My Ex-Husband Came Back Crazy - Chapter 11

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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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Episode 12
Chapter 2. An Unexpected Turn (1)
The afternoon was warm, with the sun spreading across the cloudless sky.
Lucius sat casually at the edge of the bed.
The doctor, who had often seen patients made irritable by their condition, straightened the back he had bent with a look of admiration crossing his eyes.
As light tilted in beside him, shadows fell delicately beneath his neck and collarbone. The sharp lines created by light and shadow erased the fact that he had been a patient lying in a sickbed not long ago.
“The sutures on your lower back need not be a concern any longer.”
Lucius, running a finger over the long scar that remained above his pubic bone, answered lightly.
“It’s only because I was attended by such skilled physicians.”
When the castle’s attending physicians collapsed from overwork, the Duchess of Windmere had arrived unannounced with an outside doctor in tow.
Yet the elder physician laughed pleasantly at Lucius’s genteel bearing, which never once showed displeasure.
“It is the young master’s strong will to recover that has made the difference. I shall relay the remaining precautions to the Duchess.”
The Duchess, who had been standing anxiously in a corner of the room, began to speak with the physician.
Lucius fastened his buttons while observing her, the servants and maids moving busily about, and even the kitchen master who had brought the meal herself.
His gaze was that of an observer.
Perhaps because he had only recently awakened after losing his memory, everything before him felt like opening a storybook for the first time—one he ought already to know.
Just then, the Duchess, who had been in conversation with the physician, turned to look at Lucius.
At her worried gaze, he met her eyes gently and offered a tender smile.
Soon after sending the physician away, the Duchess of Windmere approached with hurried steps.
“I simply couldn’t bring myself to discuss your memory loss with an outside physician……. I’m troubled that despite all the effort, it may not have helped you.”
“I’m truly well, Mother.”
Mother.
Lucius rolled the unfamiliar word in his mouth.
“Lucius…… Truly, you remember nothing at all?”
“I’m afraid not. I hope I haven’t disappointed you greatly?”
“Of course not, no. Disappointed? This was simply an unfortunate accident beyond anyone’s control. My son, you needn’t bear such an expression.”
The Duchess concealed her barely suppressed tears and carefully drew him into an embrace.
Her arms held an unspoken sorrow—like the acrid scent of grim resignation that rises in the wake of shattered hope.
She must have hoped.
That after a single night of deep sleep, his memory would return like a miracle with the first breath of morning.
“Don’t worry. Your memory will return soon. God will restore you to me.”
“…… Of course.”
Even to his mother’s words, which seemed to regard him as “something temporary,” Lucius replied calmly. He felt neither hurt nor displeasure.
After all, he could not even feel the emotion needed to call the woman before him his mother.
He remembered the chaos that had assailed him when he opened his eyes.
People had called his name, pouring out fragments of emotion, but those sounds had all seemed to blur like mist beyond distant mountains, leaving no form in him.
Yet the moment Celia approached was different.
A woman who had walked with uncertain steps through a crowd twisted together with tears, grateful sighs, and prayers. In that instant, his still inner depths experienced a shocking upheaval.
In that brief moment of beholding her, his scattered mind had become exquisitely ordered, and his thoughts had aligned around her as their center.
An emotion skewed with almost grotesque intensity rushed upon him as if it had been waiting.
When he finally gathered her into his arms, the confusion he had felt vanished without a trace, and in its place came an incomprehensible clarity.
A feeling both nakedly honest and unabashedly sincere had confessed to him that he desired her.
By contrast, his emotions toward others were as loose as puzzle pieces forced carelessly into place, entirely failing to form a coherent picture.
“Lucius, once you’re feeling a bit better, let’s take an outing together. I’ll show you all the things you loved. Surely that will help your memory return all the sooner?”
Just as it had now.
“I’d be delighted to go. I find myself already looking forward to it.”
“It will surely be pleasant.”
He could not explain the emptiness he carried within himself now. Yet one thing filled that void with absolute clarity.
But even as his thoughts reached toward Celia, who had turned from him and lain down, his lips began to curve downward with subtle displeasure.
“My lady, young master.”
A servant approached to deliver a message.
“The Imperial Court has sent someone.”
***
After Evandor had left, Celia returned to her room and exhaled as though swallowing the last thread of her restraint.
But she could not hold back her anger. She kicked at an irritating walnut wood table and sprawled across the sofa.
Her back struck the cushions with a loud hiss of air, and the folds of her dress, unable to support their own weight, tumbled across her legs. She threw her arms wide, covered her eyes with one hand, and clenched her teeth. Cool rage spread along her jaw.
“This is madness.”
Everything she had believed to be true reconciliation was nothing but an illusion.
So her father and Evandor had hidden such a thing seamlessly and then married her off to Lucius?
Treason? And Lucius held evidence of it?
“Ha……!”
Rage that could not be fully voiced rose deep in her throat.
And the feeling that surpassed even that—the feeling she dared not acknowledge—
“Why does Evandor know what I don’t?”
A profound humiliation swept over her, so vast that even the air brushing her cheek seemed to freeze.
Celia tilted her head back.
Sunlight slid down across the delicate line of her neck. Beyond the window, the sky was a pure, glassy blue as though not a drop of ink had touched it. That clarity seemed to gesture toward her, shattering within her blue eyes.
The thought came unbidden—perhaps she ought to go outside for once.
“If that were possible, I wouldn’t be sitting here like this…….”
Evandor’s words still circled in her ears.
Worthless wretch.
‘Seduce Lucius? What am I supposed to do with him?’
Rather than perform such a revolting act, it would have been far easier for her to go down to Dunlow Hallow and mimic a virtue she didn’t possess.
Yet so long as her father stood behind Evandor, she could not refuse the command.
“…… It’s fine. I’ll find another way.”
Without resorting to such filthy means, she was perfectly capable of finding the evidence of treason he held and protecting Brickwell.
She could search the castle, or bribe Lucius’s people. As Celia turned over several possibilities in her mind, she soon buried her face deep in the sofa.
Knock, knock—
Before long, she had to force her heavy body upright.
“Come in.”
“My lady.”
The woman who entered had originally been a maid of House Windmere, but Celia had turned her, and for the past year and a half, Lily had served faithfully as her spy.
Before the door could fully close, Celia quietly beckoned Lily, who had been watching the corridor, and had her sit nearby.
“So, what is it today?”
“The young master has issued a new order. I came to inform you.”
Something related to Lucius.
At the mere mention of a name she most wanted to hear, Celia flicked her foot dismissively. As she rested her chin on her hand, Lily lowered her voice.
“A moment, if I may speak freely……”
Celia, whose eyes had been dully downcast at what she assumed would be tedious talk, gradually had no choice but to open them wide at what Lily said next.
***
Celia stood in the middle of the corridor leading to Lucius’s study.
According to the news Lily had brought, Lucius would soon reopen the study that had been closed for some time. For Celia, who had something to find, this was decidedly unwelcome.
“So the documents Father is looking for are likely to be in the study.”
As she clenched her fist, the cold touch of metal bit into her palm.
It was the Key her father had given her on their wedding day, along with an explanation that though small, it could open most doors.
When she received it, she had never imagined a day would come when she’d need to use it. Her mouth felt dry.
A breeze brushed across her thin nightgown. The air against her skin was cold, yet that very coldness sharpened her mind.
‘Just go in, quickly scan for hidden documents, and get out.’
Though she had committed countless misdeeds before, breaking into someone’s study was a first. Her heart beat with a trace of nervous tension.
Moonlight became her sole guide, and the corridor carpet muffled her footsteps. Celia’s feet moved with certainty toward their destination. She had never been inside, yet she knew exactly where his study lay.
How long did she walk like that?
‘Is it this one?’
Right beside the third-floor landing, a door bearing the carved image of a hawk with wings spread caught Celia’s eye.
Moving cautiously, Celia reached the door and quietly turned the handle.
‘It’s locked, as expected.’
With nimble fingers, she withdrew the Key.
She inserted the delicately curved Key into the hole beneath the lock and twisted her wrist.
And……
“……?”
Why wouldn’t it open?
Startled, Celia applied more force.
Click-! The door frame vibrated loudly, but the lock would not budge.
‘Damn it!’
Her father had clearly said it could open most doors……! A faint disturbance rippled across Celia’s eyes.
Frowning, she placed a hand on her hip and took a deep breath.
‘Right, the young master’s study door shouldn’t be flimsy.’
Still, shouldn’t it just open smoothly?
Her increasingly desperate hand grasped the Key again and twisted it in a different direction.
Click, click, clack—!
Only strange grinding sounds came back, and the door remained stubbornly shut.
Just as Celia raised her arm to hurl the Key in frustration—
“Hm?”
At the presence that brushed past her back, Celia spun around like a startled cat, her shoulders jumping.
“The night air is cold. What brings you here?”
A lamp flickered from atop the stairs. The golden hair holding the light gleamed softly.
Lucius stood at the edge of that light, his green eyes quietly embracing the glow as he looked down at her.
Celia hurriedly hid the Key behind her back. It was an obviously suspicious movement.
“Celia?”
Beneath hair that fell to cover his forehead, his sleep-touched face tilted slightly, a thin thread of question crossing his eyes.
Lucius’s gaze slowly descended.
She felt his eyes fasten on the hand she’d concealed behind her back, so she quickly stepped forward.
She silenced the rush of grievances about Lucius’s sudden appearance and let unguarded words escape her lips.
“I came to see you.”
I’ve completely ruined this.

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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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