Chapter 70 This dangerous man wants you to gnaw on his neck! He wants you to gnaw on his neck! ...
After the chaotic morning ended, Lilith hurriedly changed into her dress and, accompanied by Heinrich, boarded a boat towards Sophia's house. To conceal the ambiguous mark on her neck, Lilith deliberately chose a high-necked black dress, though she wondered if she should still wear a widow's veil over her flowing red hair as before. After all, her fiancé was swaggering behind her, and she didn't really want him dead.
However, Heinrich still dressed her in a black veil and a smaller bird-beak mask, the long beak filled with cotton and herbs, supposedly to filter out toxic air. While its effectiveness was still unknown, this attire would help her disguise herself as a nurse traveling with the plague doctor, minimizing the possibility of being questioned by law enforcement.
Even though she had already sent maids to help with chores and provided enough supplies to sustain them, Lilith was still worried about Cecilia and decided to take Heinrich to visit her. Besides, Lilith had been outside for a whole day and night; if Cecilia found out, she would probably be very worried, and excessive worry could affect her recovery.
The maid who opened the door was Hannah. She greeted Heinrich in German first, and then, at his instruction, switched to Italian to report on the situation at home.
“So Hannah actually speaks Italian.” Lilith removed her mask as she entered the house, giving Heinrich a displeased look. “You deliberately asked her to lie to me before. How wicked you are, Heinrich! After treating me like this, how can I possibly believe anything you say in the future?”
“At the time, it was really…” Heinrich wanted to explain, but upon meeting Lilith’s angry, sharp gaze, he immediately decided to apologize. “I was wrong, madam, Lilith, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I was wrong. Please don’t blame me, okay?”
Although Hannah had a rough idea of what had happened between Heinrich and Lilith, she was still startled when she saw the master, who used to be aloof and bossy to his servants, following behind Lilith like a slave, coaxing her. She could only pretend not to see anything and hurriedly led the two of them toward Cecilia's room.
“Cecilia, it’s me.” Lilith knocked on the door. “How are you feeling? May I come in?”
“Oh, madam, please come in. I feel much better.” Cecilia’s voice was a little hoarse, but she seemed to be in good spirits. Lilith pushed open the door, intending to have Heinrich wait outside, but Cecilia immediately spotted a strange dark figure and asked her warily who it was.
“He… is my fiancé.” Lilith avoided his gaze, somewhat embarrassed. “He’s the one I told you about before…”
"Madam, what did he do to you??" Cecilia noticed the red marks barely covered by Lilith's slipped collar, and sat up in shock, grabbing the dagger on the bedside table.
"No, no!" Lilith interrupted her, blushing, and told her to put down her weapon for the time being. "He didn't force me, it was my own choice..."
"You didn't go to him just to get me a doctor... that opportunistic bastard!"
“Don’t worry, don’t worry,” Lilith patted her back, “Don’t get excited, it’s not what you think… It really was my own choice. Actually, I’ve wanted to try doing these things before, but I just never had the chance…”
“That can’t be with this bastard you’ve only known for a few days! Even someone you know well is better than a complete stranger!” Cecilia angrily accused, then realized her words were inappropriate and quickly corrected herself, “I’m sorry, Madam, I misspoke. I shouldn’t have interfered with your choices. Please forgive my rudeness, but I was genuinely worried about your safety…”
“I am a mature woman who has experienced marriage and widowhood, not some little girl who loses her mind after falling in love.”
“But… you once said you didn’t want to marry any man, and I don’t want you to do something you don’t want to do because of circumstances.”
“I’m not going to marry him. I just made an agreement with him, it’s just… to live with him temporarily, and then he’ll go back to Germany and won’t bother us anymore. I had some misunderstandings with him before, but he’s actually a pretty good person… Cecilia, please believe me. I would never do something I don’t want to do for anyone. I haven’t become completely unreasonable just because I spent one night with him. I’m still me, the Lilith you know.”
“Madam…” Cecilia gently grasped Lilith’s hand, feeling somewhat embarrassed by her earlier outburst. Although Lilith was younger than her, she was a sober and independent adult, and the mistress of the house. She shouldn’t have questioned her judgment and choices. But… she looked up again at the man standing in the doorway wearing a raven mask. She didn’t even know what he looked like; how could she possibly trust him completely?
"Anyway, thanks to Mr. Schmidl, I have a place to live again and can return the house to Sofia before the pandemic ends. I'll take you back once you're better. Oh, and he also told me about the bank."
How are the banks doing now?
“Lorenzo tried to take advantage of the chaos to buy out my bank, but Mr. Schmidl stopped him. Sister Clara has been managing it while I was away, so it shouldn't be too bad. I'll visit her at the convent in a couple of days when things calm down and find out more about the situation. To be honest, I'm more worried about what underhanded tricks Lorenzo might pull off again than the bank's condition. But don't worry about that now, getting better is the most important thing…”
Lilith sat by the bed and chatted with her for a while, instructing Hannah on how to take care of Cecilia and the old nanny of the Sophia family, before leaving with Heinrich. She nimbly lifted her skirt and jumped onto the gondola first, then suddenly offered to row.
"Anyway, you're not going to ship this ship back to France, so it's definitely going to be left to me. Since it's my ship, why don't I row it a bit and see how it feels?"
Heinrich had no choice but to hand her the oar that was resting on the boat. Before he could even stand up straight, Lilith grabbed the wooden handle of the oar and stabbed him hard in the waist, almost causing him to fall into the river. Lilith watched him stagger and suddenly kneel down, clutching her stomach and laughing wildly.
"Do you know why I hit you?" Lilith smugly loosened the ropes tying the boat to the dock and stood on the stern.
"Why...? What did I do wrong?" Heinrich was completely stunned, clutching his stomach and collapsing in the cabin, looking utterly pathetic.
"I'll make you bite my neck! I'll make you bite my neck! I'll make you bite my neck!" Lilith said viciously. "Nothing would have happened if you hadn't bitten my neck! Now you've been found out, haven't you? Cecilia dislikes you, serves you right."
“But you also bit my neck.” Heinrich pulled open his collar, looking aggrieved. “You even drew blood… And you didn’t say you didn’t want to, otherwise I definitely would have stopped…”
Lilith thought about it carefully and realized that what he said didn't seem to be wrong. She was speechless and didn't know how to respond, so she deliberately changed the subject: "When do you think it would be a good time for me to tell Cecilia the truth?"
"I don't know," Heinrich replied dejectedly. "Cecilia really dislikes me now..."
“Of course she’d be disgusted with you. I’d be disgusted with you too.” Lilith smiled and glanced at Heinrich, who was still sitting on the boat and slowly getting up. The bird-beak mask on his face made his current sprawled position look even more comical, like a poor crow shot down by a hunter’s arrow. “She’s just worried too much. It’s a good thing she didn’t have a chance to see your portrait before, or she’d probably be even more confused.”
"As expected, all those words about not caring about looks were lies. You said you liked me when I was pretty, but now you say you dislike me." Heinrich wrapped himself in his cloak, dejected, and curled up in his chair. "But even knowing how wicked you are, I still like you."
"Haha. But, it would be great if your wound didn't leave a scar after it heals... Perhaps Isolde knows how to make a scar-healing medicine that could completely cure you. But it's fine if it doesn't heal, then no one else will like you, and you'll always be mine..." Lilith laughed happily, humming a lighthearted song as she rowed the boat. The small boat left a secluded path and entered a wide river channel, when suddenly they saw a law enforcement officer standing on the dock not far away, stopping them.
"It's closed during the river crossing period! How are you driving on the river?! Go back now!"
“We have passes!” Lilith winked at Heinrich, who understood and handed her a bag. “He’s a doctor, and I’m taking him to see his patients.”
With that, Lilith placed a handful of silver coins under the pass and handed it to the law enforcement officer.
"Hurry up and get out of here! Don't let this happen again!"
Lilith rowed quickly, and the small boat darted away. As they neared home, Lilith frowned and asked, "If the lockdown is this strict, how are we going to find Clara? The road to the monastery crosses the Grand Canal, and the law enforcement officers are all there collecting fines."
"Then let's just wait a few days before going. You should also get some rest and make sure you don't get sick."
“I’m not that delicate.” Lilith rolled her eyes at him dismissively, moored the boat at the dock in front of her house, jumped ashore to tie the ropes, and reached out to pull him up. “Since we can’t continue working, we might as well play a little longer. Come play with me.”
“Okay.” Heinrich held her hand tightly and wouldn’t let go, following her into the house. Once inside, Lilith immediately reached out to remove Heinrich’s mask and tossed it aside, then pulled him toward the bedroom.
Did you ever have times when you were a child when you were carefree and had nothing to do? What did you usually do during those times?
“Hmm…” Heinrich recalled for a moment, “I play with the dog at home.”
"A puppy? You have a dog?" Lilith suddenly opened her eyes wide with curiosity.
“Yes, we have many, many dogs at home,” Heinrich described. “There are working sheepdogs, hunting dogs that we take with us when we go hunting, and pet dogs that we keep at home. I remember when I was ten years old, my father gave me the healthiest and cutest puppy from the litter of his sheepdog mother as a pet. His name was Blitz, which means lightning in German.”
What will you and Blitz do together?
“In the summer we would swim in the lake together, in the fall we would go hunting together, and in the winter we would play in the snow and play fetch in the snow. Later I went to the Knights for training and had to leave home for a long time. He would always bark incessantly when I left, and several times he broke free of the rope that was holding him and tried to chase after me and walk with me.”
"Didn't you bring him with you when you came to Venice?"
“It’s a good thing I didn’t bring him along.” Heinrich gasped. “Although I haven’t seen him for more than half a year, I hope he’s doing well at home. No matter how ruthless Helmut is, he doesn’t need to mess with a dog. If I had brought him along, wouldn’t he have died in the lagoon like my trusted servant?”
“Sigh.” Lilith sighed. “Actually, I really like puppies, but I’ve never had the chance to have one. The streets of Venice are too narrow, and dogs, especially large ones, need more space to run and play. Perhaps they would be happier living in a place like your hometown.”
“A dog is happiest when it’s with its owner. Besides, you already have a dog…” Heinrich knelt obediently in front of her, fluttering his big eyes and pleading, “If you have a dog, you have to take responsibility for it.”
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Author's Note: 20 chapters left until the end! At the current pace of five chapters a week, it should be finished by the end of October. Although the ranking requirement this week is 15,000 views, I'll still post five chapters.
The update schedule is the same as last week: Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and then Wednesday!
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