My Husband Lives in a Painting - Chapter 18

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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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My Husband Lives in a Painting 018
In that instant, Gael’s eyes turned cold as ice.
“When did I ask for your opinion?”
“Y-yes, I…?”
“A mere servant who doesn’t know his place, running his mouth without leave.”
“I-I’m terribly sorry. Young master—or rather, sir.”
“The choice is mine alone. Step out of line once more, and I’ll have your lips sewn shut. Understand?”
“Y-yes….”
His own dignity mattered most, and once he’d crushed the presumptuous servant back into submission, his anger seemed to ease somewhat.
Gael raked his fingers through the hair falling across his forehead in a rough, dismissive gesture, then waved the servant out with a curt flick of his hand.
“Get out. And don’t bother me again with such nonsense.”
“Yes, sir.”
When the servant had gone, only Gael and the painting remained in the room.
He stood with his arms crossed, watching it for a long moment, his gaze complicated and searching.
‘Sunflowers.’
Yes. He’d heard of this before, somewhere.
A sunflower painting hung in one’s home brings wealth, or so they said.
‘The artist isn’t established, perhaps. But there’s a certain taste to it, even if the execution is a touch rough.’
Precisely what he needed, as it happened—a satisfied smile bloomed across his face.
Soon he was glancing around the room, and then he took down the painting and hung it in the most prominent place, where it would catch every eye.
“Mm. Excellent.”
It aligned perfectly with his line of sight, visible the moment anyone opened the door and stepped inside.
Just then, small lettering beneath the painting caught his attention.
Title: A Box That Summons Wealth and Fortune
The clumsy, shameless title drew a genuine laugh from him.
“Amusing. Whoever painted this is no nobleman, that’s certain.”
Nobles looked down on the naked pursuit of money as base and vulgar.
And yet he found himself drawn to precisely that quality.
“Well… I wouldn’t mind if it were true.”
He tossed the words out lightly, as if in jest.
* * *
Around noon, hurried footsteps thundered through the halls, and the merchant company’s manager came racing in, breathless.
“Sir! A large fleet from the Cashew Merchant Company has capsized at the harbor!”
“…What?”
Gael swept aside the documents he’d been reading and shot to his feet with reflex born of the gravity of the news.
‘A fleet has sunk?’
Goods brought in by sea from foreign lands typically moved in enormous volumes. And if they’d needed to deploy an entire large fleet to transport the cargo…
“What was the cargo?”
“S-salt, sir.”
“…You’re certain of this information?”
Gael’s voice dropped deliberately low as he pressed for confirmation.
Salt in wooden crates and sacks dissolved and vanished the moment seawater seeped in. If true, it was an irreversible catastrophe—and simultaneously, an opportunity for a man like him.
The servant swallowed hard and nodded with conviction in his eyes.
“Yes. The information came from a trusted source.”
“If that’s real, food prices will skyrocket. Not just salt—salted goods, livestock feed, even bread.”
“In fact, sharp-eyed retailers have already sent letters asking whether we can supply our salt at triple the usual market rate.”
“Triple?”
Swift calculations raced through Gael’s mind.
‘It’ll take at least three months for salt prices to stabilize. In that time, if we capture as much of the market as possible….’
Just then, another servant burst urgently into the room.
“S-sir, sir!”
“What now?”
The staggered arrival of servants at his office felt like a recurring dream.
Turning his gaze with a sense of dread, Gael received news far more shocking.
“H-have you heard the rumors, sir?”
“What rumors?”
“There’s been talk among the nobles recently, sir—about how black tea doesn’t taste the way it used to.”
“And what of it?”
“The truth is, sir, there was a great fire at the tea plantations on South Island. It was the Clodel Merchant Company’s negligence that caused it. They’re deadlocked over compensation, and supplies have been disrupted as a result….”
“You’re joking.”
To an outsider, it might have sounded like nonsense, but to a competitor, it was nothing short of priceless intelligence.
Especially to the Pistachio Merchant Company, which was desperate to secure a new distribution route for black tea.
“Those Clodel fools must have scraped together every scrap of inventory gathering dust in their warehouses. That explains the quality.”
“Yes. The circumstances certainly suggest it, sir.”
“Find someone who can interpret the language of the South Island natives. And get an inventory of available capital immediately.”
“Surely you don’t mean to cover the fire compensation in their place, sir?”
“Of course. Or would you have me dig them up from their graves?”
“Ah, no sir!”
With the calculations complete in his mind, Gael commanded his servants like a general surveying a battlefield.
The Pistachio household hummed with energy once more, buoyed by the flood of correspondence and urgent business.
A few days passed.
Having swept aside mountains of work, Gael settled deep into the sofa, raising a wine glass to his lips.
His face wore the lingering expression of one contemplating the aftermath of a whirlwind.
‘As long as I can properly cultivate those natives…’
Truly, becoming the top merchant company was within reach.
Without needing to speak it aloud, his eyes gleamed with unmistakable exultation.
‘But how could my luck be this good?’
It was a strange sensation. The days just past had been suffused with intoxicating triumph—so much so that those earlier times, when he bent his back merely to secure a single deal, now seemed like a distant dream.
It was precisely then that the Sunflower Painting hanging on the wall caught his eye.
“…Surely not.”
Could it be because of that painting?
“No, that’s impossible.”
All of this was entirely due to his own superior abilities. Born brilliant, I owe it to myself.
Yet despite this conviction, for some reason Gael found he could not tear his gaze from the painting.
The sunflowers, suffused with moonlight, seemed alive and rippling, and with each ripple, his pupils trembled ever so slightly.
“…”
As if he were a coin suspended by a thread someone else was swinging.
* * *
Thanks to the successive major contracts he had closed, Gael could finally sit at the dinner table with his shoulders back, as he had not done in some time.
He studied his father, seated across from him at the head of the table, with subtle attention.
“Cough, cough! …Ahem.”
Moments later, the lips of Pistachio, who had long suffered from chronic lung disease, finally moved.
And the voice Gael had been so eagerly awaiting finally emerged.
“You seem to have been exceedingly busy with company matters these days.”
Gael, having deliberately composed his expression, replied in an appropriately measured tone.
“I have simply done my best, as always, Father.”
“This is no achievement that hard work alone could accomplish. Your fortune has also been favorable, it seems.”
“It was only possible because of Father’s teachings.”
“Hmm. Continue your diligence henceforth.”
Even the Count, who had long disapproved of his eldest son’s jealous nature and hasty actions, appeared satisfied this time.
Gael was quite pleased with the conversation—until Noah, his younger brother, who had been sitting beside him, abruptly interjected.
“By the way, Brother, are you hiding something in your room?”
“What?”
“I hear you’ve been holed up in your bedchamber these days, leaving the office empty, and you’ve even forbidden the servants from entering. Naturally, I find it rather curious.”
In an instant, a chill descended over the table.
“…What, precisely, strikes you as so curious?”
“Well, one never knows. Perhaps some great ‘secret’ is hidden away in that room.”
Noah, who had merely been mocking his brother’s ostentatious behavior, felt the gaze from across the table shift abruptly, becoming overt. Without thinking, he lifted his chin.
It was then that he met the piercing stare of three-white eyes fixed upon him, devoid of light.
“You’re speaking strangely, it seems.”
The voice was flat, hauntingly composed.
“What do you claim I am hiding? Hmm? Tell me.”
“…Yes?”
“Have you perhaps entered my room while I was away and seen something?”
“No, I—that isn’t—”
At the unfamiliar coldness in the voice, Noah swallowed hard.
He had merely meant to pick a quarrel, resentful of his brother’s mounting success. But to receive such a sharp reaction? Was there truly something hidden there?
Just as curiosity began to surge, Pistachio interjected, cutting through the tension.
“Noah, one should not make baseless accusations.”
“I—I apologize. That was not my intention, Father.”
“You were hasty this time. Make sure to apologize to Gael properly later.”
“…….”
Gael fell silent abruptly, then his lips curved into a soft smile as if nothing had happened.
“Come visit sometime. It’s been ages since we’ve shared tea together.”
“……Yes, brother.”
The conversation ended flatly, leaving behind an awkwardness that hung between them like a discordant note.

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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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