The sun had long since disappeared below the horizon, and the last traces of twilight had faded from the sky.
Dusk had given way completely to night.
As darkness deepened, torches were lit one after another throughout the Sterling estate of the White Tiger Clan.
Dim golden firelight stretched along the corridors, casting hazy outlines over the rooftops and stone steps.
Lucian Ravenholt followed the white-haired elder deeper into the estate.
At first, there were still plenty of servants coming and going around them.
But the farther they walked, the more secluded their surroundings became, and the fewer people they encountered.
After passing through several winding corridors, the area grew completely quiet.
Even the torches were noticeably fewer than those in the front courtyards.
Lucian initially thought nothing of it.
It was only when the white-haired elder finally brought him to a remote courtyard that he stopped.
Under the faint glow of a distant torch, Lucian raised his head and examined the place before him.
His expression slowly stiffened.
For several moments, he simply stood there without saying a word.
This place…
Was really part of the Sterling estate?
Had he not personally followed the elder here the entire way, Lucian might have suspected that they had somehow left the estate without him noticing and wandered into some forgotten wilderness.
Everything around him was shrouded in darkness.
Several enormous old trees blocked most of the night sky.
Thick vines wrapped around their trunks, while layers of branches and leaves tangled together overhead.
Wild grass grew densely around the courtyard walls, and in some places it had already reached nearly knee height.
Whenever the night wind swept through, the grass rustled and swayed.
Lucian remained silent for a moment before finally turning toward the white-haired elder beside him.
“This is…?”
For once, his expression looked slightly stiff.
He had asked to stay somewhere near Evelyn, hadn’t he?
So why had he been brought to a place like this?
Faced with Lucian’s puzzled gaze, the white-haired elder immediately looked awkward.
He had clearly expected this reaction, yet had no idea how to explain it.
After hesitating for a moment, he could only force himself to answer.
“Young Master Lucian, this is… Lady Evelyn’s courtyard.”
“…”
Lucian looked back at the weed-covered courtyard.
His silence lasted even longer this time.
This was her courtyard?
What exactly did such a pleasant name have to do with the scene in front of him?
Seeing that Lucian said nothing, the elder looked even more uncomfortable.
In truth, the courtyard had not always looked like this.
Because Evelyn had never been favored since childhood, Lillian had worried that outsiders might accuse her of mistreating the child left behind by the former lady of the house.
So she had given Evelyn the largest—and at the same time, most remote—courtyard in the entire estate.
The courtyard was certainly large enough.
And technically, it had indeed been given to Evelyn.
But when it came to assigning servants to maintain the place, Lillian had claimed that the household was short on manpower and had not sent even a single person.
And so, what had once been a perfectly respectable courtyard was neglected day after day, year after year.
Nearly ten years had passed in the blink of an eye.
Over time, the place had gradually fallen into ruin until it became what it was today.
Worse still, there had always been strange rumors surrounding the courtyard.
Some servants claimed that when they passed by late at night, they could hear a woman quietly weeping from somewhere inside.
Others swore they had personally seen a pale figure flash past the courtyard wall.
As the stories spread, fewer and fewer servants were willing to come anywhere near the place.
Unless something absolutely required them to pass through this area, most would rather take a longer route than walk anywhere near Evelyn’s courtyard.
Naturally, Lucian knew nothing about these rumors.
He simply stood there examining the place for a while before suddenly letting out a quiet laugh.
“I never expected Lady Evelyn to have such… unusual taste.”
He chose his words carefully.
Then he remembered the strange mixture of sympathy and admiration on Evelyn’s face earlier in the great hall when she heard that the two brothers wanted to stay near her.
Now he finally understood.
So that girl had already been waiting for this moment.
Yet after his amusement faded, an uncomfortable feeling quietly settled in Lucian’s chest.
She was a daughter of the Sterling family, yet she had been living in a place this remote and desolate.
And not merely for a few days.
She had lived here for years.
Then he remembered the timid way she had behaved in the great hall.
Even though he now knew that at least part of it had been an act, he still found himself feeling strangely conflicted.
It seemed that her life in this estate had truly not been as easy as she made it appear.
Lucian withdrew his gaze and waved lightly toward the elder.
“You may go. I’ll look around on my own.”
“This…”
The white-haired elder clearly hesitated.
His mouth opened as though he wanted to warn Lucian about something.
In the end, however, he swallowed the words and merely nodded.
“Then please be careful, Young Master Lucian.”
After saying that, he cast one more glance toward the depths of the courtyard before turning and leaving.
Lucian thought nothing of it and walked inside.
But only after truly entering did he realize that what he had seen from outside had hardly been the worst of it.
The trees within the courtyard were even denser than they appeared from beyond the walls.
Thick branches stretched wildly in every direction, many wrapped in twisting vines.
The stone path beneath his feet had been almost completely swallowed by weeds.
In some places, it was impossible to tell that there had ever been a path at all.
Scattered among the knee-high grass were small wildflowers.
Perhaps in daylight, the place might have possessed a certain untamed charm.
Unfortunately, it was night.
And the surroundings were far too quiet.
Instead of charming, the courtyard felt downright eerie.
Lucian continued deeper inside, casually surveying his surroundings.
Layers of cobwebs hung beneath the corridor eaves, while thick dust had gathered in some of the darker corners.
Stranger still, several oddly shaped objects hung overhead.
Whenever the night breeze passed through, they swayed gently from side to side.
Lucian’s steps gradually slowed.
This young lady’s tastes…
Really were far from ordinary.
She had actually lived here for years?
He had only been inside for a short while, yet even he could already feel a faint chill crawling up his back.
Just then, something in the corner of his vision caught his attention.
There was a room not far away.
Moss covered almost every corner of the walls and stone steps, and even the area around the door looked as though no one had entered for years.
Yet strangely enough, faint traces of colored light were leaking from inside.
Lucian paused.
He stared carefully for a few moments.
The glow was weak, but there was no mistaking it.
It really was coming from inside the room.
Not only that—
Through the window, he could vaguely make out something moving back and forth within.
Lucian fell silent.
“…”
He stared at the room for several seconds.
For some reason, the air around him suddenly seemed a little colder.
This place really was rather unsettling.
Still, he did not recklessly walk over to investigate.
Instead, Lucian continued along the corridor.
It was only when his gaze landed on another room—one that was noticeably cleaner than the others—that he finally relaxed slightly.
At last.
A room that looked as though an actual person might live there.
The area around it was still quiet, but at least the doors and windows were clean, and there were far fewer weeds in front.
Compared with the abandoned rooms surrounding it, this one looked perfectly normal.
A faint smile finally appeared on Lucian’s face.
This must be Evelyn’s room.
He walked over and paused briefly outside the door.
Then he reached out and pushed it open, curious to see what the inside looked like.
The moment the door opened, however, Lucian froze.
The room was indeed much cleaner than the courtyard outside.
In fact, everything had been arranged rather neatly.
But the objects inside were far beyond anything he had expected.
Several shelves were filled with unusual treasures and curiosities, some of which even Lucian could not identify.
Beside them sat all sorts of strange finished and half-finished creations, as though someone had made them simply because she had nothing better to do.
Those objects were certainly peculiar.
But they were not what made Lucian stop.
What truly caught his attention were the different-colored cords stretched across the ceiling beams.
Red.
Black.
White.
A few were almost the same color as the walls, making them nearly impossible to notice unless one looked carefully.
The cords extended toward different parts of the room.
Some disappeared beside the doorway, some wound around the ceiling beams, while others vanished into dark corners.
Just looking at them made Lucian’s scalp prickle.
The foot he had been about to place inside quietly withdrew.
His instincts told him one thing very clearly.
Do not touch anything.
Otherwise, there was no telling what might happen next.
Lucian remained at the doorway for quite some time, staring at the tangled network of cords.
For perhaps the first time that evening, he genuinely had no idea where to begin.
What exactly were these things?
Traps?
Or merely another one of that girl’s peculiar hobbies?
And if they really were traps…
Who exactly was she guarding against?
Before Lucian could reach an answer, hurried footsteps suddenly sounded behind him.
Evelyn and Felix had returned, one chasing after the other.
The moment Evelyn entered the courtyard, she spotted Lucian standing outside her room.
More importantly—
Her door was open.
Her expression changed instantly.
“Wait!”
Without thinking, she rushed toward him.
Unfortunately, in her panic, she completely forgot about the traps she herself had placed nearby.
The moment her foot came down, she felt something shift beneath her shoe.
A faint—
Click.
Evelyn froze.
Oh no.
She slowly looked down.
Her face changed immediately.
“Damn it!”
The trap activated almost at the exact same moment.
There was no time to think.
Evelyn lunged forward and shoved the nearest person—Lucian—straight to the ground.
Lucian had not expected her to suddenly charge at him.
Caught completely off guard, he lost his balance and fell backward.
A faint movement came from the beam overhead.
Rustle—
A huge cloud of white powder suddenly poured down from above.
Evelyn had managed to push Lucian out of the way.
Unfortunately, she herself had no time left to dodge.
All she could do was watch helplessly as the powder came crashing down over her head.
Within seconds, she had turned several shades whiter.
Her hair was white.
Her face was white.
Her clothes were white.
Even her eyelashes were coated in a fine layer of powder.
“Cough… cough…”
Evelyn squeezed her eyes shut, waving frantically at the powder floating in front of her while coughing repeatedly.
She had no words for the frustration she felt.
What was this supposed to be?
You reap what you sow?
She had built the trap herself.
So why had she ended up being the one caught in it?
Everything had happened so quickly that neither Lucian nor Felix reacted immediately.
Felix, especially, simply stared.
One moment, he had been chasing after Evelyn.
The next, the perfectly normal little Honeyberry had somehow transformed into a white dumpling. Enjoying the story? Read on at g.com.
“H-Honeyberry?”
Felix called out blankly.
Only then did he finally snap back to his senses and cautiously approach.
“Are you all right?”
As he spoke, he carefully inspected the ground beneath his feet, then looked overhead and around himself.
He clearly had no intention of accidentally stepping on something and ending up in the same condition.
Evelyn had no patience to answer him.
She was too busy trying to brush the powder off herself.
“Evelyn?”
Lucian finally recovered as well.
If she had not shoved him aside just now, he would probably have been the one covered from head to toe in white powder.
The thought made his heart tighten.
He immediately tried to stand so he could check whether she had been hurt.
But as he pushed himself up, his arm accidentally caught a thin black cord hidden beside the wall.
The cord pulled taut.
Lucian froze.
Surely not.
He slowly lowered his gaze toward the black cord his arm had just tugged.
A very bad feeling immediately rose in his chest.
And sure enough—
A faint shifting sound came from overhead.
Evelyn had not yet recovered when she heard something move above her.
She instinctively looked up.
A large basin hidden overhead was slowly tipping forward.
Evelyn stared at it.
“…”
Wait.
That basin…
Her expression changed drastically.
“No—!”
Too late.
Eggs began tumbling out one after another.
They crashed against her head and shoulders in rapid succession.
Splat!
Splat!
Splat!
Shells shattered.
Sticky egg yolk and whites slid through her hair and down her clothes.
But the worst part was that those eggs had been sitting there for who knew how long.
They had gone thoroughly rotten.
An indescribable stench immediately spread through the courtyard.
Evelyn went completely still.
She looked down at the white powder coating her body.
Then she smelled the horrible odor surrounding her.
Her expression slowly cracked.
“AAAAAH!”
At last, she could not take it anymore.
Why was it her again?!
These traps were supposed to be used against other people!
Why did every single one of them keep landing on her?!
First the white powder.
Now rotten eggs all over her head.
At this point, forget jumping into a river.
Even if she threw herself into a lake and washed three times, she had no idea whether she would ever get rid of the smell.
She genuinely wanted to find a wall and slam her head against it.
She stank!
“No way…”
Felix finally caught a whiff of the smell.
His expression changed instantly.
He clamped one hand over his nose and, with remarkable survival instinct, jumped several steps backward to establish a safe distance between himself and Evelyn.
Only then did he cautiously ask,
“Honeyberry, are… are you okay?”
Evelyn whipped her head around and glared murderously at him.
“I’M! NOT! DEAD! YET!”
Felix immediately shut his mouth.
Evelyn had absolutely no interest in continuing the conversation.
Her entire body felt sticky, filthy, and unbearably smelly.
She could not tolerate standing there for another second.
She looked down at her clothes, her expression growing darker by the moment.
Then she simply ignored both brothers and, covered in white powder and rotten egg, marched straight toward the moss-covered room—the very one from which Lucian had earlier seen that strange colored glow.
Lucian noticed where she was heading.
His expression immediately became strange.
She was going…
there?
Evelyn did not notice his reaction at all.
Without looking back, she said,
“I don’t care anymore. Go find someone and get this place cleaned yourselves. If you really want to stay here, then figure out how to convince them to come inside and prepare rooms for you.”
As she walked, she tugged disgustedly at the sleeve sticking to her skin.
The rotten smell seemed determined to crawl straight into her nose.
“I’m going to take a bath now. Neither of you is allowed to follow me inside!”
With that, she ignored whatever reaction the brothers might have had and continued toward the moss-covered room.
But when she reached the door, she suddenly stopped.
Then she turned her head toward an empty space beside her.
And began speaking.
Her tone was perfectly natural.
As though someone were actually standing there.
Lucian and Felix both froze.
The brothers followed her gaze.
There was nothing there.
Absolutely nothing.
Evelyn, however, paid no attention to their reaction.
She casually said a few more words to the empty space before reaching out and pushing open the door.
Still covered from head to toe in powder and rotten egg, she stepped inside.
Then—
BANG!
The door slammed shut directly in front of the two brothers.