The Countess's Body Has Disappeared - Chapter 32

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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 32
When the woman’s eyes curved into crescents and she smiled, Davion peeled off both Gloves and tucked them into the inner pocket of his jacket. The woman’s gaze flicked to the Ring on his left ring finger, and she turned her head away as though her interest had evaporated. Liam too had noticed the Ring, but he kept his eyes forward without saying a word.
About five minutes passed before the overhead lights dimmed and an elegant violin melody filled the Theater.
The lights came back on quickly, illuminating the Stage.
Beyond the curtains drawn to either side, Esmeralda appeared on Stage dressed as a maid, standing behind a middle-aged actress who played her mistress while brushing her hair.
“…….”
Davion’s brow furrowed. Whether it was the Stage lights that stung his eyes, or whether his wife’s face was somehow reflected in Esmeralda’s appearance—he himself could not say.
He didn’t know if Cecilia was truly here, but he would have to come back again soon to find out.
Clutching that insubstantial certainty to his chest, Davion closed his eyes quietly.
* * *
A familiar song drifted from somewhere far away.
A low and hushed melody, pleasant to hear. Cecilia soon recognized whose voice it was and allowed a contented smile to bloom across her face. Davion was singing the Lullaby for her.
A gentle hand stroked her hair.
It was lovely. More, please. Cecilia rubbed her cheek against his knee and indulged in a childish affection she had long forgotten.
But Davion did not touch her further. The tender hand slowly withdrew from her hair.
‘Darling……?’
The song grew thinner and thinner until the pitch itself began to waver uncertainly. Then it transformed into some old woman’s eerie humming.
Cecilia’s eyes snapped open.
The memory from moments before came flooding back like a dam breaking, violent and unstoppable. Her hands and ankles were bound, and she lay crumpled on a cold floor.
Her pupils, struggling to focus, darted about in terror.
‘Where am I…….’
Hadn’t she been in a similar situation before? An eerie sense of déjà vu crept over her, but this time, mercifully, it was a place she knew.
The Emergency Stairwell of the Theater—the one she had been shown only once, the day after her hiring was confirmed, during a tour of the building’s layout.
Even staff rarely used these stairs except in emergencies. As a result, the high window set flush with the Landing’s ceiling was filthy, and the grime caked on the frame had hardened until it could not be opened. It also meant there was virtually no chance anyone would stumble upon her here by accident.
I have neither Nagi nor Ruby now.
The fear of fainting again came crashing over her, and Cecilia began counting and breathing in regular intervals. A slow ache was spreading outward from the back of her head where the Bottle had struck her. Even so, the off-beat humming continued without pause.
Still, as luck would have it, the Rope binding her wrists was loose. The Pocket Knife that Arcan had given her still lay docilely in her sleeve.
After freeing her wrists, Cecilia braced both elbows against the floor and carefully raised her torso. She bit her lip against crying out as she slowly turned her aching body.
In the corner of the Landing, buried under age-old dust, an old woman sat with her back to Cecilia, humming and braiding something above her own head. A long handful of white hair. The moment Cecilia saw it, she startled and quickly felt her own crown.
The Wig that Esmeralda had given her was gone, and she felt her own hair instead. But the ends of her right-side locks had been hacked off. This was the source of the hair the old woman was braiding.
‘Then could it be…….’
Cecilia’s trembling fingers moved to her face.
She felt no bumpy texture. She’d been applying medicine while cleaning, so an hour must have easily passed since she lost consciousness.
‘What should I do?’
Her body ached in various places, but she could still run—if only her ankles were free.
Cecilia reached to massage her ankles and undo the knot, but a sharp pain flared as the Rope bit into her skin. She raised her head quickly and took several rapid breaths.
She’d thought the rope would be as loose as at the wrists. This way of trying to untie it didn’t seem to be working.
She withdrew the Pocket Knife from deep within her sleeve and, pressing her back against the floor, raised her upper body. But her arms gave out halfway, and she toppled sideways, her right shoulder blade colliding with the floor with a loud thud.
Thud.
“Hm?”
The old woman stopped her song and turned around.
“…….”
Their eyes met, and Cecilia had no time to feel pain before she swallowed hard, her throat dry.
The old woman blinked rapidly, her eyelids layered with blue eyeshadow and thick eyeliner.
Pale powder caked on her skin, and rosy cheeks painted with meticulous care. Below that, glossy red lipstick was smoothly applied along the thin line of her lips. At the sight of it, Cecilia wetted her dry lips with her tongue without thinking.
The old woman stared at Cecilia’s shock-stricken face and laughed.
“The actresses who work here are quite beautiful, aren’t they?”
Oh, no.
The shirt clinging to her back was damp with cold sweat. Forcing her expression rigid to avoid provoking the old woman, Cecilia slowly shifted the Pocket Knife to her left hand, where the woman’s gaze could not reach it.
But suddenly the old woman rose to her feet, found a Bottle rolling nearby, smashed it against the steps, and gripped one sharp shard in her hand before slowly approaching Cecilia again.
“You’re beautiful too, like an actress.”
A pair of deep blue High Heels came to a stop directly in front of Cecilia.
“Then if I carve away that face…….”
Cecilia.
“……will I become beautiful?”
Run.
Davion’s face flashed before Cecilia’s eyes and vanished.
In that instant, a sharp sensation ripped through her entire body. She sprang upward like a coiled spring and, forcing the Pocket Knife into the gap where the Rope bound her ankles, pulled with all her strength.
The Rope tore apart with a loud snap. Grabbing her limp wrists from the recoil, Cecilia urgently bolted down the stairs.
But from the sudden exertion, something hard seemed to wrench inside her knee, and her leg buckled inward.
“Stop right there!”
Clutching a shard of the bottle aloft, the old woman shrieked and thundered down the stairs.
Cecilia clung to the railing, steadying her trembling body by force of will. She drew her Pocket Knife, but the thought of the grandmother who had raised her stayed her hand.
Instead, following a technique Davion had once taught her, she curled her thumb into her fist and swung at the approaching face with all her strength. To her shock, the old woman stood firm without even a whimper of pain.
Only then did Cecilia’s eyes catch what she’d missed before.
The countless marks scarring the old woman’s body.
‘An addict……?’
The grandmother, corrupted by Lampi, stood two flights above and clicked her tongue audibly down at Cecilia.
“Youth shouldn’t behave that way—so lacking in respect.”
The old woman swung her arm savagely. As the bottle shard slashed past, Cecilia flinched and lost her grip on the railing. In that instant of vulnerability, the grandmother smiled coldly and raised her leg. Then she drove her High Heel hard into the girl’s belly.
“I can’t stand disrespect.”
Cecilia’s aching body flew through the air and tumbled down the stairs.
* * *
Davion sat with furrowed brow, his leg bouncing with anxiety.
“If Mother finds out about this, she’ll never forgive us!”
“This house, this family, this inheritance, this honor—I can throw it all away. For you, I’d walk into fire itself!”
“Oh, Louis, my darling……”
“Let’s run away. We’ll escape to somewhere only we know and have our wedding there!”
Damn it.
The unbearable triteness made his skin crawl. Surely the things he’d once said to Cecilia hadn’t sounded like that? If they had, he’d deserve to bury his face in a plate and never rise again.
But before he could find answers to that gnawing question, a circular spotlight flooded the Stage, and Esmeralda in her maid’s uniform locked lips with her scene partner.

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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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