Chapter 111: A Dangerous Book

After Neo stepped out of the library, saying that he wanted to freshen up and take a short rest, Nora was the only one left inside. Her eyes stayed on the place where he had sat just a few seconds earlier.

She stayed silent. She didn’t speak, didn’t move, and didn’t react to the silence around her.

’Is he misunderstanding something?... Why does he look at me as if I were some innocent girl?’

Nora couldn’t help but ponder these questions deeply, her fingers absentmindedly tracing the page of the book she had been reading earlier.

She realised that all of her words had made him think that she wanted to marry him because she was afraid of losing him. But no one knew the truth better than herself about what she wanted. She didn’t want to bind Neo to marriage just because she was afraid of losing him. She wanted to marry him because she wanted him to consider her his family, and not somebody else.

She knew the truth, that he still hadn’t fully accepted her as his family, and that she was still someone else in his life. He might have considered her a friend, but he had never considered her family. And Nora wanted nothing but to form her own family, where only he and she would remain.

No one else would be there, only her and him. She didn’t care about anyone else, and she had stopped caring about anyone else from the moment she had learned what her priorities were...

Nora’s gaze flicked back to the book she was reading, and as she turned the pages away to see the cover, she looked at the title.

[100 Ways to Seduce a Man]

This book had only one volume. It was not a novel but a guidebook, where different methods were explained with their own examples and explanations. It was the book she had decided to read after Neo returned, and now that he had come back, it was the best time to read it.

’I am glad he hasn’t noticed the title...’

Nora’s expression remained blank, but her eyes sparkled slightly with excitement at reading something which she had stocked up on purposefully for this time.

She immediately opened the first page and began to read. She read with immense concentration, as if she didn’t want to leave out a single thing.

...

Meanwhile, Neo walked through the long corridor of the mansion with slow steps, his hands resting behind his back, while his mind was still stuck in the library, on the girl who had just proposed to him as if she were ordering tea.

The maids he passed along the way bowed deeply when they saw him, and a few of them even raised their heads a little to steal a glance at his face, as if they still couldn’t believe that the young master had really come back. Neo gave them a faint smile and a small nod, but his thoughts were too occupied to say anything more.

’Marriage, huh... I thought she would be angry, or sad, or maybe she would cry. I never imagined that after ten months she would say something like that with such a straight face.’

He sighed softly and rubbed the back of his neck, recalling the way her fingers had tightened around the pen when he asked if she was afraid of him leaving again. That small detail was the only thing which made him believe that she was still the same Nora he had known, the girl who hid everything behind a blank face but trembled inside.

’Still, something feels off. Her words made sense, and her reason sounded natural, but I can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing something important. It is as if she told me only a part of the truth.’

After walking for a while, he finally reached the door of his room, which was situated at the far end of the corridor on the second floor. The knight stationed beside it bowed and quietly opened the door for him.

"Welcome back, Young Master."

"Thank you. Let no one disturb me for a while. I will rest for some time."

"Understood."

Neo stepped inside, and the door closed softly behind him.

The room was exactly as he had left it, spacious and quiet, with a large bed placed near the window and a wooden desk standing in one corner, where a few books were neatly arranged. The curtains were slightly open, allowing the warm afternoon light to spill across the floor. Even after ten months, there wasn’t a single speck of dust anywhere, which made it clear that the maids had been cleaning it every day, as if they were waiting for his return.

He looked around the room for a moment, feeling a strange warmth in his chest, and then walked towards the bathroom, taking off his coat and placing it on the chair along the way.

The bathroom was already filled with the faint scent of herbs, as one of the maids had probably prepared the bath after hearing about his arrival. Steam was rising gently from the large tub, and the sight of it made him realise how tired his body had been all this time.

He undressed and slowly lowered himself into the warm water, letting out a long breath as the heat seeped into his muscles. Every bit of tension he had been carrying, from the journey, from meeting his parents, and from the strange conversation in the library, began to melt away little by little.

He leaned his head back against the edge of the tub and closed his eyes.

’So much has happened in just a single day. I came back, I saw my parents, I met Nora, and then I received a proposal from her.’

A small, helpless smile appeared on his lips as he remembered the diary she had pushed toward him, and the line she had written at the end, saying that she would wait for only a little while.

’A little while... How long exactly is that, I wonder? If it is a few days, then I am in serious trouble.’

He chuckled quietly to himself, though it was not entirely out of amusement. Deep down, he knew that he could not avoid thinking about the matter for long, and that sooner or later he would have to give her an answer. But for now, his mind was too tired to come to any conclusion.

After soaking for a long time, he finally stepped out of the tub and dried himself with a soft towel. He changed into comfortable clothes which had been laid out for him on the rack, a loose white shirt and a pair of dark trousers, and walked back into the room while rubbing his damp hair with the towel.

The sunlight in the room had grown softer, turning slightly orange as the afternoon slowly moved toward evening. Neo walked over to the window and looked outside at the garden below, where the flowers were swaying gently in the wind and a few servants were busy trimming the hedges. It was the same view that he had seen every day before the incident, and yet it felt different now, as if it was welcoming him back.

’I’m really home again...’

He stood there for a moment, enjoying the peaceful scene, and then turned around and threw himself onto the bed, sinking into the soft mattress with a long sigh. The familiar smell of the sheets filled his nose, and the weight of exhaustion he had been ignoring all day finally began to settle over his body.

He stared at the ceiling for a while, his thoughts drifting here and there, from his parents’ strange reaction to Nora’s sudden proposal, and from the unanswered questions about what had happened in his absence to the uncertain days that were waiting ahead.

’I should talk to Mother and Father tomorrow, and find out what they are hiding about Nora. And after that, I will have to think about how to answer her properly...’

His eyelids slowly grew heavier as he tried to arrange his thoughts, and the more he tried, the more they blurred together. The warmth of the bath, the softness of the bed, and the quiet of the room all worked together to pull him gently towards sleep.

Just before his consciousness faded, the image of Nora’s violet eyes appeared in his mind, looking straight at him with that unreadable expression, as if she was waiting for something.

’Wait for me a little longer, Nora... I will find the answer.’

With that last thought, Neo finally closed his eyes, and his breathing slowly settled into a steady rhythm as he fell into a deep sleep, completely unaware that in the library downstairs, a certain girl was turning the pages of a very dangerous book with great enthusiasm.