The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 158

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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 158
April cleared her mind as best she could, then climbed the stairs again. Upon reaching the study, she sat across from Lian.
Lian spoke.
“You’ve heard that there was a promise between me and Pejin?”
“Yes. That you would grant each other’s requests without fail.”
“My sister…….”
Before laying bare his secret, Lian studied April intently.
Even as Pejin hovered between life and death, the Head of House had returned to her fiefdom, her eyes blazing with an intensity that reminded Lian of a starving tiger prowling a snowy field. It was unsettling to behold.
In that moment, he understood what Pejin had come to love, and why he had changed his mind.
Lian spoke.
“She was killed. When she was young.”
“Killed?”
“Yes. From birth, she couldn’t control one side of her body properly.”
April’s jaw clenched by habit, and Lian paused, then spoke.
“You really do.”
As the conversation shifted, April’s narrowed eyes still brimmed with caution. Wanting to ease the tension, Lian spoke in a lighter tone.
“Pejin told me that when Miss Lunos gets angry, she either smiles or clenches her teeth. He said it was torturous, the way she wore a needlessly cheerful expression while speaking of serious things.”
“……Please tell me about my sister.”
Lian nodded and returned to the original subject.
“She was a good child—so obedient it was heartbreaking. Since birth, she couldn’t command one side of her body as she wished, so her expression was always half-smiling, half-weeping. You never knew which emotion to match.”
He smiled faintly, as if recalling a happy memory.
“I had another sister behind her, and whenever my younger sister and I were running, she would try to follow along however she could. So my other sister and I would deliberately run slowly. We loved watching her keep up.”
“But who on earth——”
“His Majesty disliked the fact that his beloved youngest sibling was raising such a child. He wanted the Imperial Family to appear perfect.”
At the word “Emperor,” April’s face hardened and her lips sealed shut.
Lian laid out the exceedingly dangerous truth, calmly.
“Several years ago, he took her away, saying he would entrust her to a doctor he knew, and she starved there.”
“…….”
“He claimed she had caught a plague and died, so we weren’t allowed near the body. But since I had my suspicions, Pejin offered to break the rules just once and check.”
Lian recalled that day’s Pejin.
He had been a cadet then.
While Lian wept through his sister’s funeral without ever seeing her face, Pejin had tapped his shoulder and said they should sneak a look.
Late one dawn, alongside Pejin, Lian entered the hospital where his sister’s remains lay before burial.
There, Lian saw it.
His beloved sister, dead without having eaten a thing.
Pejin had embraced Lian as he lunged toward the Imperial Family.
“Not yet. You have no power. We can do nothing right now.”
Pejin had spoken with unflinching conviction.
At the time, Lian had thought Pejin could speak so coldly because it wasn’t his own sister who had died.
It took him days of contemplation before he accepted Pejin’s words.
Instead, he had proposed a promise—that they would grant each other’s requests.
Until they gained the power to hold the Emperor accountable for that crime, they would comply with anything, no matter what.
When Lian had proposed that promise, Pejin—who until then had lived in quiet compliance with the system—had finally found a purpose.
He had spoken of wanting complete freedom for Right Island.
Either way, it was an impossible dream. The proper scale for a dream was always impossible, Lian had come to think.
Having spoken thus, Lian now wore a brighter smile.
“It must be hard to believe that Pejin was an terribly diligent cadet in the Empire, given how he usually conducts himself.”
“Yes, that’s quite difficult to believe.”
April nodded, managing a faint smile.
Lian continued.
“He truly exerted himself beyond measure. I still can’t believe that fellow managed to rise to become my rival—the Emperor’s grand-nephew.”
“Isn’t the competition over now?”
“No, in fact, this explosion will give Pejin the advantage. He was an officer of the Empire right up until he entered the factory.”
Lian murmured.
“Pejin entered the factory to rescue the guests from the Empire and to prevent the fog from reaching the Empire. Those will be his only motives. Pejin asked me to make him a hero of the Empire, and I will help him do it.”
April nodded.
Lian slowly rose to his feet and spoke.
“More importantly, Miss Lunos should rest now. And change your clothes.”
Now that he mentioned it, she was still wearing the Wedding Dress.
“Journalists will soon flock here from the Empire itself. It will be chaotic. It would be better for you to stay at the Marrow House for a while.”
“No. I’ll be staying in the fiefdom.”
At April’s firm words, Lian hesitated, but then nodded.
“Very well, if that’s what you wish.”
As Lian turned to leave the study, April asked him a question.
“Will I be contacted when Pejin wakes up?”
At her question, Lian smiled and answered.
“You’ll be the first person he contacts. At present, Miss Lunos is the only family he has.”
Now that Pejin had turned his back on the Dieusz Family, Lian understood that April Lunos was the only person he would regard as family.
April nodded without further comment and rose to escort Lian out.
Looking out the turbulent window, she could indeed see journalists from both Rasa and the Dieusz Grand Duchy converging in the distance, their desire to break the story first burning fiercely.
“I’m heading toward the lake!”
“Go! Hurry! Run!”
She could hear the journalists shouting.
Lian clicked his tongue and spoke.
“Please, go inside. I’ll hold off the journalists.”
“No. You can’t stop them. Instead, I’m going to let them all in. I’ll speak to them.”
“You’re not in any state to do that, Head of House.”
As Lian protested with concern, April answered.
“But this is the moment we’ve been waiting for. The moment this factory becomes known to both Right Island and Left Island.”
“No matter what——”
“My condition doesn’t matter. The moment does.”
With those words, April headed toward her bedroom.
Lian watched her receding figure—seeming ready to collapse at any moment yet stubbornly holding firm—and sighed. The Wedding Ring on her hand caught the light.
She went to the Cosmetics Dresser she and Pejin had discovered in the basement, and examined herself in the mirror.
A full day had passed since the explosion, wandering in fifteen-degree-below-zero cold. Her condition was deplorable.
The dress was ruined beyond mention, her face corpse-pale.
April first wiped her face with a damp cloth. The water was nearly frozen, yet she felt no cold. She thought only of maximizing this opportunity. This was the chance Pejin had given his life to create.
After washing her face, she brushed through her tangled hair.
In her own face, she found tragedy. In truth, she didn’t have to look far for it.
Once she had made modest preparations, April approached where the journalists waited outside the residence, held back by police.
The moment she stepped onto the porch, both officers and journalists fell silent.
April opened her mouth.
“Ask if you have questions. Though I don’t know much myself.”
“Citizens of the Grand Duchy discovered a factory beneath the Lunos Residence! Were you aware of its existence?”
“I was confined to the residence for seven years. So of course I didn’t know.”
“We hear that Police Chief Pejin threw himself into danger for the safety of the Empire’s guests. What is his current condition?”
“Pejin……”
April did not suppress the emotion rising in her throat. She was grateful to have been given a moment where she didn’t have to.
Yet she did not weep. Even if it made her seem pitiable, she would not appear weak.
April answered.
“Whether he lives or dies remains unknown. I can only trust that the medical arts of the Rasa Empire are excellent.”
“Can you tell us how you’re feeling right now?”
At one journalist’s question, the others slightly frowned.
They thought it was too much to ask, even so. Yet it was the question everyone here was dying to know.
The heart of a bride who had experienced an accident on her wedding day that pushed her groom to the brink of death.
And the heart of an old house’s master learning that beneath the residence where she’d been trapped for seven years lay a factory of unimaginable scale.
April paused long enough to think, then opened her mouth.
“I’m not sure what I feel. I just hope my husband lives.”
It was not a lie.
His fate mattered to her just slightly more than the fate of that factory.

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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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