Chapter 41 A Vow Made in Vain: Madam, Please Don't Send Me Away...

Isolde's face darkened instantly. She paused, cleared her throat, and plunged her knife into the slow-cooked lamb chops in red wine on her plate.

"Perhaps he suffered unfortunate injuries in the brutal war, causing him to forget what happened before, to forget his true identity. But it doesn't matter, Tristan has returned, and from now on he will always be my Tristan, and only Tristan."

"I see." Lilith realized she couldn't get any useful information out of the other person, so she had no choice but to go along with her.

"In other words, Tristan cannot return to Venice with you, because he must stay here with me," Isolde declared solemnly. "As for all the losses he has caused to your business, I will compensate you. I will also cover all your living expenses while you recover in my castle until you are healed, and then I will prepare a fine steed for you to depart."

"Thank you so much! Hahahaha, Tristan, you're truly fortunate to have such a beautiful and wealthy wife!"

Lilith echoed with a forced smile. She glanced at Heinrich out of the corner of her eye and saw him staring at her with wide eyes and a pitiful, wronged look.

Perhaps Isolde noticed Heinrich's reluctant expression, for she stood up and walked toward him, instructing Hilde to remove their main course and serve her special dessert to "Tristan." Her figure in a black dress blocked the light from the window that shone on Heinrich, plunging him into a dark shadow.

Then she bent down, wrapped her arms around his neck from behind the chair, and said in the gentlest voice to her imagined lover:

“I will hold a grand wedding in the castle, making you my rightful groom. You will enjoy all my wealth, status, and glory; you will rule my castle, become its lord, and control everything I own—and I have only one request, my only request, to stay by my side forever, forever.”

Isolde used a silver spoon to scoop open the small cake covered in white fondant, and red berry sauce gushed out like blood. She gently scooped up the soft cake and brought it to Heinrich's lips.

“Thank you for your kindness, Isolde. But I’m so tired and exhausted right now, may I go to sleep?” Heinrich gave Isolde a rather abrupt, noncommittal answer. “I will discuss this matter with you properly when I wake up.”

“Oh, it’s my fault. I forgot you haven’t rested properly.” Isolde put down her spoon somewhat awkwardly and returned to her seat, looking somber. “Hilde, take them to their rooms. Oh, and by the way, Mr. Lorenzo, you can take your medicine now.”

Her scarlet eyes met Lilith's green ones. Lilith poured the potion onto a dessert spoon right in front of her and drank it all in one gulp.

After dinner, Hilde arranged two adjacent guest rooms for Heinrich and Lilith. The rooms hadn't been occupied for a long time, and even after cleaning, a musty smell lingered in the corners. A beam of grayish-white light shone through the dappled shadows of the trees into the room, where Lilith sat quietly in a chair, waiting for Heinrich to knock on her door.

"Come in."

Heinrich locked the door without a word, knelt on one knee, and began to untie his mistress's boots. Suddenly, without warning, Lilith raised her leg and stomped on Heinrich's face, the mud and blood from her shoe staining his fair skin.

“Tell me, what other surprises do you have that I don’t know about?” Lilith crossed her arms and stared at him coldly. “I’ve trusted you so much, why are you hiding things from me?”

Heinrich has been hiding too much from Lilith. He paused for a moment before realizing she was referring to the fact that she had just discovered he could speak German.

"Heinrich, who exactly are you? Are you Isolde's lover, or a spy sent by the Schmidl family to monitor me?"

Heinrich gently grasped Lilith's ankle, held her shoe in his hands, and knelt down on the ground with his head bowed in grievance.

“Madam, I am Heinrich… From the moment you gave me this name, I have only had this one identity, just a dog at your beck and call. I have never deceived you, nor did I deliberately hide it… The reason I didn’t tell you I speak German is simply because I was afraid of you… because it reminded me of your deceased husband and made me unhappy.”

“I’ve already given you the same name as him, why would I mind mentioning him?” Lilith raised an eyebrow, half-believing.

“Although you don’t mind, you still call his name in your nightmares, don’t you? Madam, I just don’t want you to be sad. I am completely loyal to you, please believe me.”

Heinrich raised his head pitifully, looking up at Lilith with eyes that seemed to be brimming with tears.

"You want me to believe you? So what if I don't? Anyway, your 'first love' is already giving you all her territory and wealth as a wedding gift, why should you suffer with me?"

Even though Lilith was essentially convinced in her heart, she still relentlessly continued her sarcastic remarks. She enjoyed seeing Heinrich kneeling on the ground begging her, enjoyed deliberately toying with him, and enjoyed the feeling of her heart pounding when she made him want something he didn't have. Only complete control over him could give her peace of mind.

"Madam... Madam Liliana... Lilith... please, don't send me away."

"If you follow this wealthy widow who is so infatuated with you, wouldn't you be able to skip twenty years of hard work? Why do you insist on following me? I always make you do all sorts of dirty and tiring work, which is not good for you."

"You've been so kind to me."

"No matter how good she is, she's better than you. She serves you like a servant and even wants to marry you. I'd rather be struck by lightning than marry you. I won't marry anyone, and I won't allow anyone under my command to marry anyone."

"Madam...please...don't send me away...please don't send me away." Heinrich suddenly hugged Lilith's leg tightly, his voice trembling with tears. "You rescued me from my hellish life, arranged for me to work in the bank, and gave me a job opportunity where I could be a free person and grow continuously. Compared to marrying someone I don't even know, I genuinely enjoy the feeling of challenging the unknown and constantly growing in the bank every day. So I cherish this career, and I hope you can forgive me, don't leave me, and continue to use me as you please."

"Pfft." Lilith couldn't help but laugh out loud. "Now you know how I felt when I was forced to give up my career and marry a stranger, right? At least you met Isolde, but I didn't even meet that guy."

“But I’ve never met Tristan, so impersonating him is quite difficult.” Heinrich finally breathed a sigh of relief when he saw Lilith smile. Dealing with Lilith was much harder than dealing with Isolde.

"You acted very well." Lilith, her anger gone, contentedly wiped Heinrich's face, which she had stepped on, with a handkerchief and comforted him affectionately. "Luckily, my judgment of people was right. In the future, never let emotions affect your judgment in your career. No more being love-struck!"

"I have absolutely no feelings for her."

"And what about me? What kind of feelings do you have for me?" Lilith asked, seizing the opportunity.

"Madam...you are the most important person to me."

What does "most important" mean?

"I will always admire you, serve you, protect you, and be loyal to you."

“Good, that’s more like it, my good dog.” Lilith stretched happily and leaned against Heinrich with a sense of security, burying her face in Heinrich’s chest like she was hugging a giant doll. “You still have a lot of work to do, you can’t leave me.”

"Yes, ma'am." Heinrich hugged her and patted her back.

Lilith clung to him for a while, seemingly lost in thought, then pointed towards the bathroom, asking him to carry her there.

“Sigh, I really don’t know what she’s thinking,” Lilith commented. “She’s clearly a very capable and talented woman, living alone in a foreign land, with such high skill in cooking, and even knows witchcraft… Why does she have to treat you as Tristan? Hmm, speaking of witchcraft… Was what you saw cooking in the cauldron before just ordinary vegetable soup? That witchcraft part might need some verification.”

“It’s not impossible… but what are all those bottles and jars of medicine she has? And the medicine she gave you, you actually drank it. Aren’t you worried that she poisoned you?” Heinrich gently placed his mistress next to the bathtub filled with hot water.

“If she really wanted me dead, she could have poisoned my food. It wouldn’t matter whether I drank it or not. And… after drinking it, it really didn’t hurt anymore.” Lilith rubbed her stomach, pulled the shower curtain closed, and calmly analyzed as she took off her clothes, “I feel like my existence isn’t important to her, just a passerby she helped out of a hurry. The only person she really cares about is you, ‘Tristan’.”

"What should I do next?" Through the curtain, Heinrich heard the sound of clothes rubbing against each other and falling to the ground.

“There are two options. The first is that you agree to her request, and then we ride away together when she’s not looking.” Lilith stepped into the water, holding onto the edge of the bathtub. “The second is that we find out what her witchcraft is all about, and then shatter her illusions in front of her.”

What are the advantages of the second option for us?

“If she’s willing to face reality, she might become our new client. If she really isn’t… Heinrich, you should be able to handle that maid, right? In that case, we’ll just have to force our way in.”

"Is it worth taking such a big risk just for one client?"

“Perhaps there are other reasons.” Lilith buried her face in the water and blew bubbles like a fish for a while. “Maybe it’s absurd, but I want to be friends with her.”

"Make friends...?" Heinrich was genuinely taken aback when Lilith said those words.

“Yes. I’ve said it before, haven’t I? I want to be friends with a witch. Perhaps her witchcraft is just like mine, merely a pretext and excuse for the so-called righteous path to eliminate dissidents. And the fantasy of love is like a cage she has built for herself. I want to help her, to pull her out. But before that, Heinrich, I need you to swear to me with your life that you have nothing else to hide from me, that you will never deceive me again.”

"I swear to you."

"Go down and get some rest. Come to my room again in the evening."

On the other side of the castle, Isolde walked alone down a long corridor, its walls lined with oil portraits of the Earl of Alta's successors and their spouses. Many of the portraits, due to their age, had yellowed and cracked turpentine, obscuring the features. Isolde had no intention of hiring anyone to clean them. She had no children and never intended to help the Alta family proliferate and continue its former glory.

She had already betrayed her Lord the moment she opened the first magic book she had kept hidden away, so she never cared about her fate after death. But she hoped to experience the passionate heat of her youth again while she was alive, to love passionately and intensely.

But he wasn't Tristan. She knew that.

She walked to the far end of the corridor and looked at the portrait of herself in the gold frame. It was a portrait of her from her youth, painted by an Italian artist commissioned by Count Alta to be painted in her hometown. Back then, the fine wrinkles hadn't yet appeared at the corners of her eyes; her face still had color, and a childlike, innocent smile played on her lips, dreaming of waiting for Tristan's return after the war to marry her. But the real him would never return, and even if he did, she would no longer be the Isolde she once was.

But so what? The poorly made sets in the theater were fake, the actors were foolish, empty, and vulgar, but didn't the audience still shed tears for those fabricated loves? The authenticity of the medium didn't matter; as long as the emotions were real, the love was real. She had finally found such a similar shell, and now she could only try again, using the soul-swapping ritual to let Tristan's soul settle peacefully inside. And she could return to twenty years ago, to her youth, accompanied by the dolls she had made herself.

"Everything is ready."

Hilde's footsteps approached her. Isolde turned around.

"Okay, let's begin."

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Author's Note: Next update on Friday! [Heart] I've finally saved up enough Moonstones for my author profile picture! Haha!