The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 23

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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 23
The moment April heard the sound of a door moving from where Pejin was, she bolted back up the stairs in a panic.
“Don’t close it! Pejin! Keep it open!”
“I’m not closing it—it’s the wind…….”
Pejin’s frightened reply cut off mid-sentence.
He rushed out and caught April’s stumbling body with one arm, steadying her like a net.
The moment April emerged, she glared at Pejin and spoke.
“Why are you…… why are you trying to close the door!”
“I’m not closing it. The wind was trying to close it, so I was holding it open.”
Pejin spoke calmly again, but the fear that had flooded April’s face did not fade easily.
Tears glistened in her eyes as if she might burst into sobs at any moment, and she gripped his sleeve tightly, pressing down the emotion.
His presence had quelled the fear, but its lingering heat summoned a dark memory—the time inside a cell when she could do nothing.
She had learned the date of her parents’ execution while locked away.
She had known no freedom in a narrow space, nor in a wide one. Everything was collapsing, and the disgust at her own helplessness threatened to drive her mad.
She shook her head to shake off that revulsion and spoke to Pejin.
“I heard a voice…… a human voice from down there.”
“……A ghost?”
Pejin’s body flinched at his own question.
April found herself laughing, oddly amused by his tremor.
“You’re scared too?”
“Ghosts are a bit much…… especially ones that talk, apparently.”
“You probably misheard. I was too tense.”
She thought it was not strange to hear phantom sounds in that distant darkness. She’d gone in with only a single lantern.
April spoke.
“I’ll go back down and check. See what that sound was.”
“You burst up here like that and now you want to go back down alone? You stay here. I’ll go this time.”
“You?”
“I need to see if there’s a sound and investigate. It’s my job to understand as much as possible about suspicious matters concerning Lunos.”
When April didn’t answer but just looked up at him, Pejin rebuked her.
“Don’t doubt me. I won’t break anything. Just hold this.”
Pejin said this and held out a rope to April.
When April took the rope, Pejin took the lantern and descended the spiral staircase with long strides.
The moment the lantern passed, the staircase plunged into darkness, and April watched it intently. The rope slipped through her fingers.
Pejin descended the spiral staircase with long strides, and once he reached level ground, he continued forward without hesitation.
Arriving at the southern end, Pejin tapped on the wall.
“Pejin Dieus. Open up.”
At his words, a section of the wall opened like a door.
And a police officer in a protective suit from head to toe saluted and asked,
“What is the matter, Chief Director?”
“Keep quiet. She can hear from outside.”
At his words, the startled officer stiffened and asked,
“Pardon? You mean the sound of voices is leaking out?”
“Yes.”
“I… I didn’t realize because no one from the Lunos Family has been down here all this time. My apologies.”
In the brief pause, April pulled the rope once.
Pejin continued pulling the rope so April wouldn’t suspect anything, and questioned the man in the protective suit.
“Have you figured out why April Lunos is unharmed?”
“We haven’t determined that yet. I apologize. I will find out as quickly as possible.”
With that, at Pejin’s gesture, the officer closed the door again.
Pejin glanced at the lantern in his hand. The light danced wildly like a demon, smoke seeping in through the sides.
After the door closed, Pejin lit a candle on the wall of Basement Level 3 and spoke.
“April, come down.”
At his words, April descended the stairs. She spoke with a look of surprise.
“It’s bigger than I thought.”
“And there are many things.”
“I had no idea.”
Basement Level 3, scattered with an enormous number of items, looked like a museum displaying the history of the Lunos Family.
April discovered her mother’s dressing table among them and quickened her pace.
She brushed away the dust from the dressing table with her hand.
“So it was here.”
“Your mother’s?”
“Yes.”
Coming down into Basement Level 3, April was suffering from such a severe headache that she wanted to cut off her own head.
Pejin stood there looking fine too, but she thought his condition was likely worse than hers, not better.
April lifted the board covering the entire dressing table and fitted the supports on both sides to make the panel stand.
Pejin looked down at the display case below the panel and spoke.
“The jewels are still here, fortunately. She must have decided from the start to hide them.”
April nodded in agreement. But soon, a doubt arose, and she murmured, narrowing her brows.
“I don’t understand how she knew no one could get here.”
“Well, since she hid it so well, people just couldn’t make it down this far.”
“You know how our mother is. She wasn’t the type to calculate things carelessly.”
At April’s words, Pejin traced through his memory, nodded, and said, “That’s true.”
Lady Lunos was fastidious and meticulous.
Pejin had once heard from the elders of his house that Lady Lunos and his own mother had despised each other when they first entered high society.
But compared to those two back then, April Lunos and Heidi Basanta didn’t exactly hate each other…….
Of course, the emotion April felt toward Heidi was more amusement and anger than hatred, so strictly speaking, there was a difference.
Pejin lifted the dressing table with both hands and spoke.
“Let’s leave quickly.”
“Let me look a bit longer.”
“If you collapse, I can carry you up. If I collapse, you’ll just pretend you don’t know and leave. I’m the one at a disadvantage.”
“What do you take me for? I won’t just let someone die.”
April rebuked him thus, but fearing he might collapse at any moment, she took up the lantern and led the way up.
Pejin brought the dressing table up, and the moment he reached the first floor, he had his subordinates move it to where April wanted.
They placed the dressing table with the jewels in the Dress Room connected to April’s Room on 2nd Floor, and as Pejin looked out the window, he spoke to the officers.
“If you have nothing to do, fill in the holes we dug from that stake. You have to clean up after yourselves before you leave.”
“Yes, Chief Director!”
While Pejin gave orders, April examined the jewels in the dressing table one by one.
She had tried so hard to forget that she had forgotten all the good memories; she could not recall them even now.
“I don’t know which ones I can sell.”
April murmured, and Pejin returned.
He peered inside and took out a square Sapphire Necklace.
“I remember this. We wore it when we practiced dancing when you were eight.”
Upon hearing Pejin’s words, a fragment of her childhood memories—those that had been indiscernible as if sunk in fog—rose to the surface.
April asked with wonder,
“You remember that?”
“Of course.”
Pejin said this and swung his left wrist. April understood the meaning of the gesture and burst into laughter.
April had turned eight, but Pejin was still seven.
April and Pejin were taking dance lessons for a ball a few days away.
Social events among children their age served as a crucial foundation for networking on Right Island.
Children from noble families, military officers, and the wealthy all gathered in one place for the event to learn dance and become acquainted with each other.
April and Pejin had met before, and as a result, they had to become each other’s dance partners.
Pejin back then was more than half a head shorter than April, so neither was satisfied with the arrangement.
“He’s too tall!”
“She’s too short!”
The two pointed at each other almost simultaneously and complained to the dance instructor.
But among the children there, not a single volunteer emerged willing to partner with either of the two, being particularly young.
In the end, the two had no choice but to learn to dance, stepping on each other’s feet or poking and prodding constantly.

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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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