“Did you hear the news?”
Greta barely lifted her head from the dishwashing tub, exhausted by the influx of mourners, which had tripled the usual amount of dishes. The kitchen was bustling with maids preparing food and shuttling plates.
One of the women, face weary, stopped washing dishes.
“What happened?”
“The, the, His Highness…”
“The Duchess, what?”
“No, no, it’s not her…”
The maid, gasping for air, struggled to articulate her words. Pale and panicked, she waved her hands dismissively. Someone handed her a glass of water, and she took a few sips but remained unsettled.
“Why is she acting like this? She looks as if she’s seen a ghost.”
“Yeah, that, that thing…”
“A ghost?”
At someone’s mention of a ghost, the maid nodded vigorously. Her eyes darted around frantically, resembling a madwoman. A few servants, arms crossed, exchanged glances.
She must be insane. Let’s get her out of here.
As they stepped toward the maid, the door creaked open again.
“Look, look, I saw it! I just came from there!”
A rush of cold air entered as the door opened, mixing with the steam of the dishwashing tub. The maids, already irritated by the workload, groaned at the interruption.
“What did you see?”
“The, the Duke…”
“Our Duke? The one who passed away?”
But the woman mentioned not the Duchess, but the Duke himself. The atmosphere subtly shifted.
Amidst the commotion, Greta remained calm, methodically stacking the cleaned plates.
Northerners often overreact…
The fierce loyalty to Ansgar was no longer surprising. They firmly believed even casual jokes behind the family crest were blasphemous.
“…really?”
The conversation continued quietly, then suddenly grew louder.
“What? Is that true?”
“Damn it. Where did she see this, and why spout such nonsense… You’re not high on mallet, are you?”
“No, believe me. I saw it with my own two eyes.”
“That’s what I heard too…”
“Impossible… a body lying there for over ten days…”
“Then go check it out yourself if you don’t believe it.”
“If it were that easy…”
The second maid, unable to bear the frustration, pounded her chest. Her frustration grew louder and more intense.
Finally, as Greta was about to leave with a stack of plates, the maid’s voice exploded.
“The Duke has come back to life!”
Who, what, how…? As Greta’s grip loosened in shock, the plates crashed to the floor. Amidst the chaos, she grabbed the woman who had shouted.
“What do you mean by that?”
“What?”
Realizing she was grabbed by the Duchess’s nanny, the maid scowled. Normally, that would’ve been enough to silence her, but Greta looked unusually serious.
“The Duke, you’re saying he’s alive?”
“For the last time, yes, he’s alive.”
“…”
“If you don’t believe it, go to the reception hall yourself…”
Before Greta could fully process the woman’s words, she bolted out of the kitchen, her face ashen. Through the open door, several maids, jostled by Greta’s hasty departure, scowled in annoyance.
Left alone and bewildered, the woman shrugged at another kitchen maid.
“Why did she suddenly run off like that?”
“Adelheid.”
Her hands, still gripping the edge of the coffin, were ghostly pale. Adel slowly lifted her frozen eyes. When faced with the incomprehensible, it’s natural to be scared and want to flee. But she learned that in the face of something too overwhelming, one’s body might just freeze instead.
‘It’ spoke.
“Ah, uh…”
It was a garbled, unclear voice, unlike the clear voice that had called her name just moments ago. Adel gazed at ‘it’ – the stiff eyelashes, twitching cheeks, lifeless lips. No matter how closely she looked, there was no sign of life.
The body that had been in the coffin until recently was even more ghastly. The protruding blue veins under its pale skin were still prominent. Forehead, nape, wrists, back of the hands… everywhere her gaze fell, it was hard to believe this figure was alive.
“…Uh, hmm.”
The dilated golden eyes fixated on Adel, a persistent gaze barely discernible as belonging to Valentin or something else. Her hand, resting on her lap, shook uncontrollably. She clenched her skirt tightly.
Then Valentin completely emerged from the coffin and stood on his own.
“Ah!”
“Mo, Morrig, mercy…”
That moment of overwhelming silence ended quickly as chaos ensued. The priests called out to their god, maids screamed, and some even disrespectfully dashed out the door.
Adel read her own expression in the faces of the knights guarding the coffin.
Horror, confusion, fear, instinctive rejection, and disgust…
“Adel…”
He called her name, his focus entirely on her as if it were the only truth in the world, oblivious to the chaos around. His eyes were intensely fixed on her.
Then, his cold hand clasped her wrist. It wasn’t the warmth of a human. Adel’s chin trembled.
“Uh…”
As she whimpered, he pulled her into his embrace. His arms, shoulders, waist… he embraced her tenderly, as if cherishing something precious, gradually absorbing her warmth.
“Adel.”
His face remained expressionless even as his eyes boiled with intensity. It was as if her fearful face didn’t register, or perhaps he was still incapable of any expression due to post-mortem rigidity.
A cold shiver ran down her spine at the thought. It felt like a sharp blade had grazed her, leaving a mark before vanishing. He pressed his forehead against her nape.
“Adel.”
Ironically, the voice calling her name sounded heartbreakingly. It was hard to believe this was reality. Was she going mad, or was this all a dream?
The fervent breath from Valentin’s lips spread across Adel’s nape. Until moments ago, this body couldn’t even breathe, let alone speak.
The sensation of her husband clinging to her felt more like a stiff, cold corpse. It was an incredibly eerie moment.
Adel watched the healer examine her husband with a worried expression. The healer, called from his sleep to attend to the situation at Ansgar, looked extremely tired.
“How is he?”
At Adel’s anxious query, the healer slowly straightened up from his bent posture. Turning to her, he said,
“Surprisingly, all bodily functions appear to be normal. Breathing, pupil reaction, blood flow, even the heart rate – all of it. You’re saying the heart had been stopped for over ten days?”
Adel barely nodded in response. The healer marveled briefly,
“It must be the grace of Morrig. I have never seen such a case before. I’d be eager to write a paper on it right away. If only this were Falchenheim…”
Avarice flickered in the healer’s eyes. It was the look of someone who had found an exceedingly intriguing subject for experimentation. He smacked his lips as if regretting the missed opportunity.
Falchenheim, being home to the continent’s foremost scholars and academies, was a place where scholars dedicated their lives to studying fresh and unusual phenomena.
“However…”
The healer’s voice trailed off as he looked solemnly at Valentin.
Valentin, still gripping Adel’s wrist tightly, watched the healer with a wary gaze. If Valentin had been an animal, he might have already bared his teeth, so possessive was his look.
After a long silence, the healer finally spoke,
“It seems he has lost his memory due to the shock of ‘thawing’ out. And quite thoroughly so.”
“Lost his memory?”
“Yes, for example, even someone who has lost their memory should instinctively know that fire is hot and can hurt you – basic survival instincts. But it seems the Duke lacks even these.”
“…”
“Moreover, it appears as if all the vital energy in his body has dried up… Did he always have this constitution?”
Adel looked troubled. She didn’t know much about her husband. While rare, there are humans born without vital energy. Adel herself was among those who hadn’t been blessed with it.
She shook her head,
“I’m not sure.”
The healer appeared lost in thought for a moment, then spoke up again.
Turns Out He’s Been Secretly in Love with Me
One-line summary: He acts like he doesn’t like her but is actually playing hard to get.
Synopsis:
Xu Muzhou like her. He has liked her for a very long time, and through repeated schemes, he finally closed the distance with her.
But this is still far from enough.
He wants to be the one who stands out among her many suitors, to fight for her attention, and to make her take the initiative to pursue him.
_____
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