I Bought the Villains With Money - Chapter 8

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Chapter 8.
“Ah… ah.”
A faint sound of confirmation that someone was alive reached my ears. At that small noise, my eyes snapped open.
“Your Highness!”
“…You’re alive.”
Whether relief, resignation, or displeasure, the indecipherable sound spilled from lips so parched they’d cracked. It was a sound that didn’t fit an eleven-year-old boy.
“Would you like some water?”
I poured water and offered it before Casion could even answer. In the meantime, one of our family’s attendants helped him sit up, and placed a plump cushion behind his back to ease the pressure from the hard bed frame.
As the attendant finished these tasks, focus sharpened distinctly in Casion’s eyes.
“This is Flac, an attendant of the Irenberg Family. Flac will be attending to your needs from now on.”
Flac bowed deeply toward Casion. Casion’s suspicious gaze swept across Flac and me in turn.
I waved the glass of water in my hand. It was a signal to drink it quickly, but Casion only stared at it blankly.
“Who are you?”
When I finally tried to press the glass into his hand, he swatted my arm away with his own raised hand.
But his feeble arm failed to achieve its purpose, gripping my wrist weakly before falling away. Casion didn’t even have the strength to grip my wrist properly.
“Flac, step outside. Jeniss, you too.”
The two of them left, and we sat in silence for a while, simply looking at each other.
When the silence began to grow tedious, Casion rolled his bloodshot eyes around the room, taking it in. His eyebrows twitched.
Did he notice?
Thanks to the softly lit lamp instead of moonlight, Casion’s transformed room was fully revealed.
A clean room, a desk properly furnished with necessities, an open wardrobe filled with neatly arranged clothes.
As I’d cleaned up Casion’s room, I’d worried that Dayson might visit later, see the dramatic changes, and cause a scene.
But Casion’s room had been in such poor condition. It wasn’t suitable even for a healthy child to live in—for a sick Casion, it had been a harsh environment.
‘Dayson didn’t visit very often, anyway.’
In the past, after visiting Casion, Dayson would always tell me about it. When I thought back, the intervals between his visits were quite long. Since he’d come today and left, he wouldn’t seek out Casion again for a while.
‘For now at least, it’d be good if he could rest comfortably.’
I could always restore the room to its original state before Dayson returned. So I’d collected all the shabby items that had been in Casion’s room in one corner without throwing them away.
“How do you feel, Your Highness?”
“You… what exactly are you?”
Casion repeated the same question with a blank expression, as if still caught in a dream.
“I doubt you’re asking for my name. So you must be asking why I’m being kind to you.”
“This is being kind?”
“Of course. I’m nursing you, providing what you need, and in the future, I’ll help you with your revenge.”
“What did you say? Ugh, cough.”
Casion’s voice rose. A cough burst from his throat. I quickly offered him the glass of water again.
He’d slept long after running a fever, so his throat must be completely parched. Speaking without drinking water in that condition—even a healthy person would cough. The timing was obvious.
Casion gripped his chest, coughing dryly for some time, but eventually accepted the glass I offered. Gulp, gulp—he drained it like someone who’d spent days in a desert.
He set the glass down with a sharp sound and stared at me intently. His gaze was quite piercing.
“Don’t look at me like that. I want to get along well with the man who’ll be my husband.”
Casion shook his head and lay back down as if he didn’t want to argue anymore.
The fact that he looked startled at the word ‘revenge’ but not at ‘husband’ suggested he hadn’t heard me properly.
I pulled the blanket up to his chin as I spoke.
“You can listen from where you’re lying, Your Highness.”
“Even the old Duke of the Irenberg line, watching from heaven, must grieve. His daughter, the one to inherit the family, has lost her mind.”
If only he weren’t sick—I’d silence that smart mouth of his with a slap!
Casion was the type to get away with sharp words. If I married him, I’d have to correct those bad habits first.
“Which would grieve him more—a mad daughter inheriting the family, or the family being stolen by a conniving younger brother? Especially if that daughter is abandoned? If I were our father, I think the latter would hurt far more.”
Casion, who’d been shifting beneath the blanket, went still. His eyes sharpened.
He studied my shadowed face for a long time. After a moment, he wet his parched lips with his tongue and spoke.
“Is it your uncle?”
Casion was sharp. From my words alone, he’d grasped the exact situation of our family. He’d skipped several steps and pinpointed the core of my problem.
“That’s right. That’s why I came here.”
“Why?”
But sharp or not, a child is still a child. He didn’t understand why I’d come to him, so he asked.
“I need a husband.”
“Whose? Yours?”
I nodded.
“Fine, congratulations on your marriage. Do you need a witness?”
“No. I need someone to marry. I’m here to marry you, Your Highness. Let’s receive congratulations together. And Your Father can be our witness.”
Casion went rigid as stone. His head, which had been gazing at the ceiling, turned toward me. With each movement he made, I heard a sound like a wooden doll creaking.
Clatter-clatter.
It seemed I’d startled him quite a bit.
“You’re… insane, aren’t you?”
He spoke those rough words with a bewildered expression, his tone as coarse as his lips.
He had every right to refuse. A princess from the Irenberg Family had appeared out of nowhere and made him a marriage proposal without warning.
But if he thought about it for even a moment, he would realize that marrying me was hardly a losing proposition.
I launched into persuasion immediately.
“Think about it, Your Highness. You’d have nothing to lose. Marry me, and you gain the mighty Irenberg Family as your steadfast ally. You know what the Irenberg Family is, don’t you? They’re a house even the King can’t simply dismiss.”
Through superior diplomacy and business acumen, the Irenberg Family had made a crucial contribution to building the kingdom’s wealth.
The Irenberg Family had prevented more than five wars, and they’d established diplomatic relations with over ten nations.
There were kings who had offered to grant the most fertile territories in their realm if the Irenberg Family would only relocate there.
Truly attractive—me, my family! So accept, Your Highness. If you’re embarrassed, just nod your head. You’re smart enough to understand.
“Marry me, Your Highness.”
So Casion should accept my proposal,
“I dislike it. I have no intention of marrying you.”
But he couldn’t refuse, could he?
***
“Are you going to the palace again today, miss?”
Jeniss asked.
I had no time to nurse my first rejection.
During the palace tour, I’d secured a secret passage that let me slip in and out of the 3rd Prince’s Palace undetected, and I visited Casion frequently. Every time I went, he turned me away at the door, but I never gave up.
It takes years to acquire a loyal retainer—surely I could endure that much effort to gain a husband.
“No.”
Jeniss naturally assumed I’d be heading to the palace today, but I had somewhere else to be.
I woke before dawn, bathed, and with Jeniss’s help changed into fresh clothes. Today I took special care, even pinning a large ribbon to my dress.
After finishing my preparations, I held myself up to the full-length mirror, turning this way and that.
No matter how I looked at it, I was lovable.
“I’m not fond of pumpkins.”
Casion had rejected my proposal with that ridiculous excuse.
“I can’t accept the pumpkin comment, but beauty is subjective, so I’ll let that slide. Still, I have plenty of money, don’t I?”
“What good is money when you’ll die before you can spend it all?”
The word ‘die’ caught in my throat. In that moment, I understood his refusal—it wasn’t that he disliked me, but that he worried about his own inability to shoulder responsibility after marriage.
Perhaps he wasn’t rejecting me because of who I was, but because he was concerned about his own circumstances.
I nearly told him that I’d seen him matured and capable, so he could stop worrying—the words rose all the way to my throat before I swallowed them.
“If the problem is dying, then I’ll just keep you alive.”
“Pardon? What did you say, miss?”
‘Oh, you saved me! What do you want? Never mind—no need to tell me. I’ll do anything for you!’
I giggled to myself, imagining what Casion would say once I’d brought him back to life. Jeniss gave me a strange look for laughing so suddenly.
“Let’s go, Jeniss.”
“Where? Tell me where we’re going!”
Jeniss followed along pleading with me, but I didn’t answer.
I was going to meet someone, but I wasn’t sure I’d actually find them.
***
“Miss, where is this place?”
The Back Alley—a place that clashed entirely with my ornate dress—I leaned against the wall at an odd angle, waiting for someone.
A foul stench wafted up from the grime caked thick on the ground and walls. Jeniss finally covered her nose.
“Doesn’t the smell bother you, miss?”
It did. And I’d smelled something like it before.
In the Underground Prison.
I didn’t want to remember that time, but I didn’t avoid it either. Painful memories made me angry, and anger was the fuel for revenge.
I was just about to explain that this stench was nothing compared to that,
when I heard footsteps—light tapping sounds against the pavement.
Someone was approaching us. Likely the person I was waiting for.
I smiled broadly and lifted my head. As expected, the person I’d been waiting for was coming toward me. I waved my hand in greeting.
Red hair tied high swayed as she moved. Seeing the younger-looking face of the woman I’d seen in the past, my heart stirred.
Happy, longing, grateful.
“Aunt!”
The leader of Chorni—the woman who had revealed herself at the execution ground for my sake in the past—my aunt Cho came to a halt.
“Aunt, it’s me—Diana Viola Irenberg! Your one and only niece!”
I rushed toward Cho, who stood stunned and blinking, and grabbed her hand. I shook our joined hands up and down enthusiastically, making no attempt to hide my joy.
“Ugh.”
But my relief, it seemed, was mine alone. In the blink of an eye, I was seized from behind. Cho wrapped her arms around me, binding me fast, and pressed a blade against my throat. A faint smell of sweat rose from her body.
“Miss!”
Jeniss, who had fallen back because of my sudden movement, cried out and stamped her feet anxiously. As her agitation rose, rats began to squeak throughout the alley.
“Tell her to stay still.”
Cho muttered darkly against my ear.
“Jeniss, don’t move! She won’t hurt me. She’s my aunt.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Yes, Aunt.”
I answered promptly, the dutiful niece.
I Bought Out the Villains with Money (serialized)
Author │ Lee In-hye
Publisher │ Kim Joo-hyung
Published by │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd. – Tiramisu
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyuk
Address │ 1101, 11F, Ace Techno Tower 8th Building, 33-gil Digital-ro, Guro-gu, Seoul
Email │ [email protected]
Website │ http://blog.naver.com/jayplemedia1
© Lee In-hye 2021
※ This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder,
and may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the publisher and author.
Violation of this may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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