Early morning, a small port near the capital.

Faint dawn light is seeping into various parts of the labyrinthine alleys.

This was the small port where Lucia had come to pick up the saintess on that problematic day.

Dressed in a black cloak for infiltration, Lucia stood in a narrow alley, scanning the surroundings.

‘…Surely. One of these.’

Back then, she had come here without any doubt, solely for the purpose of carrying out her mission.

But looking at it again now, this place, filled with nothing but warehouses, was highly likely to be a dark market where smugglers stored and traded their smuggled goods, judging from her experience.

Looking at these warehouses filled with greed, the thought of searching for a place where a child might be made her head spin.

But she soon shook her head as if trying to regain her senses.

No matter how she thought about it, searching the warehouse now was much better than guarding the child after she became a saintess candidate.

She carefully looked around the warehouse grounds, hiding her presence.

Then,

‘How disgusting. This is to the extent that one would believe it’s an old animal corpse.’

Approaching an old warehouse that seemed to be the oldest in this place, a rotten smell stung her nose.

‘This can’t be it. There’s no way a person could be here…’

Contrary to what her mind was thinking, strangely, Lucia’s steps didn’t falter at all.

Furthermore, the lock on the warehouse was as solid as new, as if protecting something valuable.

‘An expensive lock on this rotten warehouse…’

Lucia touched the lock.

On her white gloves, not a speck of dust was found.

Unless it was handled daily, it wouldn’t be maintained like this.

The thick iron lock was tightly locked, seemingly unopenable by anyone, but she was already a master craftsman.

The aura blade created in Lucia’s hand silently cut the lock as easily as pudding.

And she pushed the door open.

There was no sign of life, but the various foul odors, including that of refuse, were more intense than before she opened the door, and her face involuntarily scrunched up.

‘…Worse than a battlefield.’

That meant,

It was not a place where something living, even if not a saintess, could possibly be.

As she was about to turn around and open the door again,

Suddenly, a hairraising noise rang out, and Lucia quickly closed the door again.

An alarm?

She hid her presence to the utmost, and the sound soon died down.

Fortunately, there was no sign of anyone coming to check, and Lucia quietly lit the lantern she had brought.

“……!”

A myriad of precious feather colors, exotic and brilliant appearance.

They were birds of noble appearance that would drive even the pretentious nobles mad.

These were wild birds, trapped in cages, filling this dilapidated warehouse, the likes of which she had never seen before.

‘The secretion and excrement must be the cause. This small port shouldn’t be underestimated.’

The value of the bird smuggling here was undoubtedly beyond imagination.

Lucia slowly looked around the warehouse.

Fortunately, the rare birds were relatively quiet, seeming accustomed to human eyes.

‘Is it just birds? Where…’

Lucia put the lantern on the floor and took off the hood she was wearing.

She then concentrated, and unfolded spatial synchronization.

Spatial synchronization, one of the Grand Sword Master’s techniques, was a skill that synchronized a specific space with one’s body, examining it in detail.

The more she closed her eyes and focused, the more her keen senses intricately traced the warehouse.

And she detected the irregular beating of a small heart.

This was not the steady heartbeat of the contented birds.

Lucia stopped the technique and approached the spot.

An anxious and extremely nervous feeling.

The faint, audible breath that matched it was enough to make even the daring her tense.

“…….”
The child was crouched small, clutching old cloth over the heap of feathers.

It was thanks to the black hair that had slipped through the worn cloth that had fallen apart that it was thought to be a human.

The first proof of a saint, black hair the same color as Lucia.

The second proof of a saint, a young age of about 5, just after taking off the baby’s clothes.

And if the third proof, the sacred power, appeared, this little child was in a situation where she was definitely a saint.

But without time to confirm that, Lucia saw the child’s hand sticking out between the rags in her eyes.

A tiny, tiny white hand.

It was exactly the same as that day that she had tried to forget for half her life and could not forget.

‘It’s you.’

The irony that a saint sent by God exists in such a filthy place.

“……Ah.”

Just when she was going to say something to the saint she had finally found, the child was startled by that sound.

And Lucia’s words were blocked.

‘……Have I ever spoken to a child? No, has a child of this age ever spoken?’

It didn’t make sense.

Lucia, who had never attended the wedding of a cherished colleague’s daughter or the birth of a hardearned granddaughter.

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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