Chapter 10
“I said, Eve, this is no time for jokes.”
“Albus! Right?”
“Ah…”
Albus, who was standing by the door, looked flustered as many eyes turned toward him.
But when I fluttered my eyes at him, silently asking for help, he soon gave a sly smile and nodded.
“That’s correct.”
Fortunately, Albus was a perceptive man.
“So, for today, it would be best to send the doctor away for now, Lord Wood.”
“Albus, what on earth are you talking about?”
“Exactly. A dog returning to its vomit is incurable. No drug can work except the new one I developed.”
Tsk!
The doctor clicked his tongue and abruptly stood up, clearly offended.
“If you do not want it, I will sell it to someone else first.”
It was obvious he was trying to pressure us.
“Okay.”
So I quickly nodded.
“What did you just say…?”
“I’ll use it on someone else first, and if it works, then I’ll buy it for my grandfather!”
I smiled brightly.
“A new drug means its effectiveness isn’t proven yet, right?”
“Huh?”
“But what if you give it to my grandfather first and he gets sicker!”
“Ah, well, well!”
The doctor laughed bitterly but couldn’t reply.
“So if it works well on someone else, then I’ll buy it for my grandfather!”
“Then the price will definitely go up! Because this is a special discounted price for you! By then, the word will spread, and instead of 68 million, it’ll be at least 100 million!”
“Yup, so I’ll buy it then.”
The doctor’s thick cheeks twitched as he gave me and my uncle a very displeased look.
“Deputy Duke, do you agree with this?”
My uncle looked back and forth between me and Albus for a long moment.
“…I’ll contact you again.”
After a long silence, he raised my hand in agreement.
It seemed his heart still softened at important moments.
Awesome.
“Don’t regret it later if we run out of the raw materials and can’t sell it!”
The doctor stomped his feet and left the room, his face flushed as if deeply insulted.
“Albus, what exactly was that about? Cough.”
My uncle coughed and couldn’t finish his sentence.
“Are you okay, Lord Wood?”
Seeing Albus bring warm water to my uncle, I quietly slipped out of the room.
At the end of the hallway, a man in a doctor’s gown was walking.
I hurriedly followed him.
Cough, cough—
Wood Refree covered his mouth with a handkerchief as he coughed repeatedly. The handkerchief was soaked in blood.
Albus brought some powdered medicine and water.
“How many days’ supply is left?”
“Well… about five days left.”
Wood, who hadn’t even wiped the blood from his lips, stared blankly at the handkerchief, then swallowed the medicine with the scent of blood lingering.
Soon, the coughing eased, the aching pain diminished, the trembling in his hands calmed, and his breathing steadied.
The medicine given by the doctor sent from the Ruden Count’s family was the only one showing improvement.
“What did the child just say? Tell me.”
Wood wiped the corners of his mouth with the handkerchief.
“Well…”
Albus explained the astonishing event from a few days ago.
How he followed the stubborn young duke up the mountain to find a diamond-bearing vein, and about the dream Eve had mentioned.
“Evelyn, you say?”
“I’m not certain if it was Lady Evelyn. I only heard she had pink hair, green eyes, pale skin, and a tear mole near her right eye. Of course, it could be coincidence. But, as you know…”
Albus took a deep breath and lowered his voice.
“All of her belongings, even a small portrait, were burned, and mentioning her is forbidden. So, Duke Eve wouldn’t know her appearance.”
Pink hair and green eyes.
For them, those were painful colors.
A name no one dared to mention anymore.
Because the name of the traitor guilty of treason was such a grave crime, it was forgotten for a long time.
“To tell the truth, when I first saw Eve, it felt like that Evelyn had come back.”
“Ah, that pink hair did look like the young lady’s childhood.”
“Yeah, maybe the poor kid was truly wronged.”
Wood’s eyes reddened.
He didn’t know how much that young girl liked his gruff and boring self.
When he was young, bitter over his only sister marrying a worthless man, he was rebellious.
So he was always curt and blunt with the children.
The weak yet cunning eldest son cautiously avoided him, but the young Evelyn always smiled brightly whenever she saw him.
Her little limbs eagerly running and clinging to his legs with a bright smile were still vivid in his memory.
So when she was implicated in the treason charge, and worse, when that innocent child was named as the ringleader, it felt like the world was turned upside down.
At that time, Wood was forcibly confined by his father, the Duke, and couldn’t see Evelyn’s final moments.
The traitor’s corpse wasn’t even allowed a burial and was reportedly burned and discarded somewhere.
A farewell so cruel it couldn’t be spoken of.
Evelyn! I heard your father vouched for you again. Is that true?
Wow, Uncle, you hear news so fast.
That damned brat wants to ruin the family! Always giving to others! If not for you, your mother would still be sewing for a living!
I think so, too. But? I’m here now.
If not for you, I would have cut ties with this frustrating family long ago! Without you and your mother, I would never set foot here!
Hey, but you love me, right?
What?! You always say those ridiculous things…
Okay, okay, don’t be mad. Instead, let’s travel together when autumn comes. Just you, me, and mom — no dad or brother.
The last conversation was in a much softer tone from my lovely niece.
And that was the last.
The urgent news that arrived wasn’t a letter about choosing a travel destination but the execution of the Altad family for treason.
As if on cue, the royal court carried out the executions of the Altad family without proper investigation, using “internal insider revelations” and a “treason fund ledger.”
The foundation Evelyn had built was torn apart under the pretext of asset seizure.
The only survivor of the chaos was a cunning nephew.
You could guess what happened.
That cunning one ultimately betrayed his own kin.
A new drug means its effectiveness isn’t proven yet, right?
But what if you give it to my grandfather first and he gets sicker?
So if it works well on others, then I’ll buy it for my grandfather!
But just then, for a moment, Eve’s figure overlapped with Evelyn’s in my mind.
That was why.
I unknowingly nodded at the absurd child’s words.
“I must go see the child now, finish what you need to do.”
He stood up.
I let busy Albus handle it and went back to the reception room with Wood.
‘Hmm?’
But Eve was nowhere to be seen.
‘Did she go back to her room?’
I moved toward the child’s room.
Just as I passed the study,
“…What? You’re saying you sold narcotics disguised as medicine to nobles? Even to ‘Wood the Punisher’?”
“I never did that before…!”
“But people won’t believe that, will they?”
Wood’s steps stopped abruptly at the voice leaking out.
His eyes widened.
A clear, distinct voice different from before.
A familiar tone somewhere.
The once famous but now nearly forgotten alias.
Wood Refree, who was standing stiffly in front of the study door, swallowed and quietly stepped back.
