My Husband Lives in a Painting - Chapter 19

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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 — Episode 19
It was then, amid the sunken silence, that the clink of tableware rang out with peculiar loudness.
“Cough, cough!”
The Count suddenly broke the quiet with a fit of coughing, his face ashen as he accepted the handkerchief from a servant and dabbed his mouth.
He swallowed a sigh and steadied his breathing before speaking again, his voice grave.
“……My strength is not what it once was. I’ve summoned every renowned physician in the Capital, yet nothing improves.”
The Count’s hazy gaze, which had been wandering through empty air, settled on Gail.
“Gail. It’s been two years now since you took up the practical duties, hasn’t it?”
“Yes, Father.”
“Then that will suffice. To cling to this position any longer would be mere greed.”
“……Surely not, Father. You don’t mean to say——”
Gail’s eyes widened at the resigned tone of someone whose mind was already made.
“In two months, I shall formally pass the position of Head of House to you. You’re young yet……but there’s no fixed age for shouldering a family’s burden, so it hardly matters.”
“Father!”
“However, remember that I shall continue to watch over you from behind. Do you understand?”
“Yes. I swear there will never be a stain upon your name!”
The Count’s title—something he had yearned for so long. Achieved, moreover, at an age barely removed from the youngest possible.
Gail bit his lip to suppress the surge of emotion welling up inside him.
‘At last, at last I am a Count!’
Yet that soaring joy plummeted to earth in mere minutes.
“Managing both the Count’s affairs and the Merchant Guild would be impossible.”
“……I beg your pardon?”
The voice that followed carried the finality of a decision already made.
“The Merchant Guild is to be entrusted to your second son from now on. You understand, Noah?”
“Understood, Father.”
“Our Guild has changed considerably from how it was, but it now seems to be on stable footing. The timing is ideal for you to learn the business.”
“Wait, please. Father, hear me out.”
His lip trembled as if he might overturn the table itself, but Gail forced down his anger.
“The Merchant Guild that I built with my own hands……you’re telling me to hand it over to him?”
“Noah is eighteen now. His Academy grades are excellent. I know you’ve grown attached to the Guild, but you must learn to set aside such greed.”
“It’s not greed—the Merchant Guild is mine!”
The anger he could no longer suppress burst forth.
He had built it, shaped it. Now, finally, his efforts were bearing fruit—and he was to hand all that achievement to his younger brother? Impossible. Both the Count’s title and the Merchant Guild were meant to be his, all of it.
Yet the Count’s eyes had grown cold and distant.
“……Yours?”
“Yes! It’s mine!”
But Gail, lost to reason, could not see what lay in those eyes.
“Ah, Father……did you intend all along to hand everything over to that wretch? Is that why you put me in charge of the Guild in the first place?”
“Perhaps I was mistaken. I thought that much experience would have matured you by now.”
“Don’t twist your words! How much longer do you intend to coddle him, Father? Explain yourself!”
“Head Steward.”
At the quiet summons, the elderly man with graying hair standing at the far end of the wall moved silently.
“Yes, my lord.”
“Suspend the succession procedures. Burn all the notarized documents.”
“Very well.”
At the Count’s command, sudden as lightning, Gail cried out in anguish.
“What—what did you say? No, you can’t!”
But the Count’s gaze had already turned to ice.
“We’ll discuss succession another time. Step back from the Guild affairs as well, Gail.”
The Count rose, leaning his weight on his cane.
Toward the retreating, unyielding figure supported by the Head Steward, Gail called out in desperation.
“Father!”
“……Finish your meal and retire for the evening. I shall take my leave.”
“Father! Listen to me, I beg you, Father!”
Gail did not yet realize whose obstinate nature he had inherited.
Pistachio the Count, coughing as though his breath might fail him at any moment, departed with a composure that did not waver by a hair.
‘This can’t be real. How could Father do this to me……!’
From behind Gail, who stood stunned, came a sound as if his rival had been waiting for this very moment.
“Idiot.”
When Gail turned, unable to believe his ears, his gaze fell upon Noah, lounging arrogantly with his legs crossed.
He wore a contemptible smile now, all pretense stripped away the moment his father left the room.
“That’s exactly why you’re useless. You’re too stupid for your own good.”
“…What?”
“Congratulations. You’ve boiled the rice and fed it to the dogs.”
Noah rose from his chair, gave Gail’s shoulder a light pat, and walked out of the dining hall without a backward glance.
Gail shouted after him moments too late, but it changed nothing.
“You bastard! Hey! Get back here!”
Gail’s screams echoed through the empty dining hall. But there was no one left to receive his rage.
Left alone in the silence, Gail finally felt the truth settle into him: everything had slipped through his fingers.
“…This can’t be happening.”
Moments later, strength drained from him, and he crumpled to the floor.
* * *
“This can’t be. It can’t be……”
In the middle of an unlit room, Gail sat with a blank, hollow expression, muttering to himself.
Around him lay fragments of broken objects scattered in disarray.
Among them was a crumpled contract—the last one he’d signed before going to the dining hall.
His back, hiccupping with alcohol, was the perfect image of a defeated soldier from a vanquished nation.
“And you thought I’d just sit here and take this?”
A faint spark of defiance flickered, then guttered out just as quickly, impotent.
He knew his father’s stubbornness better than anyone—once something was declared, it was absolute, unchangeable.
‘How did it come to this? Just this morning, everything was……’
But regretting what had already passed changed nothing.
“……”
His green eyes, which had been searching for some glimmer of hope, drifted without thought to the Sunflower Painting on the wall.
“The Safe that brings fortune……”
The moment the title left his lips, the painting seemed to respond like a summoned beast, casting an eerie glow beneath the moonlight.
As if entranced, Gail crawled toward the painting and seized the canvas, tearing at it desperately.
“…You’ve been bringing me luck all this time, haven’t you? Haven’t you?”
Gail was certain of it. This painting held an ineffable, extraordinary power.
“I need more luck. Greater wealth, more overwhelming fortune……”
In all his life, he’d never once cared for religion.
He’d always believed that clinging to nonexistent illusions was the privilege of the weak.
But now it was different. Cornered at the edge of a cliff, this painting was his only lifeline.
“There’s no one left but you to help me.”
In that instant, the Safe in the painting gleamed with light.
“……!”
Had he imagined it?
But as if to prove it was no illusion, the golden dial of the Safe flickered again.
“What, what is……!”
Gail felt his skin prickle with dread as he reached out slowly with trembling hands.
At the same moment, a wind swept through the sealed room.
“Come here, Gail.”
“……!”
“I’ve left inside what you desire.”
It was impossible to believe.
And yet, perhaps he’d been secretly anticipating this moment all along.
A painting with an uncanny, mysterious aura from an unknown sender; a chain of fortune linked without end.
Every night, staring at the painting for hours, he’d come to sense that something transcendent might exist beyond this flat plane of reality.
‘Could there be an angel dwelling within it, just for me?’
Gail’s eyes wavered.
His green irises filled with the vivid image of a sunflower burning with white light.
“…You’re saying you’ve prepared everything I want?”
“Yes. Objects meant for you alone.”
Gail’s fingers touched the canvas lightly.
“You’d better keep that promise.”
In that split second, was the mockery threaded through the ringing in his ears merely illusion?
With a cold, bone-chilling sensation creeping up his spine, Gail lost consciousness.
“Of course. Naturally.”
In the space where he’d stood, only an overturned wine bottle remained.

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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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