The Countess's Body Has Disappeared - Chapter 22

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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 22
Cecilia rubbed her eyes roughly with the back of her hand, then frowned and hid her left hand beneath the table. She had no wish to introduce Arcan as a third party, so she hurried to answer before another question could be asked.
“We’re simply posing as husband and wife to avoid street checkpoints. It can’t be discovered that I’m alive.”
“I attended your funeral myself. I saw with my own eyes as they lowered your body into the ground at the Cemetery. How on earth did you survive?”
“Do you know Aida’s pharmacy? The one at number 13 Gravebrook Street?”
“Ah.”
Esmerilda struck her palm against her fist, as though the answer had only just occurred to her.
“Witch’s Medicine is useful in many ways. So that face of yours was also borrowed from the medicine’s power, then.”
“What Aida gave me was a medicine that stops the heart for a week. So medically speaking, I truly was dead. That’s all I can tell you. I trust you’ll keep your promise to keep this secret from that man.”
“Of course. Naturally.”
Esmerilda nodded solemnly.
For a long while, only music flowed between them.
Dark clouds were gathering; the world beyond the window grew progressively dimmer. Cecilia found herself curious about what lay in Esmerilda’s silent mind, yet she gazed into empty space and asked nothing.
Perhaps she was disappointed in her. Or perhaps she pitied Davion. Either way, Cecilia understood. After all, she had deceived a man who had married a maid.
After some time had passed in this manner, Esmerilda was the first to speak.
“Cecilia, I may be overstepping my bounds in saying this, but…….”
She spoke carefully, wrapping Cecilia’s right hand in hers where it lay upon the table.
“Why not return to your husband now?”
Cecilia’s face twisted brutally.
“I’m leaving.”
“Wait! I’m not saying this for the Count Davion Winterhall—I’m saying this for you!”
As she stood to gather her Handbag, Esmerilda quickly stretched out her arm to block her path.
Cecilia threw all her strength into pushing Esmerilda aside, but again she stood like a boulder, immovable. Gasping as her strength gave out, Cecilia found herself looking up at Esmerilda, who continued her desperate appeal.
“I honestly don’t understand. You see, why are you taking on all this drudgery here? I don’t know what reason drove you to feign death and leave that house, but if you go back now, the Count will surely forgive you!”
“Get out of the way. Had I known you’d try to persuade me like this, I never would have come here.”
“Cecilia, I’m in serious marriage negotiations with that Count.”
It was at that very moment. Cecilia’s body went rigid, and a deep sadness descended over her face. Esmerilda did not miss it, and she pressed on.
“Would it be all right with you if I married that man?”
“Of course it would. Davion and I have no connection anymore…….”
“You’re trembling. You don’t like it, do you? Your husband marrying another woman.”
The chair leg scraped ominously against the floor. As Esmerilda rose, Cecilia instinctively backed away from her.
“D-don’t come near me.”
“You didn’t run away because you hated your husband. You know better than anyone that the Count loves you. You know he’ll never forget you as long as he lives.”
When she had first met Esmerilda years ago, they had been maid and guest.
A noble daughter of a distinguished house who had gone to a meeting to discuss marriage with Davion. As though she had returned to that time when she secretly envied Esmerilda, Cecilia crossed her arms defensively and drew her upper body inward.
“Cecilia, think about it carefully. You two were inseparable. When the Count was in that traffic accident, he walked six hours to the hospital, didn’t he?”
“That—that was only because you lied and said you’d been hurt, so he went to check on you.”
“After he was deployed, he developed sleepwalking from stress. Everyone knows that after your surgery, the Count secluded himself and nursed you with such devotion……!”
“No!”
Cecilia finally erupted, crying out as though in a scream. When she kicked the nearest chair, Esmerilda froze in shock.
“No, I said no……!”
Her entire body flushed red, Cecilia gasped hard for breath and then began to tear at her hair with both hands. The hysterical laughter that followed made her seem like a woman who had lost her mind. At least, that was how it appeared to Esmerilda.
“I hate that man so much. Yes, it was fine during dating. But marriage and dating are different, aren’t they? You have no idea how much I regretted getting married!”
Beating her own chest with her fists, she cried out as though spitting blood.
“Living in that house made me feel like I was losing my mind! I’m already not normal, and I know that fact all too well, but I couldn’t say a word of it to my husband—you can’t possibly understand that feeling…….”
But Cecilia’s voice soon became the whimper of a person in pain.
Something warm was trickling slowly from beneath her nose.
“Wait. Here, use this to stop it.”
Esmerilda, barely collecting herself, thrust a Tissue toward her urgently.
As the white paper touched the space below her nose, it became instantly stained crimson. Her insides were crumbling, but Cecilia did not weep. When she had decided to leave Davion’s side, she had sworn to herself, again and again, that she would not cry anymore.
Not knowing how much time remained, she had made a promise to herself that she would find happiness before true death came.
“I’m dying anyway. By the time you and Davion have your wedding, I’ll probably no longer be in this world. So don’t worry about it—remarry. I left that house out of my own selfish desire, to experience freedom for just these last few months.”
Cecilia spoke while coughing repeatedly. Blood that had burst forth from somewhere other than her nose bloomed on the Tissue like petals.
Esmerilda, hastily searching her Handbag for a Handkerchief, only then fully grasped what she had said. And unable to hide her bewilderment, she shook her head slowly.
“Wait. Hold on. Cecilia, what are you saying? Dying? Why would you die?”
“He doesn’t know. But last spring, after they removed our baby from my womb, the doctor told me.”
Cecilia smiled faintly and covered her left ear, which had gone silent sometime ago.
“Esmerilda, I have a Terminal Illness.”
1-6. Preparing to Meet a Wife
In the end, Ruby had betrayed her loyalty to Cecilia.
To be precise, it was hunger that had won out. He began accepting the food Davion gave him without fail.
From roasted peanuts to crickets, earthworms, and fruit—everything Ruby received amounted to a feast by his standards. Thanks to Davion’s generosity, he could at least keep his wits about him while caged among humans who spoke a language he couldn’t understand.
The cat Julian had given as a gift lived with Ruby in Cecilia’s bedroom.
The cat was affectionate toward people, but toward Ruby—a crow—it remained utterly indifferent. Though Ruby had tried eagerly to make conversation, the cat never once replied, so he’d long since abandoned the effort. Ruby had become talkative only through his time with Cecilia; in nature’s world, cats were naturally taciturn creatures.
And at some point, Davion too began sleeping in Cecilia’s bedroom.
When Davion dozed in the armchair, the cat would quietly hop onto his lap. Then Davion would wake and stroke the cat while murmuring something to itself. Though Ruby couldn’t understand human speech, there was one name he alone recognized: Cecilia.
That name appeared quite frequently, and so it seemed Davion was speaking not really to the cat, but to himself—or perhaps to the Cecilia who no longer existed in this place.
Meanwhile, the man locked in the basement had finally broken free of the medicine’s grip.

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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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