While having a lengthy discussion with Jeffrey, Edward suddenly closed his eyes against the stabbing red light.

Barely opening his eyes, he looked out the window to see the sun already tilting in the sky.

“Is it already this late?” he muttered.

Hearing this, Jeffrey, who was busy writing down various ideas with a pen, asked, “Are you going to the telegraph office?”

Edward paused, deep in thought. If he was going to be late, he should send a telegram.

‘Should I stop here and leave for the day, or continue working and then go?’

The image of a dark living room and an empty chair came to mind.

His wife no longer waited for him. The meaningful time to send a telegram had already passed.

Yet, he had promised her. If he was going to be late, he would send a telegram.

After hesitating, he decided to send one.

Edward called another employee and instructed, “Go send a telegram to the Allan mansion. Tell them I’ll be home late tonight and not to wait up. Then you can head home.”

“Yes, Mr. President,” the employee said, excited for an early finish.

As the employee left, Edward turned his attention back to the paper in front of him. He shot a look at Jeffrey, who was enviously watching the departing employee, and snapped, “What are you doing? Get on with this.”

Late into the night, long after dusk had settled.

A pair of dazzling headlights entered the mansion’s main gate.

Thud. The garage door opened, and Edward’s car slid inside. Parking next to his wife’s spot, he turned off the engine and stepped out of the driver’s seat.

Edward then reached for the mansion’s front door handle.

Instead of opening the door, he stepped back and started walking in the direction he had come from.

“It was the backyard,” he remembered.

He decided to visit his wife’s garden to see what it looked like.

He rarely even opened the front door when he got home, let alone took a stroll in the backyard. Thus, the rear of the house had been completely out of his awareness.

The backyard wasn’t far from the garage, just a few dozen steps. There, he found a small garden.

It was a tiny piece of land, maybe half an acre at best. A quaint fence encircled it, each stake unevenly cut and placed, clearly hand-done. The stakes became more uniform towards the end, likely because Paul had stepped in to help.

“Why do you have to mess with this again?” he sighed deeply.

He wished she would indulge in elegant activities like attending operas and hosting music concerts. But instead of such refined cultural hobbies, she was dabbling in… this.

Freshly turned clumps of soil indicated she had been at it again.
Edward muttered to himself, “If you wanted to see crops growing, you should’ve hired a gardener.”

That way, the gardener would work for money, and she could comfortably enjoy whatever she wanted to see. It would be beneficial for both parties.

Yet, for some reason, she insisted on doing it herself, something he truly couldn’t comprehend.

‘It must satisfy you to scrape at my heart like this. You.’

He wished she had remained ignorant and unable to do anything.

Nobles typically enjoyed high culture, listening to music played by others, admiring paintings by others, enjoying food prepared by others, and appreciating gardens maintained by others.

Nobles were a class far removed from the word ‘labor,’ but his wife was different. Or rather, she had changed.

All the things she knew how to do now, she had learned while being intertwined with him.

Everything that made her the subject of gossip, including this gardening, was something she had learned while plunging herself into the frontline of life to give a worthless man like him a chance to recover, instead of caring for her own comfort.

His heart ached unbearably at this truth.

He wanted to make her stop immediately. He would hire a gardener, so she no longer had to dirty her hands.

But, as always, he knew he wouldn’t really do it. He lacked the confidence to convince his wife, and the only way to separate her from these activities without her agreement was to tie her hands and feet, metaphorically speaking.

So, all he could do was continuously express his wish for her to stop.

His wife wouldn’t listen to his request anyway, and he would again clutch his festering heart, but he had no choice.

He added another task to the list in his mind while looking at his wife’s traces all over the small garden.

If anyone mocked her for gardening, he had to find that person and somehow shut them up.

At 5 AM, Edward suddenly woke up. His clothes were strangely damp, as if he had sweat in his sleep.

He got up and drew back the curtain by the window. The day was still dark due to the shortened daylight.

As he opened the window, a chilly breeze entered. The cold air seemed to make the hairs on his body stand up.

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

He had had an unpleasant dream, though he couldn’t remember the exact details.

Feeling an unexplained anxiety, he felt the need to see Louisa. He quickly got ready and left the room.