Sister-in-law of the Heroine in a Childcare Novel - Chapter 125

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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 125

Valentina lay sprawled in an easy chair, drawing flame to the end of a long cigarette holder. The smoke carried a scent peculiar—acrid without the usual harshness—and when I wrinkled my nose, she laughed as though I were something adorable.
“Not ordinary tobacco. Mugwort and… what was it the physician recommended? Nothing that would harm you, so you needn’t mind the smell.”
“I don’t dislike it. There’s something oddly pleasant about it.”
“From what you wrote in that letter, you know what I smoke, what I drink, what I do—as though you’d been watching all along with suspicion in your eyes.”
I smiled brightly.
After learning of Valentina’s existence—Lady Armerin, as she was known—I’d gone directly to the Empress with questions. Once I’d heard the fragmentary accounts, I promptly enlisted Hecate’s Tavern to gather intelligence.
A grand-niece whose very name was unfamiliar, appearing suddenly to ask for help on a first meeting? Knowing the Emperor looked upon her unfavorably, she’d resigned herself to silence, abandoning any influence within the Imperial Family. There was no reason she should find me charming now.
Valentina opened her eyes lightly and studied me.
“So. A problem arises in a merchant house under the Lecen Family, and word reaches me? This old woman’s heart might well stop.”
“When people speak of merchant houses, they usually think only of the great trading companies with footholds in the Flower City of Cortez or the southern territories. But distribution is everything in the buying and selling of goods—most overlook that the mid-tier companies dealing primarily with the great houses are themselves quite substantial. You, though, quietly hold shares in the choicest establishments and collect dividends as they come. No one else would have known.”
Yes. I’d written her a letter packed with information she shouldn’t have known unless she kept close watch. Flux had helped somewhat. In the end, it was merely ancillary profit gained from tracking the whereabouts of Fabric Containing Monster Byproducts and investigating the merchant houses themselves.
Valentina possessed genuine wealth. Rights, shares, and holdings she’d taken when leaving the Lecen Family, and things the former Emperor had discreetly provided.
Yet no one suspected the fact. They assumed that maintaining her grand manor was all she could manage, barely covering its upkeep.
I attempted to fathom her heart. What leverage did I possess that might move her?
What could possibly compel her to aid me?
Status? She was too noble for that—she’d left a great aristocratic house while wearing down her husband, living splendidly as a woman alone.
Wealth? Money overflowed in her hands. Even Hecate’s Tavern, having made a rough assessment of her scale, left utterances of pure wonder.
Then what remained?
Lingering attachment?
She possessed tremendous pride. So much so that when her husband—who’d fathered a bastard—not only failed to apologize but told her to hold her tongue since the boy was his son and she bore him no children, she left that very moment without hesitation.
Under the mediation of the former Emperor, all grievances were buried, and it was she who entered Seclusion. The Lecen Family’s reputation dimmed briefly, and they kept quiet—but only briefly. Once that bastard, whom they’d made official heir, came of age, they brazenly resumed their activities.
“I hear the Lecen Family’s fortunes have been fully restored.”
Valentina received my letter, considered its contents, and accepted the arrangement I proposed. Or rather, it was a transaction conducted without her ever properly seeing my face. It was nothing but a test, really. Valentina exhaled a hearty laugh.
“Well, one might expect as much. However little regard society shows a bastard, my husband had too much pride to take a new wife. Without a legitimate heir, even a bastard receives proper treatment as the young master.”
“Yes, he’s received training as heir, taken over several merchant houses under the family, and performs a great many duties.”
And he’d involved himself in every sordid affair imaginable.
“One might call it an exceptional talent for lining up supporters. I’m told the Lecen Family is among the few great houses that actively sends valuable goods to the Empress Cleo herself. With her own ignoble origins, it seems they assume she’ll overlook the slight defect in her heir’s status and push him forward eagerly.”
Valentina’s eyelids trembled faintly. Yet the smile she turned toward me remained serene.
“Hmm. But listen, child. I’ve grown old. I’ve no mind to overturn the Lecen Family now and trumpet how my blood carries on the title—and it isn’t even my blood at that. Let me say, it’s been good fortune that I was spared from bearing and raising such a rotten creature.”
“But doesn’t it rankle, to let it all be forgotten?”
When you reach an age where the days you’ve already lived outnumber those left to live, you find yourself attempting to fulfill lingering desires you’ve left undone.
And Valentina must have resigned herself to that.
Even with her noble station, she could not stop one bastard of her husband’s. She’d had to abandon her place in society entirely, confining herself away. So what more could a rear-chamber old woman hope to accomplish now? That, I imagine, was her thought.
To gather all the luxuries in the world in her splendid manor and live at ease, ordering servants about, wasn’t such a terrible life.
But however much a choice of one’s own, could there be no resentment after spending decades unable to maintain proper relations with the world?
“That next master of the Lecen Family is a fool. He doesn’t even consider who actually holds his merchant house shares through a Proxy Account, how much revenue is distributed to him. He thinks whatever the ledger shows is entirely his and cackles like an idiot. He commits endless illegalities because all he cares about is turning a quick profit, never thinking of consequences.”
As I traced the merchant houses that had come to the Imperial Palace, information about the Lecen Family’s affiliated companies came trailing out like tugging a vine of sweet potatoes. Even Nabira, who relayed the information, sucked her teeth and said, “This family won’t last long.”
The merchant house that had delivered the fabric directly to the Empress was meticulous in its information management—no easy task to investigate. But the Lecen Family houses with which it appeared to conduct business were far too careless.
As though easy prey had been tossed before us.
We couldn’t simply expose this house and be done with it. Then our true target would throw down its tail like a lizard and vanish.
“Legally, you remain the lady of the Lecen House. You have rights.”
…….
Valentina regarded me, drew in a long, deep breath of smoke, and exhaled.
“So, child. You truly believe I could move so easily at this stage? Really? Extracting your mother and bringing her to my manor—that’s no great difficulty, and it would reflect no shame on my reputation or hers. But if I were to assert my rights now over a house I’ve severed all ties with, I would become the object of everyone’s ridicule.”
That keen, shrewd gaze of the seasoned woman pierced me like an awl.
“Do you truly believe I would bear all of that? I live comfortably enough, lacking nothing, even now.”
“If you’d felt no interest whatsoever, you wouldn’t have broken your Seclusion to receive my absurd letter.”
I smiled broadly.
“In the remotest chance—truly, the remotest chance—that the fool Brian were to become Emperor, you too would find yourself in danger. But His Majesty still stands in the full vigor of his years. It may be presumptuous to say, but no one can know whether you’ll survive until the day Brian might ascend the throne.”
Ironically, because there is less left to lose.
Concern for family?
The family members who had loved and cherished Valentina with genuine care were dead. Though the Emperor still retains his health, one cannot be certain of a decade, two decades, or more. That is how time works.
Had she truly felt no lingering attachment, there would be no need for her to leave her manor and come up to the Capital, following to my tune.
For her, it was a test—but to have accepted the test in the first place was her own will.
“Once even Valentina’s name is forgotten. The Lecen Family will—well, they’ll be mindful of the Imperial gaze and keep your name at least. But they’ll defile everything else. Should the Emperor at that time be Brian… they might even agree to erase your name altogether.”
If Brian were Emperor by then, the Empire’s own survival would be the pressing concern. Whether the people lived or died would be the immediate problem; the name and honor of the dead would be secondary. But I cannot voice such thoughts, so I might as well speak them aloud.
“You have a clever tongue indeed. Yes, old people with few days remaining tend to cling rather to the name they’ll leave behind. All the more so when I’ve no blood kin to carry it forward.”
Valentina’s eyes flashed with meaning.
“Then what exactly can you guarantee to me?”
“I have enemies. Enemies who may well be your own as well. And I have many means by which to aid you. So if you were to help me in return, wouldn’t we find it rather easy to smash those human insects to pieces?”
I bloomed into a smile as radiant as a flower opening.

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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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