‘I did! You were the one who begged me to bring you to the royal study, and now you’re the one causing a scene! Tomorrow, I will have my mother send you away.”
The tutor, unable to bear seeing a book of philosophy lying in the dust, bent down to pick it up. As the pages lipped open, the same vile images from my past life appeared before her eyes.
Thwack.
The sound of the book’s spine hitting the floor was sharp and clear. The tutor clutched her chest, her face
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ashen, and fell backward.
“Wretched girl! Wretched girl!”
13.24
Isolde stared at the book on the floor, unable to believe that the filth that was supposed to be in my book was now in her own. She stood frozen, frantically waving her hands and trying to explain as everyone stared
at her. “It wasn’t me! It wasn’t me, I didn’t!”
In her panic, she lost control of herself. A dark stain spread beneath her silk skirts, and a foul stench filled
the air.
Isolde broke down, clutching her dress and screaming. “Ah–don’t look at me! Don’t look at me!”
People could avert their eyes, but the smell was inescapable.
Aurelia pinched her nose and pulled me away. “Isolde is absolutely disgusting.”
The tutor was even more furious than in my past life. Her lips were pale, her body trembling. Then, she colla-
psed.
After this scandal, the tutor resigned her position. Duchess Isolde was taken home by her father, the Duke,
and soon after, news of her “death from a sudden illness” spread. Just like me in my past life, she died to preserve her family’s honor.
I had known Isolde’s plan, so I had prepared, ensuring she couldn’t succeed. I had also secretly added a
powerful laxative to her midday meal, determined to see her utterly humiliated. The suffering I endured in my past life… if she didn’t suffer the same, and more, how could I ever quell the hatred in my heart?
The irony was that while Isolde threw herself into the fray for Seraphina, Seraphina herself hid in a corner
during her friend’s ordeal. She even pinched her nose along with everyone else, a look of disgust on her face.
That evening, my father came personally to collect Seraphina.
She threw herself into his arms, trembling and gasping for breath. “Father, Father, I was so scared.”
He was overcome with pity, stroking her shoulder. “What happened? Did someone bully you?” As he spoke, a cold light entered his eyes, and he looked at me. “Did that wretched girl bully you?”
It was a question, but it was spoken with the certainty of a statement.
This was my father.
Seraphina sobbed but was quick to defend me. “It has nothing to do with my sister. It’s my own fault for being so timid.”
But her inner voice said, “Isolde just provoked my sister, and she was dealt with so cruelly. I’m so afraid… I’m so afraid she’ll do the same to me.”
News of what happened to Isolde had already spread throughout the court, but my father hadn’t known his own daughter was responsible. To act with such viciousness… she is a true degenerate.
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