The Baby Sprout Who Bloomed in the Villain Duke’s Family - Chapter 47

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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 47
‘Sister is crying.’
Clover wriggled beneath the blanket and pulled Sone into a tighter embrace.
Why were grown-ups always crying?
Father cried, the Grand Empress Dowager cried, and Sister Sone cried.
‘My goodness, there’s not a single person here who isn’t.’
Clover watched silently as Sone’s tears fell, then wrapped her arms around her with all the strength a four-year-old could muster.
‘Adults are crybabies.’
They cry all day long.
It seemed they cried far more than a four-year-old like Clover.
‘But tears aren’t so bad.’
[Sometimes crying helps, so don’t hold back your tears……. What’s a little thing like a four-year-old doing holding back tears anyway.]
Clover, remembering Lucky’s words, patted Sone gently with her small hand.
“Sister, crying sometimes helps.”
“…….”
“So you can cry, and Clover will keep it a secret.”
Clover spoke in an earnestly grown-up manner, hugging Sone close.
After that, Sone wept for a long time before finally pulling Clover into her arms and lying down.
Clover, unexpectedly cradled in Sone’s embrace, looked up at her and asked.
“Sister, can Clover sleep here?”
“……Yes, sleep here.”
Sone answered in a voice hoarse from crying.
“I came back from the Garden and I’m all dirty…….”
“……It’s fine.”
As if to prove her point, Sone held Clover even more tightly.
“It’s fine. Let’s sleep here tonight. Together…….”
“Mmm, but Sister, more tears are coming.”
“They’ll stop soon.”
“Okay.”
“Tears always stop eventually.”
Sone blinked her wet eyes.
“I’ll cry a little more, and then I’ll stop.”
“Yes.”
Clover answered obediently and closed her eyes, holding Sone close.
Sone’s embrace was warm, and the steady, gentle sound of her heartbeat was soothing.
As Clover listened to that heartbeat, she recalled Anernia’s words.
‘That’s right—your sister is your family, so why would she dislike you? Family members care for and love one another.’
So Anernia had asked her to give her sister just a little more time.
Clover was a child, but Sone was still a girl.
Neither quite grown into adulthood yet.
Underdeveloped children.
Incompletely formed children always need time enough to grow.
‘The Grand Empress Dowager was right.’
Her Majesty never lies.
Clover, smiling softly in her arms, gently grasped the edge of Sone’s collar.
And soon after, she fell into deep sleep.
But.
Sone remained awake for a long time after.
“Clover…….”
She lay patting the child asleep in her arms.
Until the sun rose beyond the curtains.
***
Early morning.
“Mm-hm~ good morning indeed.”
Harriet came to the Garden at first light to tend to its landscape and to care for Clover’s Seedling, and he stopped short as if rooted to the spot.
“What, what is that……?”
Where the Seedling should have been, something strange had appeared instead.
“Wh, wh-what??”
Harriet rubbed his eyes vigorously five times, unable to trust what lay before him.
Perhaps what he was seeing now was merely a hallucination!
The past few days he’d been short on sleep, and perhaps that was why he was seeing things.
And yet.
“……what?”
No matter how hard Harriet rubbed his eyes, it didn’t disappear.
Moving sideways with hesitant steps, Harriet drew near to ‘it’ and reached out to touch it gently with his fingertip.
Ting.
The petals trembled lightly, scattering morning dew in all directions.
At the sight, Harriet’s hand began to shake.
“A, a flower…….”
“Sir Harriet? Is something the matter?”
At that moment, a young servant noticed Harriet and approached him.
But Harriet couldn’t bring himself to return the greeting—trembling, he spoke instead.
“A flower, a flower……!”
“A flower?”
“The Ancient Flower has bloomed……!!!”
Wail—wail—wail—
Harriet’s cry, almost a scream, echoed through the entire Claudian Duchy House like a reverberating bell.
“You, you said what??”
The young servant cried out in startled shock.
***
“A, a flower bloomed in the garden too?”
“The seedling Clover planted in this garden has become the Ancient Flower? But the Ancient Flower doesn’t need feeding—what do we do? How many times a day must we water it? How wet should the soil be?”
Arwin and Demian rushed out into the Garden, their voices tumbling over each other.
The servants who had seen the Ancient Flower before felt the same overwhelming joy, though they watched the two young masters with expressions just slightly calmer than Arwin and Demian’s own.
When Arwin and Demian burst into the Garden and caught sight of the bloomed flower, their jaws dropped.
“It, it’s really there…….”
“I still can’t believe it. Has Clover’s Power truly settled completely after what happened at the Imperial Palace?”
When Demian and Arwin touched a petal, a water droplet Harriet had sprinkled flicked onto both their cheeks.
The boys then realized they couldn’t see the one responsible for bringing this flower into bloom—the child who should have been strutting proudly through the manor—and their eyes widened.
Arwin and Demian spoke simultaneously.
“Where is Clover?”
“Why hasn’t my sister come to brag about this to me?”
At their question, the maidservant who had followed Demian and Arwin out scratched her cheek.
“Well, Miss Clover is currently in Miss Sone’s Room.”
“……eh?”
“What?”
“It seems she fell asleep with Miss Sone last night. We didn’t wake her because of Calid’s orders not to disturb her.”
Arwin asked in disbelief.
“My, my sister is sleeping together with Clover?”
That couldn’t be right.
‘Sister is so particular about everything!’
He couldn’t imagine Sone holding the child at all.
Sone simply didn’t fit with ‘a small child’ as a concept.
“Hehe, but it’s true, I assure you. We were quite surprised when we heard about it this morning too.”
“Impossible! I need to see it myself!”
Arwin pushed past the maidservant and headed straight up to Sone’s Room.
If Sone hadn’t woken yet and he burst the door open like this, he’d certainly be beaten for it, but right now there was something more important.
Arwin and Demian, hurrying up to Sone’s Room, swallowed hard before the door handle.
And then.
Creak.
They timidly eased open Sone’s door.
And there.
“……huh?”
“That’s…….”
Before the two boys’ eyes, beneath a window where warm sunlight streamed in, sat their eldest sister, Sone.
So far, there was nothing strange about it.
But on her lap.
“Sister, read it again, please.”
Clover, clutching the Picture Book and gazing up at Sone with a delighted giggle, made all the difference.
“What, what is this……?”
In the end, she had become utterly unrecognizable to both boys.
Arwin and Demian had flung open Sone’s door with great confidence, only to stand frozen in stunned silence at the sight before them.
‘That’ sister—holding a children’s picture book instead of history texts or ancient language management books?
“This can’t be real…….”
Arwin muttered under his breath, and Clover turned her head.
“Oh? Big brother.”
Having spotted Arwin, Clover reached out her arms to him with a bright smile.
“Good morning, big brother! Good morning!”
As Clover finished her greeting, Sone’s gaze slowly shifted toward Arwin and Demian.
‘Oh no.’
‘Damn.’
They’d burst in without even knocking—she was definitely going to tear into them.
Arwin and Demian had just squeezed their eyes shut, bracing for Sone’s fury to descend upon their heads, when—
“Say good morning too, sister.”
Clover grabbed Sone’s wrist and hoisted her up with a tug.
“What?”
“Come on, sister—say good morning to the big brothers!”
Sone, pulled along by Clover’s hand, lost the moment to scold her younger brothers and could only stare at them with a vacant expression.
“Hurry.”
“Ah, good morning. Did you sleep well?”
And pressed by Clover’s insistence, she managed an awkward morning greeting.
A brief silence fell among the three siblings—who normally exchanged no morning pleasantries and rarely even crossed paths in the morning.
“She slept so much, so very much indeed.”
Into that silence, Clover’s laughter bloomed like flowers, bright and tinkling.
“Well, what a little thing you are…….”
Arwin, Demian, and Sone exchanged awkward glances, eyeing one another nervously, before Clover’s laughter drew them all into spontaneous smiles.
“Did you sleep well, sister?”
“I trust you rested comfortably?”
Demian and Arwin closed the door behind them and tumbled into Sone’s room.
The door shut, and the sound of the children’s laughter leaked through the gap between its frame.
Belze, who had come to Sone’s door to fetch Clover, heard the laughter from within and withdrew quietly with a gentle smile.
“My.”
He could do nothing but step back.
For within that room bloomed a laughter-flower more beautiful than any blossom in the world.
It was a laughter-flower that had arrived just four years after Elicia had become a tree and fallen asleep.

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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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