Chapter 12

Adriana’s father, Duke Duke La Campanella Magnolia, was surprisingly verbose. I couldn’t tell if it stemmed from concern for his affection, but when looking at the text alone, it appeared to be a scathing criticism of his unruly daughter’s improper behavior, which seemed like a futile effort.

“Even at the Crown Prince’s banquet,”

Oh, that’s right. I hadn’t even noticed, but the Magnolia family attended the Crown Prince’s birthday celebration. They looked completely different from Adriana; I couldn’t have imagined it.

Adriana, born with silver hair reminiscent of moonlight and a splendid aura resembling the dawn, and Adriana, who looked different, rode magnificent steeds adorned with the brilliance of moonlight and the beauty of the dawn.,

Elliot, and La, whatever his name was, had dark hair and black eyes.

Due to the Confucian turmoil raging within me, La was holding back his sermon of sorts. But even I, who couldn’t predict when I would behave quietly, couldn’t fathom it.

“Even if you’re married, Adriana, you are undeniably a member of the Duke’s family,”

Oh, this was bad. I started to yawn.

Had I been too busy and exhausted in the past few days? Or was it because I had been enlightened by the magician with important and bizarre truths? Could it be that my hope of having a meal after almost a year was betraying me?

I made every effort not to fall asleep, whether the Duke was delivering his long-winded speech or whether Elliot was giving me cold glances as he reclined halfway on the couch.

One of them was singing in my heart.

When the repertoire I often sang in karaoke was over, I sang the national anthem, and then I remembered a children’s song from the elementary school music textbook.

“Even though it seems like no one is there, somewhere around your position…”

A baby’s poem neatly placed under the shade of yellow forsythia flowers – this doesn’t seem right. Again, again. A shot of an orchard outside the east wall – no, this isn’t it.

“…Adriana?”

Don’t cry, don’t cry. It’s unfair that Santa Claus doesn’t give presents to crying children. I’ll file a complaint with the Human Rights Commission.

“Adriana!”

“Huh?”

“Huh? What are you saying now? I’ve been talking all this time…”

“…I’ve been thinking, but La- whatever his name is, it’s too long. Can I just call you Rha?”

“What did you just say?”

“It feels friendly and nice. Rha!”

I have no intention of getting close, but that’s that. La Campanella, or rather ‘Rha,’ shouting loudly did wake me up a bit. Whether it was purely from surprise or a defense mechanism ingrained in Adriana’s nerves, I don’t know.

“Adriana, you…”

“Ugh. Didn’t I tell you to treat the Grand Duchess properly earlier? But you don’t seem to have any intention of doing it properly. Should I just stop talking too?”

“Adriana, what are you saying to Father right now?”

“Leave the filial piety to yourself. I have no title to inherit, no further inheritance to receive, and no established bond with him, do I?”

It’s a conjecture, but.

“After obediently following his orders, he’s throwing a tantrum now. Hey, Adriana de Winter, you know you’ll be thirty after your birthday this year, right? You had a home education, but why are you making such a fuss now.”

April told me.

Rha and Elliot’s faces went through a gradient of colors. If you sampled them with a color picker, they’d probably have the same color code.

My tongue rambled as it pleased. Was this what it felt like to speak without filtering through the brain? I had no particular intention of censoring my words, but it seemed that they felt the same way, so I didn’t feel guilty or sorry.

And when you stripped away the facade of family, there was no reason for Adriana to submit to the Magnolia lineage. Whether it was titles or inheritances, I didn’t know much about it, but with the mines we already had, we were accumulating tremendous wealth. There was no need to gather more capital from here.

Although it was said that there was always room for improvement, the current assets alone were astronomical numbers beyond estimation. Whether it increased or decreased from here, that was the question.

“…You’ve changed.”

“Because I’m not the Adriana you used to know.”

Oh, I used formal language again. I declared that I would speak casually, but polite language came out naturally. Is this the Confucian filter ingrained in my vocal cords? Is this related to Confucianism too? Is it in the Book of Rites?

“By the way, have you never written about Adriana Magnolia?”

“What?”

“I mean, isn’t it like that? If something has changed or whatever, you should at least write about it. How many times have I seen you since you got married? No, did I even see you properly before you got married? I don’t really remember.”

If you really wanted to see, you should have come to the North to show your faces.

And if you had truly known who Adriana de Winter was, I should have realized in an instant that I was not your family. Even if it was just a tiny inkling, I should have been cautious.

However, whether it was here or there, the only person who truly understood Adriana was April. This is also my speculation. If she was willing to share her clever plan involving another soul, would you trust her as ordinary?

“Anyway! I’ve shown my face, so I’m leaving in search of my happiness. Take care, and don’t call me unless you’re revising your will.”

“Adriana, what is this about?”

She lifted her body buried in the couch and tapped the toe of her shoe. All she had consumed was bitter, hot tea, so her stomach felt empty.

He doesn’t even have any sense. He didn’t have to show a chocolate fountain show, but how nice would it have been if he brought something to whet the appetite, like a seafood pancake or spicy hot pot?

Oh, I want to eat spicy hot pot. Loaded with mushrooms and bok choy, extra spicy. It’ll set my tongue and stomach on fire.

“Wait, Adriana!”

I was walking down the unnecessarily long corridor when Elliot caught up to me. His presence next to Rha, who was standing still like a piece of kelp, was quite impressive.

“Have you always thought that way?”

Wait, this kid’s way of speaking sounds familiar.

“What?”

“…Were you unhappy about not inheriting the title? But titles usually go to the firstborn,”

“I didn’t ask, did I?”

“…Why didn’t you say anything?”

“What?”

Ah! This brat’s way of speaking is just like our esteemed Northern Grand Duke. Leaving out one or two essential components of a sentence and making the conversation unclear. A rude tone that forces you to ask the same question again.

Isn’t it exhausting to live like that? Well, it’s not tiring for him, so he speaks that way. A guy who only gave short answers in the final job interview and got rejected. Then he’s hired because he’s the chairman’s son.

“What you’ve been thinking… why didn’t you say it sooner?”

Now I’m tired of asking what’s going on again. It’s like asking why you didn’t say anything before we got married – Callian was truly Callian, after all.

Are all these cold-looking noble young gentlemen like this? No matter how much the world is set up according to appearances…

“Well, I don’t have an obligation to answer that, do I?”

“What do you mean?”

His low voice was extremely charming, but to me, who had become familiar with the voice and face of the Northern Grand Duke over the past year, it fell short of making an impression.

Elliot’s firm gesture of reconciliation – it wasn’t difficult to understand the meaning of reconciliation and apology. Because Elliot was truly sorry to Adriana as if he had been drawn in a novel, it was not at all difficult to reject him.

“It’s all in the past, and I mean I don’t want to talk about it. You can misunderstand or forget it on your own.”

“…My father did it because it was hard for him too. I did it too. Because I thought of our late mother,”

“So, you should have handled it on your own. Why did you pass the responsibility to your daughter, your sister, and create this mess now? Did your conscience go to the North? If Elliot’s conscience is bent on the way back to Winter, I’ll pick it up and send it as a package.”

I raised my lips into a big smile and laughed brightly. If you smile, you can’t spit in your face, and a well-prepared performance often ends well.

Well, it’s unrelated to the current chaotic situation, but I just want to laugh. After all, they say the one who laughs last is the winner. And I still had an unfulfilled purpose.

“Oh, I’ll get some alcohol from the storage.”

“Alcohol?”

“Yep. You don’t have to offer it since I’ll take care of it myself. Oh, tell ‘La’ not to mess with Callian or other Northern nobles.”

“La?”

“Yeah. Your dad.”

La Campanella Magnolia. Well, it was more or less that name, but ‘La’ still felt friendly, concise, and meaningful. It didn’t have any special significance, but maybe it would grow on me naturally as I called it.

***

The late afternoon bookstore was well-lit and peaceful. Even in a small rural area, the Empire, with its low illiteracy rate and developed printing technology, was said to have at least one bookstore.

Considering that, the typesetting was poor, but it was a tremendous advantage that even common people could easily access books. It meant there was at least some opportunity for basic education.

Moreover, the current Emperor was a voracious reader. According to April, it was thanks to the Emperor that the bookstores and libraries in the Empire had grown in size…

In addition, there was a rumor that since the time when the Emperor and his lover were together, he had whispered the books he had read that day on the bed. This sweet love story of the reigning Emperor had long been a topic of discussion among the people of the Empire.

I returned after finishing work, and my loved one was telling me stories in a soft, romantic tone. It was such a romantic subject. If it were a romance novel, I thought it would go on and on, but it was funny that even without that, novels with such content had swept through and passed.

“Do you like romance, Callian?”

“I doubt it.”

I had a feeling he would say that. Callian pretended to browse the books on the shelves and then followed me. Both of us had brown hair and brown eyes, but this beauty hadn’t faded, so we attracted people’s attention wherever we went.

If our hair color was a bit more subtle, we wouldn’t need to drink nauseating potions. Silver hair with gold highlights, and black hair with red highlights, we were doomed.

Fortunately, Callian willingly took the potion to change his hair color. Originally, the plan was to leisurely stroll and browse books alone.

“Is this kind of content enjoyable?”

“You, who don’t know the joy of romance, are pitiful!”

“Huh?”

“Leave it be. It’s a matter of taste. If you don’t like it, see over there? There’s a section on ‘how to speak kindly.’ Go and check that out.”

“Why on earth would you read such a book?”

Despite changing our hair and eye colors, it seemed like we couldn’t hide the aura that surrounded us, and the boss continued to hover around us, keeping an eye on us. Every time we picked up a book, I could hear the sound of a calculator running in my head. There were no calculators in this world.

Life… I couldn’t quite adapt to the excessive kindness that didn’t match the hourly wage. It was because there was a worn-out and twisted worker’s self inside me.

“Oh, this one’s fine. <From Beginning to End, the 10 Essential Techniques for Making Friends>. I’ll give you this as a gift. Will you read it?”

The title seemed to be written with white ink, just like Callian’s relationships flowed…

“You said you visited the Duke’s residence.”

“Yes, well. But didn’t we already talk about that earlier?”

“Tell me,”

Callian persistently dug into what had happened, what words were exchanged. Oh, could this be it? Is it the awakening of obsession? Is it the build-up phase of being obsessed? I really dislike it.

We were each minding our own business, playing solo, and suddenly he wanted to team up and restrain me, it was just-

“I just brought some alcohol.”

“Alcohol? What kind? Wine? Brandy? Rum? Or perhaps, was it some other fruit liquor?”

…Huh?

“It’s just a few crates of wine…”

“Did you drink from there too?”

“No, I just brought it to have at the mansion.”

…Mansion, manners?

“How are you going to drink it? Again, in an empty stomach? Are you planning to mix it? Like, having multiple glassware and mixing it like a madman -“

“What do you call this obsession…? Is this considered an obsession too? From the start, is there a male lead who interferes with how you’re going to drink alcohol?”