The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 25

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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 25
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Miller had arrived at the Investigation Headquarters office where Pejin worked, and was pouring out concern the way parents do toward a child who refuses to grow up.
“Please, I’m begging you—stay at the Grand Duke’s Residence for a while. Are you eating properly?”
Pejin turned away with a weary expression as his brother launched into his familiar tirade, and spoke.
“Stop nagging. That’s not why I don’t go.”
“Don’t blame me for this. You’re simply not going.”
“And what reason do I have to go?”
“You’ll never get married unless you’re out walking the halls of the Grand Duke’s Residence.”
In the Grand Duchy, half of the nobility’s romantic entanglements began in the corridors of the Grand Duke’s Residence.
True, there was the drawback of equally rampant affairs, but overall there was no finer place for such purposes.
Even those not from distinguished families could enter if they had the approval of Heidi, the mistress of the Grand Duke’s Residence.
Conversely, without Heidi’s consent, a stroll through the Grand Duke’s Residence was impossible.
Pejin replied with an anguished expression to Miller’s familiar refrain about marriage, which he repeated every time they saw each other.
“I’ll handle it myself.”
“Handle it? You’re twenty-two now. You clearly aren’t handling anything. There’s not a single young lady who’s danced with you.”
Miller pressed his forehead and continued.
“It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have let you enter the Military Academy. I should have had you meet people in society instead.”
“I’ve been attending plenty of parties in the Empire.”
At Pejin’s response, Miller lowered his hand from his forehead, and his eyes suddenly brightened with something like hope.
“That was an order, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, my superiors told me to go.”
“Then why did you stop going?”
“It caused fights.”
“What?”
“The young ladies kept quarreling over who got to claim me.”
Miller stared at his brother in disbelief at his casual response.
“Don’t say things like that.”
“Why not? Is this something to brag about? I’m serious—it’s exhausting. Are there no other handsome men in this world besides me? Why do they all like me so much?”
Miller, unable to bear Pejin’s grumbling, simply sighed once and spoke.
“If it’s that exhausting, you might as well just get married quickly.”
“You think the women will leave me alone if I do?”
Miller found himself genuinely wanting to end this conversation.
But knowing that Pejin, cunning since childhood, was deliberately wearing him down for exactly this purpose, he sighed once more, took a breath, and continued.
“If you focus steadily on one person, the problem would solve itself.”
“You shouldn’t say that.”
Pejin’s objection sprang forth almost instinctively, and Miller stopped short, his eyes widening.
Indeed, until now Pejin had never once held it against Miller that he had chosen Heidi.
To him, it was simply the natural order of things.
To Pejin, Heidi was perfect, and April was flawed beyond measure.
It was true not only for the boy who had departed to the Empire to become a policeman, but also for the young man Pejin who had just returned to the Grand Duchy.
When their parents passed away, Pejin had regarded his older brother, who had only just come of age, as a parent substitute.
And now that same brother was pointing out his own faults.
In that moment, Miller’s first thought was that his brother, whom he had raised like a son, had become a man.
And his second thought was whether Pejin might have fallen under that witch’s spell.
Miller recalled April, whose face he could barely remember now.
From the moment April first set foot in society until now, people’s memories of her had likely settled on two distinct images.
One was her eternal contempt for everything—the self-assured sneer perpetually curling her lips, and her haughty, upturned gaze.
An arrogance that even adolescence could not excuse.
The other was how she looked as her parents were executed before her eyes.
Until that moment, April, wild-haired and raging, had inexplicably clamped her mouth shut and not uttered a single cry.
She had absorbed the execution with wide-open eyes as if determined never to forget it, and then turned those same eyes upon the assembled nobles watching her downfall.
As her gaze passed over each neck in that gathering, not a single aristocrat could have failed to feel a chill.
Miller had always regretted not having April executed. That green-eyed girl seemed to have driven her fingernail straight into his heart, leaving a mark.
Miller gripped Pejin’s arm and asked.
“You haven’t been spending too much time with Lunos, have you?”
“Which Lunos?”
“Is there anyone else by that name left in the world?”
At Miller’s pointed remark, Pejin belatedly nodded. “Ah.”
Miller continued.
“Don’t spend too much time together. No matter what else, you’re a man and she’s a woman. In the end, some feeling is bound to develop.”
“Brother.”
“What?”
Miller answered at the quiet way Pejin called to him, and then Pejin spoke.
“I think I’ve heard enough lectures.”
He had no desire to listen any further.
Miller felt both his concern for Pejin and his worry about himself welling up, but knowing that more nagging would fall on deaf ears, he nodded.
“All right. I’ll go for now. But I’m leaving this with you.”
“What is—”
Pejin recognized the Invitation Card that Miller had pulled from his pocket and set on his desk, and his words trailed off as he clicked his tongue.
“Now you’re running love letters? What a romantic.”
“That way you can’t refuse.”
What Miller had set down was an Invitation Card to a party hosted by Heidi.
Pejin was already weak to Heidi, and with the Grand Duke himself playing messenger, there was no refusal even an imperial emperor could offer.
Pejin signed the two overlapping Invitation Cards. The signature soaked through the thin paper to the back page beneath.
Pejin folded the first card and returned it to Miller, who was so pleased that Pejin had signed to confirm his attendance that he reached over and roughly mussed his hair.
“There—even when you’re going astray, you have some sense, at least.”
“This is driving me crazy, seriously.”
Pejin batted away Miller’s hand that had disheveled his hair and writhed in exasperation, but Miller, having achieved his goal, left the headquarters with a satisfied grin.
After Miller left the office, Pejin picked up the Invitation Card he had left behind. It was a fundraiser for the victims of the Fog.
He understood now why Miller had come all the way here to deliver it—he intended to have Pejin recount in detail the events he had witnessed as a police officer at the accident scene during that Fog.
Pejin recalled that scene.
As expected, all the suspects who had caused the accident had been released on bail. It was possible because April had saved all three victims present at the scene.
Did those suspects even realize what they owed her?
Pejin set down the Invitation Card as he reflected.

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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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