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Looking at the wary expression on the face of her ‘mother’, Noelle couldn’t help but chuckle. “Well, I assume that both of you are familiar with the lady named Dolores?”
Narcissa secretly breathed a sigh of relief, while Noelle’s biological father furrowed his brows when his current wife’s name was suddenly mentioned. “Are you talking about my wife?”
The gray-haired girl nodded. “That’s right. I’m gonna trouble you to go through your memories of the time when she used to serve madam Narcissa here, and see if you can remember who the woman in this picture is.”
She took out an aged photograph and passed it onto her ‘father’ as Narcissa gasped almost immediately. “T-That’s Abey, my—!”
Noelle smiled mysteriously. “Your missing servant, yes.”
Her mother’s face turned even paler. ‘N-No way, could it be that this girl found Abey somehow?!’
Suddenly, her thoughts paused. ‘But wait… Abey had clearly lost her mind at that time, hadn’t she? Even if this girl met her, what she knows may not necessarily be much.’
After all, even if crazy Abey regained her mind, how could she still clearly remember the ramblings of her mistress all those years ago?
Moreover, in the worst case, she could just attribute all her ‘confessions’ to that woman’s insanity.
“This is a ‘story’ about the two of them… and us. Care to listen?” Noelle smiled, but it was so cold that the older woman in front of her almost shivered.
Based on the girl’s tone alone, it was obvious to the two of them that it wasn’t going to be a ‘good’ story, or a story at all, maybe. But under the pressure of the elders, they could only nod.
Just as she was about to speak, however, Noelle suddenly had a ‘bright’ idea, and turned to Emilia with a devious glint in her eye.
“Emilia, would you mind doing the ‘storytelling’ on my behalf?”
The crimson-haired girl blinked. “I don’t really mind, but are you sure?”𝒩𝑜𝗏𝐥xt.𝗰𝓞𝕞
Noelle nodded confidently. “That’s true, but some things are best left to professionals if one wants maximum impact. And when it comes to blowing things out of proportion and being dramatic, you’re one of the best, after all.”
“… Thank you?”
Even with their above-average hearing, no one in the room could hear the hushed whispers of the two girls, and unfortunately, Noelle even covered the movements of her lips with her hand, making it impossible to guess the words through lip movement as well.
Suddenly seeing the strange ‘little girl’ by Noelle’s side step forward with a smile, they couldn’t help but be confused.
“Since this is a sensitive topic for miss Noelle, I will be doing the ‘storytelling’ on her behalf.” Emilia grinned. “Rest assured, however, that my memory is very good, and I definitely won’t misremember or forget any of what she has taught me.”
Noelle’s parents were only slightly displeased, while the elders stared at each other in confusion.
This monster who could beat them up without even learning their clan’s techniques was unexpectedly forgetful and… dumb? Could this be the reason why Noelle brought along this little girl with her?
If so, it really was great news that Emilia hadn’t come along!
Maybe if they just pretended to cooperate with her on the surface while slowly ‘pleasing’ her with compliments, this stupid idiot might really get bribed in time! Once that happened, wouldn’t the ‘trap’ they had fallen into turn into a great opportunity instead?
After all, whether it was Emilia, the White Deer Corporation, or the twins of the Gray Wolfe, they’d all seemingly given complete control of the matters of the Nightingale clan in this girl’s hands.
The elders who were fantasizing about such a wonderful outcome failed to notice that Noelle was observing their expressions from the corners of her eyes while sneering. ‘Fools.’
Emilia gave her a reassuring smile that only the two of them could understand, soothing the irritability in Noelle’s heart before she cleared her throat. “Ahem, let’s start, then.”
She smiled. “Once upon a time, there was a poor girl who really, really envied her mistress. And I mean like, really! If she could chop her up and feed her bits and pieces to the pigs, she would not only do so, but do it in such a way that the poor mistress would have to watch her body being gnawed apart piece by piece.”
While everyone else was dumbfounded by how happily this ‘cute’ little girl explained something so grotesque, Emilia continued. “She couldn’t be blamed, really. That woman, her mistress, was clearly not that different from herself, but she was living a life the poor servant could only dream of! And the worst part of it all was that there was nothing she could do to change her fate. How terrible, ahh, how miserable!”
She sighed dramatically. “Life simply wasn’t fair. But one day, she saw that the mistress and the master’s relationship cracked, and in that gap… there seemed to be more than enough room for someone else.”
The expressions of Noelle’s ‘parents’ immediately turned ugly. Neither of them was unaware of these things, but who wanted to be reminded of such an ugly past?
This girl was clearly slapping them in the face!
But their furious thoughts soon stagnated as the ‘story’ progressed to the part where Dolores, the then-hidden lover of Noelle’s so-called father, was taken out of the clan compound.
“Dolores wasn’t an idiot. She knew that just because she was pregnant didn’t mean that she could successfully climb to the position she wanted. After all, if the child from her belly turned out to be a weakling, wouldn’t all her dreams come crashing down?”
Emilia grinned. “Dolores believed that if she had been so lucky, she wouldn’t have been born in such a pathetic household anyway. So just to make sure her plans weren’t ruined, she needed a way out if something went wrong. And that way out… was through Abey, the most obedient servant of her mistress.”
She then went on to describe how Dolores had kidnapped, tortured, and humiliated Abey throughout her pregnancy in great, graphic detail that horrified almost everyone present to the core.
Even Narcissa couldn’t help but flinch at the thought of someone she knew going through so much.
She just couldn’t imagine that even Dolores, who she detested so much, would be so needlessly cruel to someone she had worked with for so long.
After all, if she just wanted to use the woman’s baby, wasn’t it enough to just confine her and wait for the baby to be born?
The little girl seemed to have seen through their thoughts as she grinned. “Dolores, being a smart woman, definitely had her reasons for doing such a thing.”
In the end, Noelle’s biological father really couldn’t bear it anymore as he rushed forward to slam his fist on the table in fury. “Shut up! SHUT UP! I won’t allow you to keep slandering my wife like this anymore, no matter who you are!”
Not to mention the elders in front of him, even if it was some god-like being, the man seemed ready to fight with them to the death if needed.
Even Emilia couldn’t help but look up at the man in admiration, as if impressed.
Of course, knowing her little boss, Noelle knew that this was anything but good for the man.
And as expected, her girlfriend soon started ‘complimenting’ her biological father with that sweet, nectar-like voice of hers.
“To be able to face someone like me…” Emilia blinked her big blue doe-eyes for maximum impact, and then continued in a single breath. “… and defend the current wife who almost tortured your pregnant servant to death and plotted against your previous wife and daughter so fearlessly… how brave you are, sir!”
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