To My Beloved, I Present My Exquisite Nightmare (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 9
The dining hall was just as crowded, but fortunately, since it wasn’t peak hour, they managed to find seats.
Eustar insisted on a small private room almost resembling a storeroom, even paying extra for it; only after the attendant closed the door and left did Laila realize he had done it for her sake.
“Even if just during the meal, you should be a little more comfortable. Take off your hood.”
Eustar said, and Laila stared briefly at the closed door before finally removing her hood. The table was low and not particularly clean, but at least compared to the room they’d just left, it felt almost cozy.
‘And there are no spiders.’
Laila thought.
“Do you have any favorite foods?”
When Eustar asked, Laila shook her head as if she’d never heard such a strange question before. He rang a bell to summon the attendant again. The door cracked open slightly, and the attendant peeked through the gap.
“Bring us today’s soup and dinner menu. Skip the alcohol—instead, two servings of a drink with fruit or clean water, please.”
Laila worried the attendant might fling the door wide open any second and expose her to everyone in the hall, but fortunately, that didn’t happen.
The attendant quickly jotted Eustar’s order onto a small slip of paper and, seeming somewhat rude, shut the door with a sharp click and disappeared.
“People who rent places like this are usually conducting shady dealings, so staff tend to avoid getting involved.”
Eustar added by way of explanation. Laila understood his reasoning, but she briefly wondered whether she should clarify that she hadn’t been offended by the attendant’s attitude in the first place.
Once the small private room grew distant from the noise outside, Laila finally gained some space to gather her thoughts.
Mostly, she wondered what would become of her—a curiosity about the future, something entirely new to her, both refreshing and vague.
Eustar also seemed lost in thought, but Laila had no way of knowing what was going on in his mind.
The food arrived quickly. Apparently prepared in large batches and reheated as needed, even the bread looked stale, and the chunks in the soup were mushily overcooked.
Yet as soon as Laila caught the scent of the food, a sharp pang of hunger struck her.
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen food like this.”
At Laila’s words, Eustar, who had just taken a spoonful of soup, glanced up. To keep his long hair from falling into the bowl, he’d coiled it into a bun secured at the back of his head. Without his usual flowing locks in view, his appearance seemed strikingly different.
After a thoughtful pause, Eustar spoke.
“What exactly do you mean by ‘food like this’? Are you referring to meat dishes?”
“Yes, exactly—meat dishes. When my mother was alive, she’d sometimes catch rabbits or wood pigeons and cook them for me, but I was never good at hunting.”
Truthfully, it wasn’t so much the hunting itself but the whole process afterward—cleaning and preparing the catch—that had been too difficult, but she deliberately left that part out.
Somehow, she felt it would sound odd for a witch’s daughter to say such a thing. But Eustar looked genuinely amused by her words.
“So all this time you’ve been living only on herbal soup, pumpkins, carrots, and lettuce from the garden? Along with bread you baked yourself?”
Laila felt he was teasing her. It wasn’t unpleasant, exactly—but though she wished to respond wittily, she knew well enough that she lacked such eloquence, so she answered honestly.
“In autumn, I sometimes caught fish too—near the forest where we met. There’s a small ravine just beyond it.”
“Surprising. So you can’t hunt, but you can fish?”
“With fish traps, it’s simple.”
Eustar nodded.
“Fish traps—I’ve heard of them. Never actually seen one myself, though. Supposedly, fish can swim in but can’t get back out? I understand the principle, yet it still sounds fascinating every time I hear it.”
Laila stared at Eustar with a slightly puzzled look.
“You’re really… just what are you?”
Eustar, who had been tearing bread and dipping it into the sauce of his meat dish, tilted his head.
“Didn’t I explain that already?”
“I know you’re a knight affiliated with Tentinella. But still…”
As Laila’s sentence trailed off, Eustar gave her that familiar, harmless smile.
“You think I’m hiding something, don’t you?”
Laila didn’t answer. She did feel that way, but acknowledging it outright brought an odd sensation welling up inside her—
as if she were unfairly pressuring him, or deliberately choosing a difficult path. A vague sense of guilt and discomfort pricked at her like tiny thorns on her tongue.
She shouldn’t pry further, Laila thought. It felt less like her own thought and more like some presence within her urging restraint. She was curious about him, but perhaps this wasn’t yet the time to know. So she’d wait…
Wait—until when? And why?
Laila blurted out suddenly,
“You seem a bit strange. Is that expression rude?”
A fainter, more subtle smile appeared at the corners of Eustar’s mouth.
“It depends on the person, I suppose. But to me, it’s fine. Anyway, what exactly do you mean by ‘strange’? In what way?”
While pondering her reply, Laila gently pressed the tip of her fork against the meat dish—impossible to tell whether it was pork or beef.
Now she noticed the plate was chipped on one edge, and the fork’s coating had worn off entirely, leaving it scratched and worn. Somehow, its awkward appearance reminded her of herself, and the realization left her unsettled.
Laila said,
“It’s hard to explain. But somehow… you seem to unsettle my thoughts. No—actually, you do unsettle them. I can feel it clearly.”
Eustar’s expression grew even more peculiar. He now resembled a pantomime actor unsure whether to laugh aloud or maintain a serious demeanor.
As if deliberating his next performance move to perfectly deceive his audience…
“That sounds like something people in love often say.”
His low voice carried a hint of playful mischief. The tone was still perfectly refined—if Laila had been even slightly more ordinary, she might have blushed at his words.
But instead of coloring her cheeks red, Laila just stared blankly at Eustar. He gave an awkward chuckle and took a sip of his drink. It tasted bland—perhaps he’d only pretended to squeeze in a bit of lemon.
“It was a joke. Clearly, those aren’t the eyes of someone in love. At least, not from where I’m standing.”
Laila responded immediately,
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s a joke or not. I already told you—I’m someone who can’t fall in love.”
“Who said that?”
“My mother.”
She finished her sentence as cleanly as scissors slicing through cloth and took a sip of her drink. It, too, failed to please her palate.
Eustar, having completely forgotten about his meal, now rested his chin in his hand and watched Laila intently with evident curiosity.
“What kind of person are you, exactly, Laila?”
“You can’t really be asking that seriously, can you?”
“No, I truly don’t know—that’s why I’m asking.”
Laila’s hand, holding her fork, shifted slightly. The fork, which had been moving slowly toward a mushy, overcooked potato, stopped abruptly at the edge of the plate with a soft *tick*.
“Witches. My mother said witches have no need to fall in love, so they can’t love at all.”
Suddenly, laughter rang out. It was Eustar.
“Is that really such a funny story?”
“I’m not sure. ‘No need to fall in love, therefore can’t love at all’… If what your mother said were true, then how were you even born?”
Laila said seriously,
“She said reproduction doesn’t require love. And I agree—I don’t know much, but that much seems true.”
“Well, that’s certainly an interesting—and blunt—way to put it. I agree love isn’t necessary for reproduction. I’ve even heard witches have continued their bloodline that way. But that doesn’t mean they’re incapable of love. The two aren’t synonymous.”
At the end of his sentence, the corner of his eye crinkled slightly. Laila sensed another question forming in her mind from Eustar’s words, but she decided it wasn’t worth asking just yet and stayed silent.
[This is the timeline separator]After finishing their meal, the two walked briefly through the evening streets, now beginning to bustle, before quickly returning to the inn.
Though the pain in her feet had lessened somewhat, Laila finally realized that a full stomach didn’t necessarily ease fatigue—indeed, her body felt heavier, making her even more tired. On top of that, she faced another problem.
“Laila, what’s wrong? Are you all right?”
Eustar, who had been watching her closely as she lowered her hooded head further and further, steadied her with a hand and asked. Laila glanced at the dark, opaque shadows flickering between passersby and quickly lowered her gaze again.
Some of them passed without noticing her, but others approached right up to her face.
One man, his single remaining eye swollen so grotesquely it took up half his face, was fixated on her with unsettling intensity, trailing her steps—making it impossible for her to lift her head.
Laila suppressed a rising wave of nausea and whispered softly,
“…There are too many. Can’t you feel them?”
“Oh—you mean the ghosts? Yes, I can feel them. Standing beside you, I sense them even more clearly than usual… and I can see them too. Though without my monocle, they’re not quite sharp. Are you struggling a lot? Should I carry you back to the inn?”
Laila shook her head. Her hood nearly slipped off from the motion, but she quickly caught it.
“I’m fine. I think I can manage walking like this. But that man beside…”
Just then, the man who’d been following Laila thrust his lone eye right under her face. Instinctively holding her breath, Laila froze in place.
His bulging eyeball rolled slowly. He stared directly into Laila’s face, then opened his mouth as if trying to speak—revealing a gaping, pitch-black cavity half-filled with rotting fish.
Just as a scream was about to escape Laila’s lips, Eustar’s voice cut through.
“Excuse me.”
In that instant, the tips of Laila’s feet lifted off the ground.
Turns Out He’s Been Secretly in Love with Me
One-line summary: He acts like he doesn’t like her but is actually playing hard to get.
Synopsis:
Xu Muzhou like her. He has liked her for a very long time, and through repeated schemes, he finally closed the distance with her.
But this is still far from enough.
He wants to be the one who stands out among her many suitors, to fight for her attention, and to make her take the initiative to pursue him.
_____
Please help me, I want to bring you the best possible things.
If you find any chapter or novel with poor translation and editing quality, let me know by commenting directly under that novel or chapter. I will retranslate it as soon as possible.
[Touch the gear icon in the bottom right corner of the screen to move to the next chapter if you want.]
Most Commented This Week
The Villain Has Gone Mad For Me (Completed Main Story)
I’m The Lowest-Ranking Daughter Of A Martial Arts Villain (2 Chapters Left to Complete)
I Became the Assassin Family’s Foster Daughter (Completed Main Story)
Men of the Harem (137 Chapters Left to Complete)
The Duke Only Needs My Child (Completed Main Story)
At the End of Ruin, There You Are (56 Chapters Left to Complete)
She’s a Villainess but her Husband is Handsome (Completed Main Story)
People Aren’t Meant to Be Fixed! (4 Chapters Left to Complete)
My Discarded Fiancé Returned (Completed Main Story)
Summer Must Die (16 Chapters Left to Complete)
I Received The First Time Of My Extraordinary Superior (9 Chapters Left to Complete)
Regret With All Your Might (Completed Main Story)