In the royal palace, Arman and Crown Prince Solore were studying the movements of that “Crimson Crow.” Both of them had their brows tightly furrowed, and the atmosphere was so heavy it was hard to breathe.
That “Crimson Crow” stirred up troublesome incidents every single time he appeared. On top of that, the Second Prince kept fanning the flames. What were clearly malicious crimes could still be twisted in public opinion into some kind of righteous “robbing the rich to help the poor.”
Most importantly, the common people at the bottom didn’t even know that “Crimson Crow” worked under the Second Prince. This kind of polished hero story was perfect for brainwashing young people who resented social injustice and pushing their emotions further. Once the chance for a coup appeared, the Second Prince could win support from part of the masses. As long as someone started it, there’d be no fear of what came after.
On the Crown Prince’s side, he did have Arman, a man like a war hero, and he was also deeply loved by the people. But when it came to emotional resonance, the commoners would still choose the “Crimson Crow,” who was said in legend to have come from an ordinary orphan background.
The Second Prince knew the Crown Prince held stronger influence among the nobles. Though the Second Prince had his own power base, at most he could only use those silver-tongued politicians to restrain him a little. True equality was impossible, let alone crushing him. So the Second Prince could only start with the commoners. Just as he had created a nonexistent Evelia, he had also created “Crimson Crow.”
And to whitewash Nightingale House, the Second Prince had even funded a full reconstruction of the Saint Flores Church over the past few years. Inside it, he built another monastic orphanage and treated it as the successor to Nightingale House. To the public, he claimed that homeless children had been sent to the church to be raised there, and that he invested a large sum into it every year. Meanwhile, Nightingale House was abolished on the surface and moved underground.
In truth, it was just a form of selection. If a child was useful and had potential, the Second Prince kept them. If not, he sent them to be raised by the church. It cost almost nothing, and at the same time, he gained the approval of the masses.
As for the carefully cultivated “Crimson Crow,” the one who had given both the Crown Prince and Arman a headache, right now—
She was standing beneath a tree root, reading a pink-covered girls’ romance novel.
After realizing that the previous version of the novel wasn’t suitable for her, Evelia had returned it to the maid from before. Once that girl discovered she had accidentally handed Evelia her treasured “adult version,” she was so ashamed she looked like she wanted to crawl into a crack in the ground. Evelia herself didn’t mind, but the maid still snatched up that dirty little book with a flushed red face and fled from her side.
Even so, that did nothing to extinguish the enthusiasm of the other girls who had come with the maid. They told Evelia to wait a few minutes, then rushed out of their dorms and hurried back, stuffing another novel into her hands, one that looked a little thicker.
“Miss Evelia! This one is really super good...!! Giving you that other one was a total accident. You absolutely have to read this!”
Even now, as she stood under the quiet tree during break time reading the book, Evelia could still remember the excited shouting voices of those maids. She even remembered one maid muttering under her breath in excitement, “Who doesn’t like smut?”
“...It was a story that belonged to a beautiful young girl. The kind maid named Goreya had finally found her true love within the manor.
When the warm spring breeze brushed against her face, one could see tender green buds on the dead branches, following the angle of her flowing long hair. The girl’s love was like the pink blossom hidden beneath that fresh green, waiting for the day it would bloom.
When that petal landed on the young man’s forehead, their eyes met. But that warm breeze was like something that could not melt the knight’s cold heart. Even with a pink petal pressed against him, the corner of his lips remained as unmoving as thick snow upon an icy plain.
The girl watched the knight leave, and even after the young man’s figure vanished from her sight, her eyes still stared at the end of that small path full of green budding branches. Faintly, she saw a pink petal drifting from afar in the wind, slowly, gently riding the breeze, until it fell into the girl’s palm...”
It was Evelia’s first time reading a girls’ romance novel. Looking at the book in her hands, she genuinely didn’t know what to say for a moment.
It felt like there were a lot of strange things to complain about.
And yet somehow, she couldn’t put any of them into words.
Evelia quickly flipped through the entire book, intending to get some useful methods out of it. In just half an hour, she had already read more than half of it. She went from “His sword was cold, his blade was cold, his heart was cold...” all the way to “‘Ah—Master, it’s too dirty there... you can’t...!’” Halfway through, she even flipped back to the title page to check whether this was actually a different version from the one she had just returned.
“...So this is a girls’ romance novel. I see...”
In that instant, it was as if a door to a new world had opened before Evelia.
“Calling Arman ‘sir’ really is too distant. I should start with ‘Master’ instead...”
Standing under the tree, Evelia murmured to herself. She looked at the intimate illustrations of the male and female leads in the novel and thought about how she could form that kind of close relationship with Arman in the future.
“The heroine in this book starts by calling him Master, and then... the way she addresses him gradually changes to darling... husband...?”
Evelia instinctively felt a little resistant to those forms of address. But after thinking about it, this was for the mission anyway. It was just a title. What was there that she couldn’t say?
She was even wondering whether, if she skipped all the earlier stages and directly called him “husband,” it might instantly close the distance between them.
But... that probably wouldn’t work...
No matter how she looked at it, Arman didn’t seem like the kind of man who would fall just because of one “husband.” And Evelia could tell that Arman was indeed somewhat interested in her, but not that kind of interested. It was more that he was testing her. If she acted that boldly out of nowhere, it would only make Arman suspect her even more.
“So I really have to start little by little...”
Evelia closed the book and held it in her hands, standing beneath the tree in thought for a moment.
Judging from the plot of that novel, the male lead had fallen for the heroine because she was gentle and considerate. Through all kinds of little things, she understood what he needed. She also casually revealed very charming sides of herself. And there were even some “lucky pervert” incidents that made the male lead’s attention “accidentally” focus entirely on her.
Whispers by the ear, feeding him, lap pillows, things like that... From this book, Evelia had already completely understood how to attract Arman’s attention.
And she also had to become friends with the other servants around her. When necessary, those friends could absolutely provide “support.”
So Evelia, wearing that same poker face, took a deep breath and said in a completely emotionless tone:
“Understood—I should become a gentle, virtuous, considerate woman and take meticulous care of Arman, make him fall in love with me, and when he comes back, I’ll say, ‘Master, welcome home ❤️’”
—She had, in fact, understood absolutely nothing.
To sum it up: dirty books ruin lives.
