In the past, the Count only had to frown slightly, and she would watch his face turn pale, but now, whether he glared or gritted his teeth, she didn’t care and provoked him in every way.

So Zion belatedly realized his negligence.

He thought he had just been growling, but somehow, he had been letting Evie in. Maybe Evie had cleverly dug her way in on her own.

Either way, it was not a good sign for Zion.

“Was that also you, Count? Knocking out the Duke of Montra?”

Thus spoke Evie, who had been teasing a moment before, suddenly changing her tone.

“Thank you for helping me when I was in trouble. I almost made a big mistake, but thanks to you, Count, I got through it.”

Evie expressed her gratitude, removing her hand from her chin. At that moment, her tone was not so lively, but rather skillful.

It was similar to when she was walking under the back flower, and so Zion felt that Evie was drawing a line again.

Evie seemed to want to finish the conversation about the Duke with this.

Zion didn’t want to let it go, but he couldn’t ignore Evie’s calm and desperate eyes.

“……It was my subordinate’s fault in the first place. So you don’t need to thank me.”

In the end, Zion swallowed his misplaced anger and reluctantly matched her pace.

He had tried to accommodate her, but Evie rolled her eyes again, seemingly displeased with his bureaucratic answer.

So Zion’s feelings became even more complicated.

It was quite miserable that Zion was angry because of Evie. But it wasn’t strange or surprising. It just felt like a planned accident had happened.

From the beginning, Zion didn’t deny that Evie was special to him. Rather, he was more inclined to avoid entanglement because he knew it too well.

Evie might not know it, and nobody but Zion knew it, but Evie had always been in Zion’s time for the past seven years.

When he couldn’t find out where she was, most of his time was spent looking for Evie.

When he found out she was in Tienda, he tried to ignore her but still listened for news of Evie.

She was someone he had been looking for over the years.

So it wasn’t special, but Zion strenuously ignored it.

He didn’t want to be played by a fortuneteller. He didn’t want to answer his wasteful emotions. He had had enough of the leash.

But a man named Cassel Montra provoked Zion without realizing it, and Zion faced Evie’s weight in helpless anger.

Really, it was miserably so.

Due to his complex feelings, Zion’s gaze towards Evie lingered longer.

Then Evie made a questioning noise, and Zion calmly deflected the conversation.

“You were busy earlier, did you finish everything?”

“Yes, thanks to the Count glaring at me like in the old days, I could roam around to my heart’s content.”

Evie answered promptly. The ending had been a little dirty because of the Duke of Montra, but it was still a somewhat satisfied face.

“But since you brought it up, why did you glare at me like that when you first saw me? At the Imperial Castle.”
“You must have heard the rumors about being bald.”

“No, before that.”

“Before that?”

At Evie’s question, Zion looked at her as if he didn’t understand what she was saying. His expression wasn’t feigned ignorance; he truly didn’t know.

So, suspicion in Evie’s eyes gradually turned into astonishment.

“Count, is your eyesight very bad?”

When Evie asked with a groaning voice, Zion nodded without much thought.

Though the Count has everything, his eyesight is poor. Therefore, he can’t see far without glasses.

And people with astigmatism tend to frown to see things at a distance.

“But why don’t you wear glasses? People misunderstand.”

Evie, who had realized the truth of that day after almost a month, gritted her teeth and blamed Zion.

However, Zion ignored Evie’s criticism with a shameless face. It was an expression that said he didn’t care about others’ misunderstandings.

Seeing his stubborn look, Evie narrowed her eyes and muttered.

“I may not be at fault, but it seems I somewhat misunderstood the Count’s baldness. But don’t be too upset. Your first impression and current impression are not much different.”

Evie said as if Zion was truly bad, and Zion almost laughed at her appearance.

And while Evie was nagging, Zion’s mood, which had been hitting the floor, improved quite a bit.

Zion was still uncomfortable, but there was one consolation.

It was that the emotion he felt when he looked at Evie was similar to when he looked at his students.

They are impertinent, cute, annoying, and troublesome, and the ones who touch them harshly want to kill them.

Zion was reassured by this suitable liking that matched his character.

And he was also relieved again by the fact that he was different from that crazy astrologer.

“Anyway, I have received help so far, so now it’s my turn to help the Count.”

Evie pointed to the main issue after a long chat.

This was the reason the two had met using a secret passage in the first place.

Evie and Zion, who had promised cooperation, had agreed to help each other alternately. And since Evie had received help earlier, it was now naturally Zion’s turn.

What Evie had to do now was to find out the secret that Zion couldn’t say himself.

But after saying it was her turn to help, Evie was silent for a while.

Evie was not looking at Zion, who was sitting across from her, but blinking slowly at a distant place.

In her appearance, which seemed to be pondering something, Zion quietly watched Evie’s black pupils disappear and reappear.

After a while, Evie looked at Zion again.

“Is the astrologer sir, Count Laurel by any chance?”

And she tore Zion’s heart into a thousand pieces.