In a corner of the dining table, Morris silently toyed with the silver knife and fork in his hands. Sif and Lenna had both come at first, but once they reached the door, they suddenly remembered this was Morris's family dinner. No outsiders should be present. Lenna did want to have lunch with Morris, but she had no interest at all in the rest of his family. So the two of them followed the butler to check the guest rooms for tonight, and in the end, Morris was left alone.

“Long time no see, Morris.” Just as Morris was starting to feel a little bored, a girl walked over with a smile. She didn't look awkward in the slightest, as if there were no distance between them at all. “Do you still remember me?”

Morris smoothly shifted his knife and fork, cut a thin slice from the roasted pork in front of him, then turned his head and looked over the girl's delicate but somewhat rushed makeup. After thinking for a moment, he said, “Aria?”

“You still remember me.” The girl looked a little pleasantly surprised and directly sat down beside Morris. “I thought His Holiness the Pope had already forgotten all of us.”

“Back then, I was crouching alone under the courtyard wall, gnawing on a hardened milk biscuit. You walked over and kicked it right out of my hand into the mud. Then you said orphans only deserved rotten cheese.” Morris lowered his head and poured a little sauce over the meat. He watched the girl's originally smug expression gradually turn awkward. Then he skillfully cracked an egg into a bowl, stirred it evenly, added some seasoning, looked at the dim yellow mixture inside, raised his head, and smiled. “It's all in the past. It doesn't matter.”

“Yeah, yeah, it's all in the past.” A boy beside them hurriedly spoke up for Aria. “Morris's younger brother is now the Pope. He's generous and broad-minded. He definitely wouldn't take it to heart.”

At the far end of the table sat Uncle and Aunt. Nova sat off to one side, not even daring to breathe too loudly. Uncle looked pleased, thinking it was rare for things to be this harmonious. But when Aunt saw Morris surrounded by everyone, another wave of discomfort rose in her heart. She looked at the fragrant pan-seared dried meat on her plate and felt her appetite vanish completely. She pushed the plate in front of Nova and said with a dark face, “You eat it. I'm not hungry.”

Nova shrank back a little, silently declaring that what he feared most was his mother's sudden concern. No touching. Absolutely no touching.

“Oh right, does Your Holiness have any girl you likes?” Aria suddenly asked. “The family has been writing to ask if you'd be willing to do matchmaking, but you always say you're not interested.”

“We're all at that age. How could you not be interested?” a man chimed in as he walked over. “Morris, you don't look like you have any girls after you anyway. Why not just agree this time?”

“No, no, I don't want to agree...”

“What? Then what did you come back for?” The man widened his eyes. “Don't tell me you really came back because you wanted to go to a succubus shop with everyone?!”

His voice was loud. The moment everyone heard it, laughter burst across the table.

Morris didn't answer. He only smiled along soundlessly a few times.

“Actually, I think the influence of the Church of Lunhai has been weakening step by step lately.” While Aria was catching up with Morris, a man quietly spoke up. “It's still the mainstream faith, same as before. But you can tell its influence over the Luna Duchy is already declining.”

“You're right.” Morris nodded, not caring about the hidden meaning in the man's words. “Because for a full two hundred years, the Church of Lunhai hasn't produced a Papal Tier wizard. No one has been able to inherit Judas's legacy.”

“So it's already heading into decline?” the man asked.

“For the past two hundred years, it has never stopped declining.” Morris cut the meat into smaller pieces and dipped them into the sauce. “It's just become more obvious recently.”

“Then Cousin Morris should start thinking about a way out early too.” The man smiled. “Why not agree to our request first? The other party is the daughter of a certain lord. She's not just pretty, she's also especially gentle. We all think she's a perfect match for you.”

Morris looked at the man's face, which could barely be called handsome, and said in sudden realization, “So you're the one who's been sending letters to the Church all this time.”

“You must've thought about this kind of thing before anyway.” The man lightly brushed aside the specially grown lock of hair on his forehead and spoke to Morris with feigned reserve. “Cousin, no women are into you anyway. As the Pope, you can't exactly marry one of your believers, right? Better to secure yourself a way out now, before other forces make a move against the Church of Lunhai.”

Morris finally understood. This group had surrounded him to force him into submitting to the family, while also taking him down a peg. In other words, outside, you might be the lofty Pope. But once you got here, you'd better obediently listen to the family and let them arrange you however they pleased.

“Exactly. No women like Cousin anyway, and he doesn't have any engagement or anything.” A girl smiled. “Cousin, you might as well just listen to Brother Bork. He's pretty famous in social circles too.”

The moment Bork heard that, he happily adjusted his collar. He thought it was worth rushing over from his lover's house the instant he heard the news. Aunt quietly exchanged a look with him, then quickly coughed to clear her throat. Facing Morris, she spoke as if delivering the final sentence to a condemned prisoner.

“You should start being obedient too. Let's settle this today.”

As long as Morris listened to them, he would never again have any reason to cut ties with the family. And the benefits offered by the lord's side were enough for people like Aunt to live in comfort for the rest of their lives.

Morris glanced around. On these people's faces, there was more or less some expectation, or schadenfreude. He suddenly found it a little funny. He was the Pope. The one and only Pope in the world. Leaving aside his identity as a Saint, just being the Pope alone was enough to make everyone here kneel and pay homage, wasn't it? But what were they doing? They were forcing his hand? Forcing the Pope's hand?

He caught the faint fragrance in the air. It felt a little familiar. His gaze shifted across the table. Only then did he realize Uncle had actually made a plate of cream sturgeon. The same thick red soup from his memory. The fish was snow-white, and its sweet aroma spread through the air. He suddenly realized that after all this time, the family's attitude toward him hadn't changed at all. And he himself was still that unlucky kid holding a dry milk biscuit, only to have it kicked over.

The snow in winter had been so cold.

People said every place you stayed in long enough would leave behind its own scent in your memory. Morris thought that was very true. For example, the heavy wax smell in the Church. The oily fragrance of fried meat his mother made for him every time she came home from work. And this trace of milky sweetness in House Lawless.

Time passed. Life circled back around. Maybe the very hope that he might have a home to return to had always been nothing but a luxury.

“So, Cousin?” Bork waved a hand. “Listen to your older cousin. I absolutely guarantee your happiness for the rest of your life. Compared to that girl, every other woman looks cheap. You get me?”

Just as Morris was starting to feel sick of it all and was about to stand up and leave the table no matter what, the two palm-carved wooden doors suddenly gave a dull bang.

Bork froze. After entering, he had locked the doors from the inside. If anyone wanted to open them now, they'd have to break them down by force.

Like this.

The grand, crystal chandelier on the ceiling suddenly went dark. Then came the sound of wood breaking apart, like a castle built from blocks collapsing. In the middle of the panic, what people saw first at the doorway was not a person, but a gleaming longsword. Frost-like chill seeped from its edge. Tiny wood splinters were struck inward by the light outside, floating as they scattered through the room.

“Who is it?!” Bork shouted despite himself. “An enemy? Is it an enemy?!”

Uncle quickly waved at everyone. “Don't attack. It's one of ours!”

“Huh?” Bork couldn't help asking. “Uncle, you know someone who uses a sword?”

The longsword slowly slid back into its sheath as if into emptiness. Only then did people see a white-haired girl standing quietly in the light. The moment Bork saw that face, he felt as if he couldn't breathe. It was like witnessing the most beautiful thing in the world. Just looking at her made people hold their breath, afraid that even the slightest force might damage such peerless beauty.

When Aunt saw the girl's face, she couldn't help shivering. And when she saw that Uncle's gaze had gone completely blank and straight, her expression became even more colorful. Aria, meanwhile, was first stunned by her beauty, then couldn't stop herself from feeling jealous of that face.

Bork's lips trembled. When he saw the girl start walking, he subconsciously reached up to touch his collar, then fastened the buttons at his chest. When she came near him, he hurriedly stood up, wanting to say something. But she strode right past him as if he didn't exist. He stood there in a daze, not quite understanding what had happened.

Had he just been ignored?

For the first time in his life, especially after spending so long in social circles, he had been ignored by a woman.

Morris watched the girl walk toward him step by step. This face, which he had seen countless times, looked even more alluring now under the glow of Arcanum. She had been born to look like this, born to charm men. She had only turned cold because of him.

No wonder she had been kidnapped so long ago, sold as a slave into the Demon Realm. A beauty like this would stir anyone who saw her.

Maybe she had originally been meant to be sold to the Demon King as his queen.

He had just happened to snatch her away halfway.

Lenna stopped in front of Morris. The hilt of her sword lowered and gave a light clink.

“Darling, as my fiancé, next time something like this happens, just call my name,” Lenna said to Morris. “Otherwise, what if you keep getting looked down on by useless people?”

Bork froze on the spot when he heard that.

Fiancé? Useless people? Wait, more importantly, this girl was actually Morris's fiancée?

Aunt started grinding her teeth again. Her whole body felt unbearably itchy. She couldn't help scratching behind her ear, but it felt useless no matter what she did.

Everyone's eyes widened at that one word, darling, and at fiancé, because how was that even possible?

Morris swept a glance around with the corner of his eye. In the end, he smiled and said to Lenna, “Be polite to other people.”

He said, “Asking them to become gentlemen like Da Qiao might be difficult. But when it comes to being ridiculous, they've already put on a pretty brilliant performance.”

Lenna let out a soft laugh. In that instant, it was as if the whole world dimmed.

“Let's go.” Morris took the girl's hand. “Let's go see which guest room we're sleeping in tonight.”

The two stood up and left side by side, leaving a whole table of people sitting there dumbfounded.

At the door, Morris seemed to remember something. He turned back, smiled at Bork, and said, “I have a fiancée too. And she absolutely guarantees my happiness for the rest of my life. Compared to her, every other woman looks cheap.”

From the corner came the sound of someone swallowing hard.

Bork felt like he'd been slapped across the face. He clenched the knife and fork in his hands.

And yet his mind was full of that girl's smiling face.