The Mansion Awaits Spring - Chapter 7

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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 7
Pejin gazed down at April in silence before answering.
“I met your brother. So I met your sister-in-law too.”
“True enough. They’re married.”
April said this and waited for his reaction.
He simply shifted his weight and moved toward the house.
“Let’s go in.”
It was a duller response than she’d expected. Perhaps this, too, no longer counted as a weakness she could exploit.
April followed Pejin as they walked and spoke.
“You’re not very reactive.”
“What, did you hope the Grand Duchess would flirt with me?”
“Well, honestly, I doubt Heidi would fancy someone as green as you. She was taken with your brother.”
“That was when he was a child. If she liked someone that young, that’s a serious problem.”
“So now you’re confident?”
“Of course.”
“Are you insane?”
Unable to bear his shamelessness, April straightened her face and demanded an answer. Pejin replied without hesitation.
“Objectively speaking, yes.”
“And you’re not even joking?”
“Why would I joke with you?”
“You shouldn’t even have time to be seriously conceited. So what, exactly, are you so confident about? Your family name?”
“My face, obviously.”
……
“Everyone says it’s pretty. Most people’s eyes are accurate about that sort of thing.”
At last, April’s words failed her.
Of course, had she encountered him in society, she would have thrust him far away—she harbored such a genuine distaste for him as a person. Yet she inwardly admitted that his face was indeed beautiful.
His eyes were like a lake in which the world’s landscape reflected in its truest colors.
His long lashes grew more and more bewitching the closer one drew, and the color of his lips—so perfectly suited to his pale skin it seemed deliberately chosen—was flawless.
If Miller’s face was like that of a man whom God had deliberately crafted with textbook beauty in mind, then Pejin’s was like a face that had stumbled upon beauty by accident—having created millions of faces without intention, he’d happened upon loveliness in the process.
Despite the absurdity of it, looking at that face was bewitching.
But how could anyone say such a thing aloud so shamelessly? Would any normal person?
The moment April’s senses returned from their fox-charmed daze, she turned her head away sharply and walked straight toward the manor’s porch.
A rope had been tied around the manor door at waist height to signify that entry was forbidden pending investigation.
As Pejin reached to lift the rope, April narrowed her eyes and struck his arm with her palm.
While he turned to look at her, a detective inside rushed out and hastily untied the rope.
“Please, come in.”
“It’s quite cold out there. Come inside and warm yourselves.”
April said this to the detective and stepped inside first.
Pejin, watching April’s retreating figure—which had been a roundabout way of saying “go inside, you sluggard”—let out a soft laugh.
One of the Grand Duchy’s officers who had followed him spoke.
“It reminds me of the old Grand Duchess.”
“I was thinking the same thing just now. I can tell exactly what family she comes from.”
She was a woman from a family whose people and servants would steal anything profitable down to a single ornamental bead or vase, who possessed nothing but wasteland and crumbling houses.
And yet April’s pride in that family remained formidable.
Once he stepped down from the carriage, Pejin felt the cold bite of the wind. Having spent time in the Empire and forgotten the harsh winds of the Grand Duchy, he grimaced against the chill.
He’d hoped the indoors might be warmer, but the manor’s interior—battered by wind pouring through broken windows—proved no different from outside.
At least a police officer was kindling a fire in the hearth, and a trace of warmth circulated through part of the house.
Though officers had followed them inside, April’s taut tension eased somewhat now that she was home. Standing by the hearth’s warmth, April warmed her hands and looked toward Pejin with a question.
“I’m grateful you brought me home, but what are you doing here? And why so many officers?”
“Checking the gas pipes.”
The two of them stood on the manor’s first floor, where the unattended marble was cracked in places. Each time the officers stepped on a broken section, a sharp, harsh sound echoed through the entire house.
When something suddenly shattered, April—who had been standing with an uncomfortable expression the whole time—ran toward the source of the noise.
The sound came from where officers were prying open the Iron Door that had been sealed when House Confinement began.
It had been sealed for so long that April no longer remembered what might remain in the Basement.
A man named Paul clicked his tongue as several officers barely managed to wrench open the heavy Iron Door.
“I don’t know how that young lady sealed it up like that by herself.”
Paul was right—the barricade was unnecessarily thorough.
Once the Iron Door had been removed, everyone moved into the dark Basement.
April had never ventured into the Basement herself, so she halted at the entrance. She peered into the illuminated space as the officer ahead shone his light.
The Basement appeared to contain nothing of particular importance.
Most of it was tools left behind by servants, and scattered empty Liquor Bottles suggested the place had occasionally been used for secret drinking.
A detective walked over and picked up an empty bottle, remarking.
“This is a vintage they don’t make anymore.”
They said the Grand Duchy had changed dramatically over the past seven years—as much as had been created anew seemed to have vanished just as completely.
The detective seemed fond of that extinct liquor; he held the bottle for some time without setting it down.
Meanwhile, to examine the Gas Pipes, the officers descended further down a staircase leading deeper beneath the Basement.
As everyone had known, the Pipes were severed and blocked off.
“The Gas Pipes are entirely blocked.”
At this report from below, all eyes in the Basement turned toward April.
Without Gas Pipes to carry the gas, how on earth had all those Gas Lamps been lit daily in this vast manor?
Even when the officers had checked with the Gas Company, they’d said regarding the gas supplied to power so many Gas Lamps for the Lunos Family: “As far as we’ve confirmed so far, there’s no record of it…,” letting their words trail off.
The reason they hadn’t said “there isn’t any” definitively wasn’t genuine uncertainty—it was the faint hope that they might someday collect substantial back fees from the Lunos Family for gas they’d supposedly never received.
This Gas Company, established by a noble family on the Left Island, had erected an unnecessarily abundant number of Gas Lamps throughout the Right Island’s streets and carried away enormous monthly fees to the Left Island.
The officers, knowing the company’s notorious reputation, were certain that if conflict erupted with them, there was no way April Lunos—who had been confined for seven years—could fight and win.
As the officers all returned upstairs after confirming the severed Pipes, one detective among the Grand Duchy’s officers—a man in rather poor health—swayed on his feet.
“Uh……”
Then he collapsed directly to the floor and lost consciousness.
In the confusion of the sudden collapse, Pejin rushed over and checked the fallen officer’s breathing.
Finding it shallow, he immediately hoisted the officer onto his back and ran up the stairs.
April, who had spent seven relatively peaceful years in her own home, went rigid in shock at the sudden turn of events.
She only snapped back to awareness when the officers rushed up from the Basement, hurling curses in her direction.
Once all the officers had gone outside, April lingered for a moment before bending down and picking up the Oil Lamp she’d set on the floor.
Then she moved toward the place where the officer who had just collapsed had descended.
The Basement contained nothing but the severed and fully blocked Gas Pipes. Supply had been cut off from beyond the territory long ago, so no gas could flow in.
Then why?
Only now, seeing the Pipes with her own eyes for the first time in seven years, did April admit that the matter of the Gas Lamps being lit couldn’t help but seem suspicious.

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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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