*[Midnight]*
{In the previous chapter:
*[Footsteps]*
"Oh no! I'm gonna be caught if I stay like this; I have to flip back to my position," I said anxiously.
*[Footsteps got louder]*
}
A maid with a candle in her hand wanders in Lawan suddenly hears a noise in the direction of Lady Aries's room and goes to check on the young lady. As she walks towards the room, her thoughts lead her to think something might be bad happening to Lady Aries, as all she can hear is the struggling of a baby.
*[Well, baby Aries was struggling to flip back.]*
Frightenedly, she took the sword from the plate armor display outside the lady's room with her shivering hands. She couldn't shout for being cold feet which may put the young lady in danger; her mind was about to burst with the intensity of her thoughts.
*[Gulp saliva]* "I will save you, lady."
*[Slowly opening the door]*
Found out that nobody was there except only Lady Aries in her beauty sleep. The maid realizes nothing happened, turns blue in the face, and falls onto the ground. Her legs go weak in the sign of relief, and the sword falls aside the way that her hand lost the grip from going weak. As she weeps, "Sob..sob… I'm glad that nothing happened. I think I'm hearing things from this night's walks. I should go back to my room before I get even crazier."
She took the sword that had fallen to the ground, placed it back in its positioned plate armor display, and returned to her room.
"Whew… finally, she left, but why was she wandering with a sword in her hands? Is she an assassin? Did she come to kill me?... but why was she crying?... maybe I'm too cute that she couldn't bear to kill me … Thank God! I'm so cute." As Aries's thoughts went by, two overthinkers had a fearful night making a mountain out of a molehill.
*[Morning]*
The Grand Count came to visit his baby daughter who was playing in her room, along with the first daughter Lady Daris, who was four years older than Lady Aries, with a poker face that barely showed an expression. Lady Daris mostly never visited her baby sister because she was snowed under with studies to please her mother, Countess Manta.
"She looks so small, Father," Lady Daris stares at Lady Aries. Lady Aries grins. "I look so cute, right? You are cute too… not than me though… I'm so lovely, right?" Giggles in the manner that she has gone crazy.
"Father, she resembles you in appearance, but why does she look so stupid?" Lady Daris just broke Lady Aries's bubble for foolishly laughing.
Baby Aries frowns. "You are stupid to think I look stupid. Who told you are a genius that one is stupid? Your whole family is stupid… you can't even see my high-grade cuteness." [But you are her family]
Count rubs Lady Aries's forehead to make her relax her eyebrows. "Dear, you shouldn't say that about your baby sister. You should look after her as her older sister and be a good friend to her so she can have someone to lean on when times get harder, someone close to her age."
Lady Daris was heartbroken for her father being too good to her baby sister but not for her who is walking on eggshells every day while trying to do her best to impress her mother.
*[Aries]* "Yes! You should be nice to me. I let it slide this once. Here, take this and play with me; I'm bored." She handed over the toy that she was holding.
Lady Daris looked surprisingly toward Lady Aries as Count was having his sweet moment looking at his two daughters together. He couldn't figure out the bitterness in the older daughter's eyes.
"Sorry, Father, but I have a history class now. Then I should be taking my leave." Lady Daris was about to leave the room.
*[Knocking on the door]*
*[Assistant]* "lord, we got important news."
"Daris, you should go to class… later let's have lunch together." Lady Daris left the room, and the assistant entered.
"What happened?" Count looked seriously at the assistant, but he kept staring at the maid and stayed silent.
*[Count]* "You there, you can leave now." The maid left. "Know nobody there now; speak out." As Count commanded, the assistant started to speak out.
"Lord, we finally got some information about the young master and empress's niece who went missing for 5 years."
*[Count]* "Where have they been up to now? And what happened to them?... What happened to my brother?"
*[Assistant]* "Your guess is right, lord. They are alive, and we found out they're living as a couple and doctors in a small village located on the west borders where they self-rule, as that village was abandoned… but… ah… lor… lord..."
*[Count]* "Don't beat around the bush, get to the point."
"When they went collecting herbs in the mountains a few days ago, bandits attacked them and stole their things… while protecting their son, they lost their lives, and bandits took their child… when they were selling items, we found a young master's chain with our family emblem on it. Through the interrogation, we got sinners to prison and saved their son." The assistant delivered the news of the duke's brother's death and the Count's dejected condolences toward his brother.
"Where's the child?" Count pulled back his emotions to figure out what to do next.
*[Assistant]* "He's taking treatment at our soldier's health center, and no one knows who he is except Count's shadow and me."
"By convincing Manta that somehow I'm going to adopt this child, nobody should know his origins; it might be dangerous for the child. What happened to my brother or empress's niece should be kept silent and buried among us, as everyone believed them to have died 5 years ago in an accident… now, take me to that boy." Count made an order.
An assistant led the way to the young boy. They forgot something, like someone.
"How can they forget about me and talk about such serious matters in front of me just because I'm a baby? Now I know too much of your top-buried secret that you dug for yourself in front of me… wait! Now I'm going to have one more sibling, even though adopted still a brother is a brother. How is he going to treat me?"
Time went by as Lady blasted her mind and started crying. The maid rushed to look after the young Lady Aries.