Her blonde hair and pale face gave her an overall light complexion. It seemed as if she would melt into the sunlight if touched by it.

She was more beautiful than anyone Johannes had ever seen. It felt almost sinful to compare her to the people he had seen in the back alleys.

While the maids standing behind the woman wrinkled their noses and covered them due to the pungent smell emanating from Johannes, the woman’s expression remained unchanged as if she hadn’t smelled anything.

She neither smiled nor frowned.

Just expressionless. Yet it suited her well.

She opened her cherry-like lips and spoke.

“There’s no need for a paternity test. He’s the spitting image of the Marquis. It’s strange how we haven’t found him until now.”

With that, she waved her white, delicate hand as if her business was concluded.

“Take him away. Wash him up and make him presentable before the Marquis returns.”

“Understood.”

The man tried to take Johannes away again. Johannes avoided his hand and approached the woman.

Others were startled and tried to restrain him, but the woman raised her hand to stop them all.

“Yes, do you have something to say?”

“What, what will happen to me?”

Others inhaled sharply at the bold question, but the woman herself showed no reaction.

She explained very briefly with her characteristic cool face.

“You will grow up as the sole heir of Belliard from now on.”

“Belli… ard?”

“Yes. Judging by that stupid expression, you have a long way to go.”

“Then…”

The woman cut him off as if she wouldn’t allow any more questions.

“Ask someone else about anything else. I’m not here to answer your questions.”

Her voice was soft, but there was an intimidating pressure that felt like it shouldn’t be defied.

Johannes bit his inner lip and quietly followed the man out of the room.

Behind his back, the woman murmured as if floating away.

“You’re lucky. To be born as an illegitimate child of Belliard among all those noble families.”

Johannes later understood what she meant by “lucky.”

The identity of the woman everyone trembled before was the Marchioness Belliard.

Although she wasn’t from a prestigious family, she developed a relationship with Marquis Belliard and succeeded in marrying him despite the family’s opposition.

The couple had a very good relationship, but even after three years, they didn’t have a child.

As they couldn’t produce an heir to continue the family line, their relationship began to deteriorate slightly. Marquis Belliard started going out, and he rarely visited the Marchioness’s room.

Eventually, the family’s doctor cautiously diagnosed that one of them was likely infertile. However, there was no way to diagnose exactly whose problem it was, so they didn’t know for several more years.

At that time, Marquis Belliard received information that a maid who had run away long ago without a word had given birth to his child.

The Marchioness’s infertility was confirmed.

However, the Marquis didn’t tell anyone about the existence of his illegitimate child.

Rationally, he should have dismissed the infertile Marchioness and taken a new wife.

But the Marquis, who still had feelings for the Marchioness, couldn’t easily decide on divorce. In the end, he gave her a choice.

Either divorce now, or bring in the illegitimate child and raise him as a son and heir.

The Marchioness chose the latter, and that’s how Johannes came to the Marquis’s house.

Johannes finally understood what the Marchioness had said on the day he learned all this.

If she had had no problems and there was already a legitimate child in the Marquis’s family, Johannes wouldn’t have been in this world.

She added that either the Marchioness or the Marquis would have killed him for the family’s honor, and that’s why the maid who guessed this had run away.

In fact, the father who had raised him and the people who had brought him here had disappeared without a word. Johannes thought they were probably dead.

So Johannes was truly a “lucky” child.

Johannes knew that the Marchioness didn’t welcome him. However, she couldn’t completely hate him either.

Johannes was evidence of her beloved husband’s infidelity, but at the same time, he was the child who allowed the Marchioness to remain in the Marquis’s family.

If it weren’t for him, the Marchioness would have been driven out someday for not being able to produce an heir.

Anyway, Johannes grew up smoothly, being educated as the heir of the Marquis’s family. Externally, it was known that they had adopted a distant relative of the Marquis.

Although illegitimate, he was still the only child of Marquis Belliard. The Marquis tended to treat his people well, and naturally cared for Johannes too.

He wasn’t a father who openly doted on Johannes or was head over heels for him, but he did everything he could as a father.

However, Johannes couldn’t be satisfied with that. His gaze constantly turned not to the Marquis, but to the Marchioness.

Johannes had been curious about her since the day he first met her. Unlike the Marquis who treated him like a son, the Marchioness treated him as if he didn’t exist, which sparked a strange stubbornness in him.

He was determined to work hard and eventually gain her recognition. His goal was to make her accept him as her son.

He hoped to see emotions other than indifference on that expressionless face that always looked down on him.

But the Marchioness never showed any expression when looking at him. As if even her emotions were a luxury for a worm like him.

It wasn’t romantic love. Johannes swore to God that he had never seen her as a woman.

He just wanted her to look at him as a mother.

Perhaps it was a thirst stemming from growing up being called a motherless child since he was young.

While this subtle atmosphere continued inside the mansion, people outside often talked about the Belliard family.

People praised Marquis Belliard’s devotion for not divorcing the Marchioness. Some even said that the Marchioness was benevolent for taking in and raising her husband’s relative who wasn’t even her own child.

However, contrary to the rumors, the relationship between the Marquis and his wife internally festered more and more. The two gradually spent less time together, and eventually, the Marchioness began to seclude herself.

And on a winter day when Johannes was 15 years old.

Johannes ran to the Marchioness’s room upon hearing a maid’s scream echoing through the corridor.

The Marchioness had collapsed on the bed, vomiting blood. While the maids hurriedly went to call for a doctor, Johannes rushed to her to see what had happened.

A small glass vial fallen beside the bed. The faint scent of Jeron flowers spread around. Jeron flowers were famous for giving death without causing much damage to a person’s appearance.

In other words, the Marchioness hadn’t collapsed from illness, but had taken poison herself.

Johannes quickly took her in his arms.

“Why did you do this?”

The Marchioness barely opened her eyes. She just looked up at Johannes silently.

Johannes didn’t cry. Instead, he calmly poured out the words he had wanted to say all along.

“If you were going to do this, why didn’t you just leave the Marquis’s family? Why did you make this choice?”

“…”

“Why did you never give me your heart? If I have any fault, it’s being born as an illegitimate child from a maid’s body, but that’s not something I could control, is it? So strictly speaking, it’s not even my fault.”

“…”

“Couldn’t you have smiled at me just once? When I was brought here by strangers and stood before you, I was only 7 years old. Didn’t you feel any sympathy as an adult for such a child?”

The Marchioness, who had been listening to him silently, moved her lips. Johannes put his ear close to hear her voice.

“You will never be my son.”

“…!”

Even while vomiting blood, the Marchioness continued to speak to Johannes.

“I shouldn’t have brought you in.”

She smiled at Johannes for the first time. It was a relieved smile, as if she had finally been freed from all shackles.

“I curse you. For life.”

She closed her eyes without giving him the answer he wanted until the end.

After the Marchioness’s funeral, Johannes often had nightmares. In his dreams, a bloodied Marchioness would appear, mocking and reproaching him.

He woke up screaming from his dreams several times. Johannes began to feel anger boiling up inside him like hellfire.

His anger was directed at Marchioness Belliard, who had never once looked back at him. But she was already dead, and Johannes’s anger had nowhere to go.

He wanted to dig up the Marchioness’s grave and randomly mutilate her body.

He wanted to stab her over and over with a knife until this emotion subsided, to mock her when she was in ruins.

To ask her how it felt to be ridiculed by the child she had so ignored, to tell her that her curse had no effect on him whatsoever.

But he had enough reason left not to run to the grave right away.

Instead, he took out his anger on innocent people. He would hit maids or servants or hurl insults at them.

Perhaps Johannes was already caught up in the Marchioness’s curse.