The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 161

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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 161
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Journalists from both islands could not pass up the chance for a scoop. They had cornered one fleeing worker, seated him in a chair, and surrounded him with Right Island people who were merely feigning restraint.
“I know it shouldn’t happen this way, and yet one can’t expect people to always be rational, can one…….”
“Ah, you’re thinking exactly what I’m thinking.”
The journalists spoke thus, their notebooks at the ready as they craned their necks forward.
Meanwhile, the Right Island people peppered him with questions.
“What kind of place is this? What’s its connection to the Royal Family?”
“I, I don’t really know much. I just work here without knowing…….”
At that, Esmeralda Beck—one of the Left Island journalists and the woman who had received a hefty bribe from Noah Dishe’s father after the accident at the wedding—thrust her head between the Right Island people and spoke.
“Seems you don’t know much, but we’re people who snuck in here without the Head of the Lunos Family knowing. If things go wrong…….”
Esmeralda Beck made a throat-cutting gesture with her hand, and the factory worker’s face turned ashen.
She pressed on quickly.
“After the explosion, a thin fog formed. The connection between this factory and the fog on Right Island seems inseparable now. What do you make of that?”
The other journalists readied their pens, their eyes gleaming as they watched the worker intently.
But the terrified worker, instead of answering, stammered out something else.
“From the moment I came to work here…… I signed a Non-Disclosure Agreement! If I break it, I could die! Please, try to understand!”
Despite his plea, none of them seemed inclined to listen.
When the conversation stalled with no progress, finally one of the citizens let out a sigh and picked up a shovel.
“In times like this, there’s only one thing to do.”
“W-wait! If someone gets hit with those arms, they die in one blow!”
“It’s underground anyway—we can just bury them here and be on our way.”
At the citizen’s casual words, the worker’s face drained of what little color remained, turning a sickly blue.
As the citizen lifted the shovel as if to strike, the worker cried out.
“Gas buried together with the crude oil exploded!”
With that shout, everyone fell silent.
Then Esmeralda Beck, adjusting her slipping glasses, murmured as if to herself.
“So this is a factory where crude oil was being extracted without the Head of the Lunos Family knowing. You were stealing from someone else’s fief?”
At her words, the Right Island citizens turned to face her.
She questioned the trembling worker again.
“But here’s what puzzles me: suppose the Lunos Family had no one to oversee the construction of a factory on their lands over the past seven years. Even so, could something like that happen without permission from the head of the Grand Duchy?”
That was not a question requiring an answer. So the Right Island citizens did not turn back to the worker; instead, they looked toward the journalists.
“Good journalist, are you saying…… that His Grace the Grand Duke must have permitted the construction of this factory?”
“Not that he did, but rather: how else could this have been possible?”
Esmeralda pushed her glasses up with her pencil as she continued.
“Of course, gas deposited alongside it—they would have discovered that only later.”
At that, a journalist from Right Island beside her looked upward and clicked his tongue.
“Now I understand why there were rumors of a witch living in the Lunos Grand Residence. Right beneath the mansion, there was a crude oil factory the owner didn’t even know about…….”
And now the Right Island citizens who also looked up had faces as pale as the factory workers’.
“S-so the Head of the Lunos Family…….”
Unable to finish their words, Esmeralda spoke for them.
“She was hated by the people of the Grand Duchy as a witch, never knowing it was because of the Rasa Empire’s factory. Well, fine then—I’ll be going. Ugh, the air in here is terrible.”
Having obtained the answer she wanted, she spun around and left the factory first.
The remaining Left Island journalists also departed, but the Right Island journalists and citizens stood rooted to the spot for some time, unable to move.
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The next morning, when the Empire Police found the sealed factory broken open, they interrogated April, but they had no way to refute her claim that someone had snuck in while she slept.
And that day, no newspapers were published anywhere. Empire Police had descended on newspaper offices on both islands with various pretexts.
Therefore, it took a long time for the papers to come out.
Not until April had set her fief in order and the sun had set, bringing January around.
Not all journalists could be silenced, and at last a newspaper appeared—from a Left Island publisher.
[……A gas of uncertain composition was buried together, and the explosion appears to have originated from here…….
—Esmeralda Beck.]
In the article one journalist had written, the gas that caused the accident was explained. Then, watching cautiously, the next day another Left Island newspaper came out with an article emphasizing a different angle.
[Therefore, the fact that the gas lamp in the Lunos Residence burned for the past seven years and the fog likely share the same cause.
That both these phenomena originated from a factory of the Rasa Empire Royal Family is a fascinating point.]
Remarkably, many newspapers were moving closer to the truth. As if the police’s obstruction had angered them, the tips of their pens had only grown sharper.
After folding that paper, she turned her gaze to documents that had arrived from an Empire hospital.
She had not yet opened the documents that arrived with this morning’s newspaper.
[Signature required and return necessary.]
Those words were written on the document envelope.
She did not wish to imagine what lay inside. And yet she had to open it.
April used a knife to slit the envelope and thrust her hand inside, grasping the documents. She withdrew them and laid them out before her.
[Your husband, Inspector Pejin, has remained unconscious for one month. Given the low likelihood of recovery, further life-sustaining medical treatment is judged to be meaningless.]
And there was one more attached document. A consent form.
[I have personally written the above and hereby consent not to undertake or to discontinue life-sustaining medical treatment should medical judgment determine that I am in the process of dying.]
April stared at the document.
“So marriage decides things like this too.”
Now that she held this, she wondered if the marriage had truly been a marriage after all.
Originally, this marriage had been nothing more than part of a necessary operation for her. Pejin had seemed to view it the same way.
Had he spoken of this explosion as if it were a problem-free plan while anticipating that she would receive such documents?
It could not have been.
He would not have known. Had he, he would have prevented her from receiving them.
He would never have wanted her to suffer such a grievous wound.
He, too, had not truly understood what marriage was.
As April stared at the documents, one more visitor arrived at the residence.
Bauman came to inform her, his expression puzzled.
“There’s a flower seller outside…… saying there are flowers you ordered?”
“Flowers?”
April, equally confused, headed downstairs.
The boy selling flowers spotted her and removed his hat in greeting.
“Good day, Head of House!”
“You said there are flowers I ordered?”
“Yes!”
The boy held out from his basket what looked like a flower bouquet, a mix of several kinds of white flowers.
“You’ll be receiving them once a month from now. For three years.”
“Three years?”
“Yes, an inspector paid for them all in advance. I hope to see you again. Goodbye!”
With that, the boy left, and April gazed down at the bouquet in her hands.
She recalled the day Pejin had suggested they communicate through color.
He had said white flowers meant love.
He had also said he would send white flowers while he loved her.
April held the bouquet for a long while.
The fact that he had prepaid for three years of flowers meant he had anticipated that he would be unable to send them himself for those three years.
“Idiot.”
She murmured this, then spun around sharply toward the residence interior, her face flushed with anger. And she spoke to Bauman.
“I need to go to Left Island.”
“Now?”
“Yes, right now.”
She climbed the stairs, her voice tight with fury.
“I have to wake that fool up and ask him if he really wants to die.”

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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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