The Baby Sprout Who Bloomed in the Villain Duke’s Family - Chapter 46

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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 46
“Sorry for waking you up.”
Clover’s voice came out nasally, as if she’d been caught by the cold wind.
“You…….”
“But I couldn’t wait, I wanted to show you so badly…….”
She couldn’t bring herself to wait until morning.
Clover squirmed into Sone’s embrace and drew something from within it.
“This is…….”
Sone stared at Clover with wide, startled eyes.
What the child had pulled from her embrace was a single flower.
But not one that reeked with the ordinary stench or bore the blackened corruption she knew.
An ancient bloom, petals pristine and luminous white.
A living flower.
“How did you……where did you get this?”
Sone stammered, her voice trembling with astonishment.
Clover looked up at Sone and giggled softly.
“It’s Clover’s Authority.”
“!”
“And it’s a present for you, Sister.”
Clover pressed the flower firmly into Sone’s hands, her smile radiant.
“I brought it to give to you.”
“…….”
“Now Sister is happy.”
***
Sone stood frozen, staring at Clover.
Behind Clover stood Belze, the child’s attendant, regarding Sone and the girl with a gentle expression.
Sone continued to stare blankly at them both when she suddenly noticed how bitterly cold the wind cutting across her cheeks was.
Clover’s cheeks had already grown icy.
“I’ll keep her with me.”
Sone awkwardly lifted Clover into her arms.
Due to her fastidious nature and her tendency to keep her distance from children, Sone had rarely held a small child before. She hoisted Clover as she might a puppy, threading her hands beneath the girl’s arms.
“Go back inside now.”
Belze hesitated a moment, then stepped gently forward and spoke.
“Miss Sone, when holding a child, you should support them so they can lean their weight against your body.”
Sone, who’d been cradling Clover like a puppy, blinked and adjusted her hold as Belze instructed.
“Ah.”
With the new position, more of Clover’s small body was now pressed against Sone’s.
“Like this……?”
“Yes.”
Belze bowed her head with satisfaction, stepped back, and Clover beamed with delight.
Once Belze had gone, Sone stood in a daze for a moment before carrying Clover into her room.
The room was far warmer than the corridor.
Yet worried that the child might catch cold, Sone carried her to the bed.
Had it been anyone but Clover, she would never have laid them on her own bed.
Especially not someone unwashed and fresh from playing in the garden.
Yet now, strangely, none of that seemed to matter.
All of Sone’s concern was fixed solely on the plump cheeks flushed rosy from the cold wind and the single white flower resting in her own hands.
“Come here, it’s cold.”
Sone wrapped Clover snugly in the blanket she’d been using moments before, drawing it up even over the child’s head.
Then, from somewhere in the depths of the room, the Summoned Beast Storm Bird—who’d been away from Sone’s side for a time—rustled back and settled gently atop Clover’s head.
A small child rolled up like a burrito, and a bird perched on top of her.
It was quite a comical sight.
Yet Sone could not bring herself to smile.
‘Why?’
The more she looked at the flower in her hand, the more the question swelled within her.
Sone pondered it.
‘Why does she like me?’
As for what she’d nearly done to Clover when they were both younger—so young that Sone had no memory of it—let her forget that.
So why did Clover like her now?
Sone was a woman incapable of warmth toward others. Sone Claudian was simply made that way. It was her nature.
That nature had quieted briefly when her youngest sister was born, then reared its head again after she nearly harmed the child with her own hands.
And it remained there still, standing rigid in Sone’s chest all these years.
And because of that cursed nature, all Sone had done since arriving at the Claudian Residence was call Clover dirty and occasionally cast furtive glances her way.
Was that all? Sone had desperately avoided her.
Each time she saw Clover, the memory of that day surfaced, and she labored not to look, tormented by the recollection.
Even as the child toddle after her, she bit her lip to keep from turning around.
Yet the child kept approaching despite Sone’s pushback.
Clover embraced her with boundless affection, and more than that—
“Here, sister. A present.”
Burrowing into Sone’s arms, she brought forth the most precious thing she had the power to make.
Were all children like this?
Or was it only this one……?
The petals of the Jasmine Flower trembled slightly in Sone’s hand.
Clover, who had been watching with quiet intensity, fumbled with the Blanket in both small hands and approached Sone’s side.
She draped the cloth over half of Sone’s body and pressed herself snugly against her arm, leaning in.
“Sister’s cold too.”
“…….”
“Cold. We stick close, okay?”
Squeeze.
Soft.
The child’s smooth, pliant cheek pressed against Sone’s firm arm.
In that moment, Sone’s words caught in her throat—she could say nothing at all.
The warmth radiating through her entire body left her mind equally speechless, and no words would come.
Sone’s hand hovered in the air.
She wanted to stroke the child’s hair, but her fingers could not find the way.
Moreover, she wasn’t wearing the gloves she usually kept on; it had been so very long since Sone had touched another person with bare hands, and her wariness held her back.
“Sister.”
Clover opened her mouth.
“I heard everything.”
“……Everything what?”
“Why sister doesn’t come see Clover…….”
She heard that? From where?
‘Could it be……?’
Only then did Sone realize that Clover could converse with her Summoned Beast, and she snapped her gaze upward, fixing the Storm Bird with a sharp stare.
Sone’s Summoned Beast turned its head away beneath that piercing glare, burying its beak between its wings.
There was clearly something weighing on its conscience.
“But Clover’s fine now.”
At Clover’s words, Sone’s eyes shifted from the Summoned Beast to the child.
“Doesn’t hurt anymore.”
With each word the child uttered, her round, soft cheeks moved.
“Sister was trying to help Clover, so I heard what happened.”
“Clover, that’s…….”
“A heart that wants to help others is a good heart…….”
Clover lifted her head, gazing up at Sone with gentle eyes.
Their glances met in the space between them.
“Lucky said sister carries guilt with you.”
‘Guilt? Remorse?’
“Lucky said guilt is like a stone pressing down on your heart…….”
Clover pushed out her lower lip.
“How can Clover make the stone in sister’s heart go away……?”
Just as Clover said, guilt was indeed a stone weighing on Sone’s heart.
More than weighing—it crushed.
That stone had remained in Sone’s heart her whole life, clattering ceaselessly, grinding away at her without mercy.
‘Clover, I’ll help you.’
‘Yes, sister…….’
‘If this succeeds, I’ll be able to stay at the Claudian Residence.’
If only that had succeeded that day.
Or if she had never attempted it at all.
If she had never witnessed it in the first place.
Sone endlessly turned the past over in her mind, regretting, retracing that day again and again.
And each time, the stone that lay upon Sone’s heart grew heavier.
Little by little, little by little, little by little.
But it was all right.
Sone believed that one day she would grow accustomed even to that weight.
That she could live with it as though it were part of her life, as though she had been born this way from the start.
And Sone’s words came true.
She had lived with that guilt as if it were part of herself.
Dwelling endlessly on the fact that she had hurt Clover, made her mother use her power, caused the great calamity that swept through the Claudian Residence.
And just as that stone—that weight that choked the breath from her—had finally stopped bothering her at all.
“Sister!”
Clover appeared.
Like a shoot of new growth sprouting suddenly in an unexpected place.
Like a sapling that made the passersby’s footsteps veer around her, she came into Sone’s sight.
“…H-hi, sister.”
With warmth and affection.
Her smile and embrace gradually melted the stone that dwelt in Sone’s heart.
The melted heart pooled like water.
And it was about to overflow—she could feel it trembling within her now.
Sone nestled closer to Clover bit by bit, and carefully placed her hand on the small head pressing against her.
A round head that fit snugly in her palm.
A small, faint yet unmistakable heartbeat thudding right beside her forearm.
“…I’m sorry.”
Sone Claudian, the proud daughter of the Storm Bird who had never apologized once in her life, spoke softly.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I made you second-guess yourself when it wasn’t even your fault.”
Sone carefully drew the small body into her arms.
Thump-thump—the child’s heartbeat was transmitted to Sone in full.
“I’m the one who should apologize.”
Sorrow and anguish for the child.
And a single tear fell, mingled with longing for her mother, for Elyssia.
Yet as Sone wept, she realized.
What lay upon her heart was not a stone at all, but ice.
To see it melt away in this small warmth and affection, in these gentle footsteps drawing near.
It must have been the cold ice that a coward like me carried in her heart.
Sone held Clover tight.
The white flower in Sone’s hand trembled along with her shaking shoulders.

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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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