The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 164

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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 164
Lian had heard that April was coming, but he hadn’t expected her to arrive with the force of a door being thrown wide open.
Still less had he anticipated her arriving angry.
The moment she stepped through the door, she let out a scoff of derision. Then she tore the Consent Form in half, set it on the table, and scrawled “Do Not Consent” in elegant handwriting.
The shredded envelope and graceful script made for a strange tableau, and in that moment, Lian came to understand even better what kind of person Pejin had fallen in love with.
There was little reason to ask Pejin about his tastes.
He had been the subject of a scandal notorious enough to reach even Left Island, and its subject had been unambiguous.
Still, when taste occasionally came up in conversation, he’d answer with a joking comment about pretty women.
If that was the one condition he needed, she certainly satisfied it.
April stared at Pejin lying in the bed with something like ferocity before turning abruptly to Lian.
“Would it be all right if we were alone for a moment?”
“If you’re planning to hit him, you might as well do it while I’m here.”
“That’s what I’m afraid of—you stopping me because I’m hitting a patient.”
At April’s composed reply, Lian felt genuine laughter escape him for nearly the first time since Pejin had been wounded.
“I had no such intention, but I’ll leave you to it.”
Lian spoke those words and stepped out of the hospital room.
In the hallway, he said to Paul, who had been watching anxiously outside the door.
“If you haven’t eaten, come get a meal with me.”
“Ah, yes, that would be welcome, but… what if when we return, she’s killed the director?”
“Well, the groom left his own wedding early and came running on his own feet to end up like this. He deserves to take it quietly.”
“That’s true, but I was worried she might take the blame for something she didn’t do.”
“We’ll manage it well.”
Lian matched Paul’s rhythm conversationally, and together they stepped outside.
The hospital was crowded with police anyway, even with them gone.
Paul, knowing that Lian had suggested the meal because he had something to discuss, promptly led them to the Cafeteria where the two of them could be alone.
Once they were seated and food had been brought out, Lian spoke.
“His Majesty ordered me to end Pejin’s life.”
He had made the statement as clinically as possible, but Paul’s expression darkened considerably.
“Why… would he give such an order? Does he still doubt your loyalty?”
“He’s testing mine.”
…
“It’s a test. And while he’s at it, he gets to create a hero who sacrificed his life for his people.”
Lian continued.
“What are the odds that Pejin wakes up?”
“The doctors believe the chances are slim.”
“What are the odds that she agrees to stop the life-sustaining treatment?”
“Based on the expression I saw today? None. No chance whatsoever.”
“That matches what I observed.”
Lian nodded and covered his face with both hands.
“Let’s think of a solution.”
* * *
April stood beside the bed, gazing at Pejin’s face without moving.
“You.”
She stopped there, took a breath, and then continued.
“I will never forgive you. You know that, don’t you? You must know I wouldn’t.”
April sat down on the edge of the bed.
All the way here, she had turned over what she might say to him.
What words could make this fool move even a fraction?
April knew well enough that the odds of someone lying down for more than a month waking up were absurdly low. Yet here she was, having crossed the winter sea with the sincere intention to wake him, which struck her as almost funny.
“What gives you the right to drag me this far?”
She gripped the sheet in her fist and drew on all her strength to speak as a warning.
“I won’t consent to any of that. Even if you reach the threshold of the afterlife, I’ll grab the doctors by the collar and demand they save you. Why do you only choose things to do that I’ll hate? When you were young, when you grew up… you never listened to a word I said.”
She scolded this man who couldn’t even hear her for a long while, then lay down curled beside him, exhaustion written across her face.
She had crossed the winter strait, spoken with the Emperor, and felt all her remaining strength drain away. Her body had been frozen the whole time, but lying here in warmth, sleep came easily.
He looked like a dead man, yet he breathed and radiated warmth. A faint spark of life remained. At least, that was how it appeared to her eyes.
She dozed off there and awoke to find Paul gently shaking her awake, his expression full of concern.
“Miss April, you should return to your residence now.”
“I’d rather stay here.”
“No, that won’t do! If I allow it, the director will have my head. Please go home first, and I’ll come fetch you again tomorrow morning.”
Gruff in appearance as he was, Paul showed surprising worry, and at his words, April smiled faintly.
“Thank you.”
She murmured this and pushed herself up.
She kept turning back, seized by the illusion that Pejin was clutching at her arm, but he remained unconscious.
* * *
At some point, a bedroom had been prepared for April in Pejin’s residence in the Empire.
It was an unusually lavish room, with excellent natural light.
April had planned to stay for two weeks before returning.
She would have preferred to remain indefinitely until Pejin woke, but news that the Factory was her property broke quickly, and the fury of the Empire’s nobility turned toward her.
She felt no real sense of injustice over it. After all, the explosion itself had been deliberate on her part.
The newspapers had printed the date of her departure as guaranteed by the Emperor, making it difficult to overstay that deadline.
During those two weeks, April dealt with the Factory ownership issue and received the Special Promotion Rank on Pejin’s behalf. Outside of such obligations, she spent every remaining hour at the hospital trying to wake him.
Two weeks were both long and short. On the morning of her last day, when she had to return to Right Island, April made her way to the hospital once again.
She had raged, wept, joked—yet Pejin hadn’t budged. He simply lay there, breathing in shallow gasps, asleep.
April sat on the edge of the bed and, as she had done throughout the two weeks, read to him from the newspapers published in the Empire that morning.
“You’re a hero, and I’ve become a witch. Isn’t that funny?”
With those words, she looked over at Pejin.
“But now that Factory is mine. Everything on my land is mine now.”
[The Factory in the Lunos Fiefdom was originally the property of the Lunos Family, and though it employed the technology of Rasa and the Imperial Household received a certain compensation, the true owner of the Factory has been revealed to be April Lunos, Head of the Lunos House.]
[…April Lunos knew that this Factory was the cause of the Fog and yet turned a blind eye while the citizens of the Grand Duchy perished. Surely the epithet of witch is not undeserved.]
“When I go back to Right Island, the citizens will probably drag me from my carriage again. I’ve been through it once, so I don’t think I’ll be very surprised anymore. The Emperor says he’ll help me, anyway.”
April brushed back Pejin’s hair as she continued.
“I have a plan. I may have to hide away at the Lunos house for a while. There… I’ll become rich receiving your flowers once a month, and you’ll stay here as a police officer. Then one day, we’ll meet again by surprise. It has to be on Right Island. April would be best. I hope it’s a warm year. Let’s meet at our café. The best café on Right Island. There… let’s meet, you and I.”
Hoping that perhaps if she coaxed him this way, he might wake, April’s hands stilled.
She rushed out frantically and cried out.
“Pejin! Pejin isn’t breathing!”
At her cry, police and nurses came running.
Alarms sounded throughout the hospital.
April waited in front of the Operating Room where Pejin had been taken.
As she spent the time in mounting anxiety, a doctor briefly emerged from the Operating Room and tried to persuade her.
“Should we continue with life-sustaining treatment? Outwardly he shows no consciousness, but he may be feeling all of this pain. If we continue operating….”
April realized that every medical staff member in the hospital was looking at her with cold eyes.
Well, perhaps they truly did think of her as a witch.
April sometimes felt that she actually benefited from the unfounded reputation of being a witch.
Even now, she could be the kind of person others saw as making a bad choice. Easily.
April answered.
“Yes, you should. Continue. You must keep him alive.”
“Miss April.”
“Call me wife. I am his wife.”
“I must reiterate….”
“And I’ll say it again. Keep going. Whether he suffers or not doesn’t matter. Because I want this. Because I….”
Because I don’t want to watch him die.
Because I’m not at all prepared to let him go.
Because this time, truly this time, I didn’t want to lose him.
April clenched her teeth and shook her head fiercely to keep the tears at bay.
After that refusal, April’s exhausted body swayed. Logan, who had been assigned to escort her to the Lunos Grand Residence, rushed forward and caught her.
“You must leave now. Your ship’s departure time is approaching. It would be best to go first and return later.”
“Now that the Empire’s nobility opposes it, I won’t be able to come back. So couldn’t I leave after this surgery is done?”
“From what I’ve observed, once a surgery begins, it takes a full day.”
At Logan’s answer, April exhaled a shaky breath.
She finally nodded, then turned back to look at the Operating Room one last time and cried out.
“Pejin Dieusz, if you don’t wake up, your brother will kill me!”
For two weeks, she had scolded him and spoken sweet words.
She had said all through those two weeks that if only he would wake, she’d give him everything he wanted, but it didn’t seem as though that would be enough to wake him.
So this time, she decided to trust in his love one last time.
“If you want to watch me die, keep lying there! Either die unable to protect me, or wake up!”
April shouted loud enough for it to carry into the Operating Room, then turned to leave.

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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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