“I’m glad you’re feeling all right, Your Highness. Shall I help you get dressed? Are you wearing a little dress today?”

As Princess Wei Yue’s personal maid, helping her get dressed was part of Ella’s job.

On top of that, a maid’s daily duties included planning the schedule, tidying the room, and preparing three meals. She had to get up early every morning to do it all. It was hard work.

When Wei Yue saw Ella open the wardrobe she couldn’t stand to look at, she waved a hand.

“No. I don’t have etiquette lessons today, so why would I wear a little dress?”

“But you’re meeting foreign envoys today. Don’t you want to look pretty?”

As Ella understood it, women in the Blood Clan cared quite a bit about their appearance. Noble ladies in particular loved looking polished, well-groomed, and refined in front of outsiders.

But the princess always seemed to be the exact opposite…

She didn’t like getting dressed up, and she didn’t like etiquette lessons.

Wei Yue pursed her lips and casually tossed her used tissue onto the floor. Then, as if she’d remembered something, she hurriedly hopped down from her chair and obediently stuffed the crumpled tissue into the trash can.

Just then, a devilish whisper had sounded in her mind.

Damn it…

The moment Wei Yue thought of Vivian’s inhumane etiquette lessons, she felt every hair on her body stand on end.

A woman like that deserved to stay single for the rest of her life!

“I’m done eating. When are we leaving?”

“Your Highness, would you reconsider what you’re wearing…?” Ella hesitated.

But when she saw the princess’s displeased expression, she quickly swallowed the rest of her words. “I didn’t say anything.”

If the princess didn’t want to wear it, then she didn’t have to.

Ella just couldn’t understand why Her Highness didn’t like wearing such pretty little dresses.

If Ella had a whole wardrobe of them, she’d want to wear a different one every day.

It reminded her of a rumor that had spread widely before: the princess had been brought back from somewhere outside the palace, so she’d picked up a bit of a country bumpkin’s ways. It was only natural that she didn’t like noble etiquette or clothes.

Looking at her now, maybe that rumor really was true.

Ella imagined the princess suffering in the countryside, and her sympathy swelled. She took a long white shirt from the wardrobe—the princess’s favorite.

Looking at the white shirt, Ella’s imagination went wild again. The story she spun was every bit as elaborate as one of the popular novels sold in the kingdom. The more she thought about it, the more sorry she felt for the princess.

Just then, Wei Yue’s impatient voice came from the doorway.

“Are we going or not? If Mr. Wayne catches me being late again, he’ll give me more etiquette lessons.”

“Oh! Right.”

Ella put her thoughts aside and hurried after the princess, who was already walking ahead.

The princess always walked in such a hurry, as if something terrible would happen if she slowed down for even a second. More than once, Ella—who stood a full 170 centimeters tall—had nearly failed to keep up with the little princess.

“If you can’t keep up with me, I’ll just go to school by myself from now on.”

Wei Yue was walking fast on purpose. Having a clingy pest follow her around all the time was really annoying.

“But escorting you to school is a rule set by Her Majesty the Queen. Your Highness, I understand that you want to go to class by yourself, but if something happened to you on the way, Her Majesty would be heartbroken.”

“Oh. Then don’t follow me tomorrow. Let her be heartbroken.”

After tossing out those words, Wei Yue darted off.

Who cared about that wicked woman’s feelings?

He wanted Vivian to be unhappy every day.

Wei Yue brushed the dust off herself at the classroom door, then strode inside with a couldn’t-care-less swagger to begin another day of prison.

Classes were even more miserable than standing night watch with his comrades. On watch, he could gaze at the quiet stars and listen to all kinds of insects chirping. In class, all he could do was listen to a teacher spouting bird-talk.

The origins of the Blood Clan, the construction of Blood Clan magic—he had no interest in any of it, and didn’t want to understand it either.

Before every class, Wei Yue would secretly pull out the paper and pencil she’d stashed in her desk and start doodling. She’d imagine herself as a warrior again, killing enemies on the battlefield. That was how she’d been caught daydreaming in class several times.

Afterward, Vivian would take her back and make her kneel on the floor to copy out The Princess’s Heart Sutra.

And she couldn’t leave as soon as she finished copying it. She had to recite the whole thing from beginning to end. If she made a mistake, she had to start the entire process over.

Wei Yue’s record was six full rounds without managing to memorize the thing.

Even after being put through that ordeal several times, she still refused to learn her lesson.

As far as he was concerned, he was a perfectly normal human. Why should he study vampire stuff so seriously? It wasn’t as if he’d wanted to become part of the Blood Clan.

Lecturer Wayne noticed the princess daydreaming as usual and managed to resist the urge to throw a piece of chalk at her.

“Wei Yue, stand up and explain the principles of blood magic to the class.”

Wei Yue looked up, dazed, wearing an expression that said, “Who am I? Where am I?”

Some of the students snickered under their desks. But she was the princess, and she’d shown incredible talent with a sword in a previous competition. Few of them dared laugh at her to her face.

“You don’t know?”

“I don’t.” Wei Yue looked utterly unbothered, like she had nothing to lose.

No worries. This was all part of the game.

Besides, she knew Mr. Wayne was softhearted. He’d scold her once or twice at most, then let her sit down.

“Then come to my office with me after class.”

Hearing that familiar line again, Wei Yue let out a long sigh of relief.

When Mr. Wayne said things like “come to my office,” it meant he’d mostly cooled off.

And so Wei Yue went right back to her usual Blood Clan routine of slacking off.

More than these boring textbook lessons, she wanted to spar with a swordsman. Unfortunately, there were very few skilled swordsmen in the Blood Clan. Susie had been one, but since then, Wei Yue hadn’t met another swordsman worth mentioning.

Come to think of it, Wei Yue had always wondered what would happen if you stabbed a member of the Blood Clan with a silver longsword.

Human scholars often equipped armies sent to hunt vampires with garlic, and gave the soldiers leading them silver-hilted swords.

Wei Yue wasn’t convinced those things were useful. But for a soldier going to war against a legendary race of immortals, a placebo could really matter.

If someone told you your enemy was an unkillable cockroach, would you still dare to fight them?

But from what Wei Yue had observed over the past few days, vampires weren’t nearly as afraid of garlic and silver as people imagined.

The human scholars were overgeneralizing. It was like a scholar who hated pickled fish telling the whole world it was inedible, when really, that was only true for him.

This kind of claim taken out of context wasn’t limited to human textbooks. The Blood Clan had them too. Wei Yue had looked through some of her schoolbooks before and found some of their descriptions of humans pretty ridiculous.

They claimed humans actually had more than two genders.

They warned people to beware of people who were neither men nor women. These people would turn into demons in the middle of the night and steal your mother away.

How could anyone believe something that was obviously made up?

When Wei Yue first read that passage, she’d nearly laughed out loud. If she thought about it, humans sometimes made up stories to scare children too.

Ding—

A clear chime interrupted Wei Yue’s thoughts. The morning’s prison sentence was finally over.

Wei Yue stood up, and her maid Ella was already waiting by the door.

“Your Highness, I heard you talked back to your teacher again. Her Majesty the Queen is concerned.”

“She can be as concerned as she likes. What’s she going to do, come hit me?”

“Have you forgotten how you begged in Her Majesty’s bedroom a few days ago? You said your butt hurt, and I had to carry you back to your room.”

“Ella, you’re bringing up my embarrassing past? You’ve been learning from Vivian, haven’t you? Now you’re taking little digs at me too?”

“No, I’m just telling the truth. And you were very cute then, Your Highness.”

“You’re imagining things. The word ‘cute’ and I just don’t go together.” Wei Yue waved a hand. It had only been an accident. She’d only done it for a better tomorrow, tactically playing along with that wicked woman Vivian.

Didn’t Ella know how to act?

Did she really think Princess Wei Yue was a pushover, easy to mess with?

Wait. What had she just called herself?

She was Ivan, not Princess Wei Yue.

Ivan. Ivan.

It had only been a few days, and he’d already forgotten his own name.

Would he be reduced to going “nyaa” in a few more days?

As Wei Yue scolded herself for her messed-up thoughts, her stomach growled at the worst possible moment.

“Um… Ella, what are we having for lunch?”

“Lunch? Pickled fish.”