The crowd’s gaze split into three directions.

Christine stood at the center of the grand hall. Siman had come in through the student entrance on the left. Letitia had entered through the VIP passage on the right.

It was honestly absurd.

Everyone had thought Hale was about to agree. But then Siman actually rejected Letitia’s invitation in his place.

And the moment Siman spoke, a lot of people saw Letitia bite her lip slightly. She was probably unwilling.

Siman liked keeping Hale in line. That wasn’t anything new to their classmates. Rumors about it had long spread among the freshmen too.

Hale’s reputation wasn’t great, but he was still the son of a general. Siman was the general’s daughter. Their status alone was enough to make them a hot topic among this year’s new students.

But Siman only stepped in when Hale had done something wrong.

Had Hale done anything wrong now?

As Hale’s cousin, she should’ve accepted on his behalf right away.

After all, the one inviting him was Letitia. And all she wanted was for Hale to sit beside her. No matter how you looked at it, Siman should’ve shown House Childe some respect.

If this ended up souring relations with House Childe, then honestly, Siman’s father would have a hard time dealing with the fallout.

The Eastern Military District near the border of the Xia Kingdom wasn’t funded by the Church alone. Many famous merchant guilds had invested in related projects. Rumor had it that inside the Papal Dominion, the future repayment plan for those loans involved eastern trade tariffs, or even eastern land.

Lenny, meanwhile, was practically ready to clap.

He had no idea why Siman had refused, but if it could make Hale sick to his stomach, then it was a good thing.

Hale’s own expression, however, left everyone confused.

Why did this black-haired young man not look sad at all?

If anything, he almost seemed like he wanted to laugh.

And honestly, he was just worrying about how to refuse Letitia in the first place.

“So, you’re really going to turn down House Childe’s little princess?”

Christine, standing beside him, looked a little amused. She even nudged Hale lightly at the waist with her elbow.

That slightly intimate gesture didn’t escape Letitia’s notice.

She looked at this Vestal Candidate, and a thought suddenly rose in her heart.

Could it be because of Christine... that Hale was rejecting her?

Letitia had been raised to live with the proudest posture possible. That old head butler often told her, “You may look down on anyone, my lady. No one in this world lives more freely than you. Even the crown prince must fear his siblings and be constrained by his father. But you were born the queen of this empire of wealth.”

But deep down, Letitia was sensitive after all.

Even after becoming the princess of House Childe, in the dead of night she would always think of her mother, who had died alone in a small town not even one ten-thousandth as prosperous as Saint Louis.

She would think of herself as that child from the little town.

If she were compared to Christine, then maybe... maybe she really wasn’t as good as her.

Letitia wasn’t especially close to Christine, but she knew this Vestal Candidate’s background.

Christine had been born in an orphanage that was later consumed by a great fire.

She and another girl were the only two survivors of that blaze.

The Church had saved them. Christine, who picked up language quickly, was taken in by the nuns and trained as a little sister. The other girl apparently had a unique talent for swordsmanship, so she entered the reserve ranks of the Black Knights Order.

Why did Letitia know that?

Because her family had once invested in that other girl.

The girl’s file was top secret. Letitia had the authority to ask about it, but she had never been interested. She had only heard about it from her butler.

It seemed that, at least from one angle, Hale’s willful spending on the Black Knights Order wasn’t meaningless in the eyes of the old men in her family.

Christine had reached the position of Vestal Candidate through her own ability.

Letitia, meanwhile, knew that much of her own halo depended on her dead father.

“No... even if I’m not as good as her, I still have to... I already made up my mind last night. Even my dream answered me.”

Letitia stared at Christine and Hale, her gaze burning.

She had secretly loved Hale for years, but because she knew the resistance within her family, she had never truly taken the initiative to bother him more than a few times.

She had only pretended to do it on purpose, creating a few chances to interact with him.

But Letitia’s way of being deliberate was clumsy. She couldn’t figure it out.

Even now, her progress was still zero.

After her first straightforward attempt failed yesterday, and after having that hazy, shy kind of dream again, Letitia reflected on herself once more.

She knew she had to act.

Hale already had a marriage arrangement hanging over him. Never mind Christine being here now. Once that fiancée arrived, she really wouldn’t have much of a chance left.

The last thing her mother said to her before dying was—

—Be brave and pursue happiness.

Before her father died, he asked what her mother’s last words had been.

After hearing them, the old man showed a relieved expression. Then he told her—

—By whatever means necessary.

That’s right.

By whatever means necessary.

Letitia had decided.

Before Hale’s engagement was formally announced, she would win him over.

“Duchess Letitia, please forgive me. I only wish to sit with my classmates. Also, your status is too noble. There should be propriety between men and women. If you sit with me, it may affect your reputation.”

Hale continued speaking with formal courtesy.

And it was true. This little princess had inherited her father’s title at the age of ten.

And it wasn’t some title bought with money either. It had been personally granted by the previous Pope. It carried real weight.

“Is that so?”

Letitia asked calmly.

Being rejected by Hale in front of so many people hurt a little.

But she wasn’t stupid.

“Then why can’t I sit among all of you?”

The moment she said that, Hale’s classmates all lit up with excitement.

To get this close to Letitia was something they never could’ve achieved in their entire lives before.

Even if this chance only came because of Hale, they still didn’t want to let it slip away.

One after another, they all said, “Sure,” “Yeah.”

Hale’s heart jolted, but he didn’t panic too much.

If he directly opposed her in an even harsher way, that wouldn’t work.

He’d turn into public enemy number one in an instant.

He needed a new method.

He was going to scare Letitia off.

In the story, this little princess was basically the type who blushed and got flustered very easily.

And judging from the vague descriptions in those mana-restoration scenes, Letitia probably had no experience at all with anything between a man and a woman.

“Well then, Miss Letitia, I’m planning to withdraw from this Theology Day.”

When Christine heard that, she smiled. She actually didn’t mind watching this man chosen by God make a fool of himself.

So she chimed in from the side, “What, Baron Hale isn’t planning to show a little courtesy?”

“That’s not it. It’s just that, from what I can see, my class doesn’t seem to have left me a seat. If I remember correctly, each class gets ten spots, and there are exactly ten people here. I assume that because I was late, my place was given to someone else. In that regard, the fault is indeed mine.”

The moment Hale said that, the whole group from his class, along with Siman, looked like they’d seen a ghost.

Since when was he this magnanimous?

Letitia pressed her lips together and said nothing.

But then Hale’s next sentence flipped the whole scene on its head.

“In that case, Duchess Letitia, since you insist so strongly, if you’re willing to give me your seat and sit on my lap instead, wouldn’t that solve everything perfectly?”

Only then did everyone snap back to their senses.

In their eyes, good lord, Hale was finally showing his true colors.