute?”
Sweat broke out at Kirian’s unexpected question.
“I swear on my life I’ve never once thought you were cute.”
If I so much as pinched his cheek and called him cute here, our relationship—sugar smuggling and all—would revert right back to the day we first met.
“Hmm… I see…”
Kirian suddenly grew very quiet. Just as I started to feel uneasy again, he let out a tiny yawn and hugged my waist.
“Sweet dreams, Nuna.”
I could feel his cheek pressing against my shoulder. Suddenly overwhelmed by an intense wave of cuteness, I was momentarily speechless.
“Alright, sleep well, Kirian.”
Is this how butlers feel when chosen by a cat?
I clenched my fists to keep from bursting into tears.
Even though I knew what kind of person Kirian would become later, sometimes I got so intoxicated by his cuteness that nothing else registered.
Telling myself it’d be fine to reestablish distance with Kirian once Olivia was gone, I closed my eyes.
She’d forgotten whose subordinate she even was—this Nuna who claimed she liked Olivia simply because she was cute.
All I’d done was give Olivia the punishment she deserved for tormenting Nuna, yet everyone looked at me strangely… There couldn’t possibly be a more disloyal subordinate.
I tried probing further to uncover Nuna’s true feelings,
But this Nuna—who’d been absentmindedly pinching my cheeks and calling me cute since day one—had now completely changed her tune.
Normally, I’d shudder at being called cute, but Nuna’s insistence that I was absolutely not cute was just as irritating.
Still, it didn’t matter.
No matter what happened, the fact that Nuna was my subordinate would never change.
I patted the arm of Nuna, who slept obliviously beside me. My subordinate.
“Mine… sleep well.”
The next day, Olivia timidly approached me.
The adults had gone out, so the three of us huddled together in the drawing room. I’d rather have gone to the library to finish the book I’d started yesterday, but after the hair incident, I couldn’t possibly leave the two of them alone.
“Onni…”
Olivia came forward clutching her rabbit doll tightly. It seemed that after yesterday’s events, her status had been upgraded from “you” or “commoner” to “older sister.”
“What?”
Olivia hesitated for a moment before stammering out her words.
“Onni… do you wanna go to the bathroom?”
She was clearly desperate—anyone could see she urgently needed the toilet. She kept glancing at Kirian, then flinching; apparently, she was too scared to go alone, yet even more afraid to go with Kirian, so she’d come to me.
But I pretended not to notice. After yesterday’s incident, I wasn’t about to give her an easy answer.
“No? I don’t really want to go.”
Olivia clutched her doll again.
“R-really?”
She stomped her feet impatiently.
“Why? Do you want to go?”
“A… a little.”
Afraid Olivia would truly crack if I teased her any further, I finally held out my hand.
“Alright, I’ll go with you.”
Olivia immediately grabbed my hand.
“Onni, qu-quick!”
We ran together to the bathroom, but Olivia suddenly froze right at the door. It seemed she still had trauma from the bathroom—so much so that she was even afraid to step inside.
“Oh, Onni, come in with me.”
In the end, I tucked Olivia under my arm and entered the bathroom.
“This bathroom is a good bathroom.”
I deliberately touched every corner of the bathroom to show her there was nothing wrong.
“See? The sink works fine, and the water drains properly.”
Olivia nodded but didn’t let go of my hand. In the end, she held my hand in one fist and her rabbit doll in the other while she did her business.
“Onni, don’t go anywhere…”
Sitting on the toilet and looking up at me, Olivia’s usual bratty demeanor had completely vanished. She looked as if she’d die without me.
“Just hurry up and finish.”
But the real trouble began when we approached the dreaded sink.
“Onni, I d-don’t need to wash my hands…”
I stopped Olivia as she tried to sneak away behind me.
“You’ll get sick.”
When I dragged her toward the sink, Olivia shook her head vigorously.
“No, no! I hate it!”
“There’s no hair left to get caught in the sink anyway.”
Despite my logical reassurance, Olivia started sniffling.
“Wh-why…”
I turned on the faucet and placed my hand under the rushing water.
“Look, see? Nothing bad happens.”
I firmly held onto Olivia’s hand as she tried to run away.
“I’ll wash your hands for you.”
When nothing happened as her hands touched the flowing water, Olivia slowly began to relax.
“Hehe… it’s okay.”
“Yes, there’s nothing to worry about—”
“KYAAAH!”
Olivia fainted the moment the words left my mouth.
“What’s wrong?”
“A-a monster!”
Olivia pointed a trembling finger at the mirror.
A large spider was clinging to it.
“It’s not a monster—it’s a spider.”
Just as I tried to calm the flailing Olivia—
Plop. The spider dropped onto Olivia’s hand.
“KYAAAAH!”
Olivia shrieked and tried to shake the spider off, but it stuck firmly to her hand.
“Hwaaaang! Help me!”
I grabbed Olivia’s wrist.
“It’s just a spider, a spider.”
Carefully, I peeled the spider off and showed it to Olivia.
“I-it’s scary…”
In the end, I opened the window and released the spider outside.
“There, see? I chased the monster out of the house.”
“Huhuh… waaah…”
Once Olivia finally calmed down, she clung tightly to my side again as we left the bathroom.
When we reached the drawing room, Kirian carefully observed Olivia, who was plastered to my side.
“Why’re you stuck to her like that?”
Olivia sniffled.
“The m-monster tried to eat my hand!”
“It was a spider.”
Ignoring my correction, Olivia continued her absurd story.
“It chewed my hand this much!”
She waved her perfectly unharmed hand.
“But how are you still alive?”
Seemingly oblivious to the subtle emotion in Kirian’s question, Olivia pressed even closer to my side.
“Onni chased the monster away for me.”
Olivia looked up at me with sparkling eyes.
“Just like a prince who rescues a princess.”
“Prince!”
Olivia called out to me from the sofa, her eyes half-closed.
“Hurry and come rescue me!”
Before I knew it, I was sitting on Olivia’s toy rocking horse, holding her toy magic wand. As soon as I sat on the rocking horse swaying back and forth, Olivia urged me again.
“Prince! Hurry and defeat the monster for me!”
The monster was none other than Kirian, standing between me and Olivia with a blank expression. His curly silver hair was adorned with a lace flower hairband—dragon horns of evil, or so Olivia’s boundless imagination claimed.
“If you defeat the monster, you can marry me! Ohoho!”
“Wow.”
I gave an awkward laugh and waved the magic wand.
“Even my nonexistent motivation has completely evaporated.”
Luckily, Olivia didn’t seem to understand the word “evaporated”—she giggled “ohoho” again, folded her hands over her stomach, and closed her eyes.
Intending to half-heartedly play along and wrap things up quickly, I dragged the rocking horse toward Kirian.
Thinking back, I realized I’d never played so childishly with Kirian before.
Yet at a time when I was barely managing to walk a tightrope to maintain a decent relationship with Kirian, I now had to treat him like a monster—my hand holding the magic wand grew cautious.
Worried Kirian, unfamiliar with such play, might take offense, I put in my effort as gently as possible.
“Yap, yap. Monster, begone!”
“Nuna.”
“Hm?”
Kirian blinked his big eyes a few times, clasped his hands together tightly, and looked up at me.
“Are you gonna kill me?”
“Guh!”
From that critical hit, I clutched my chest near my heart.
“Me… I don’t want to fight Nuna.”
As Kirian shook his head, the lace hairband swayed like a sprout. At that sight, I collapsed completely.
“Kyagh… too… powerful.”
“Wow, Prince!”
Kirian came over and held out his hand.
“Nuna, don’t act like that—marry me instead.”
When scheming men desperately battle for her favor in the male harem
This one’s also on my reread list! The rivalry, scheming between the men in the imperial harem are just as intense and thrilling as in classic palace drama novels, where concubines fight to the death. Give it a read, girls! I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Synopsis:
“I am not worthy of her… but I still want to be by her side, even if only as a loyal dog…”
Those were the painful whispers of Yue Guanyi – the proud Crown Prince of the Great Qi, who was torn between deep love and a guilty conscience. Despite holding the supreme power of the Imperial Guard, he still could not forget the dark past when he was sold into a brothel.
Fate played a cruel twist when Qiu Shuzhi – a young female official who had just passed the imperial examinations with top honors – stepped into his life. She did not know that she was the one who had saved him from a tragic fate many years ago. And now, her heart was the target of pursuit for both Yue Guanyi and the powerful Empress Dowager Qin Qing.
While Yue Guanyi only dared to silently care for and protect the one he loved from afar, the Empress Dowager Qin Qing openly expressed his feelings and did not hesitate to take advantage of his power to approach Qiu Shuzhi. The covert struggle between the two most powerful forces in the imperial court began…
Trigger warning: All men in this novel are yandere style.
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BWAHAHAHAH if only we all had a buff in life 🫡🫡it should be tha easy 😩