Chapter 48 : Chapter 48
Volume 1
Chapter 48 : Her Smile Gradually Turned Deranged
“How did the fish taste, Young Master?” Ann suddenly asked afterward.
“Mhm, it was very delicious.”
“That is wonderful. Then all the effort I went through to catch fish for Young Master was not wasted.”
A moving smile bloomed across Ann’s poised, lovely face, and Muen found himself momentarily dazed.
Though a yandere was terrifying, he had to admit that when Ann was acting normal, she really was an exquisitely beautiful woman.
And the figure hidden beneath that maid outfit was shapely and alluring, not the slightest bit inferior to Sericia’s.
If he could date her, that actually did not sound too bad.
Of course, that was assuming she could become a normal person again.
“Come to think of it, Ann, you seem completely soaked. Did something happen?”
Because of the dim lighting, Muen had not noticed anything unusual about her at first.
It was only after Ann brought it up that he realized she was drenched from head to toe, as though she had just swum four hundred meters through a river.
Her usually immaculate hair was plastered to her forehead, and there were quite a few splatters of mud on her dress as well.
For someone as meticulous as Ann, this appearance was simply unimaginable.
“It is nothing, Young Master. I merely got caught in a bit of rain,” Ann replied.
“Caught in the rain?”
Muen frowned.
“If you got drenched, then why did you not go wash up and change your clothes?”
“Because I wanted the Young Master to have lunch as soon as possible. Wasn't the Young Master already hungry?” Ann said, as if that were the most natural thing in the world.
“It would have been fine if lunch came a little later, but what if you got sick from being out in the rain?”
Muen’s expression turned stern.
“Hurry back and take a bath. A hot bath. Soak in it for a while, then change into warm clothes, and sit by the fireplace for a bit. Just to be safe, you should also call a doctor and get some medicine to prevent a cold!”
“Young Master…”
Ann looked stunned, but her cheeks quickly turned visibly red.
“To think that you care so much about me. I am so touched. I really want to…”
“Enough with that nonsense. Go already!”
“Understood.”
Feeling a rare warmth from Muen, Ann obediently nodded and briskly began cleaning up the leftovers.
But no matter how many times Muen urged her, Ann still carefully collected every single fish bone with meticulous attention before taking them away.
“Then, Young Master, please excuse me for now.”
“Just hurry up and get out!”
“Yes.”
Even though Muen was cursing her thoroughly, Ann’s expression only grew more blissful.
She left with light, cheerful steps.
Silence returned to the narrow, dim prison.
Muen watched Ann disappear into the darkness, and the stern expression on his face immediately collapsed.
Then…
His smile gradually turned deranged…
“Heh.”
“Hehehe.”
“Hehehehehe.”
“As expected, women in love really do get dumber.”
“An opportunity… has this not fallen right into my lap?”
…
After making sure that Ann had truly left, Muen stretched his body a little.
Though the shackles prevented him from moving much at all, it was still enough for him to determine the limits of his current mobility.
“So the first step really is to free my hands?”
Muen looked to the side.
To completely seal off his movements, both his hands had been tightly locked to the wall in shackles, forcing him into a pose like Jesus on the cross.
He could do nothing in that posture, so he had to free himself from the shackles on his hands.
“It is fine. It is fine.”
Muen took a deep breath, and a long-gathered resolve surfaced in his eyes.
“I have already tried this many times in the Black Book space. I can do it.”
Having made up his mind, Muen pressed the thumb of his right hand into his palm, then exerted force.
Crack.
Along with the crisp sound of bone shifting out of place, a violent wave of pain instantly surged into his mind, cold sweat breaking out across his forehead.
“Hiss—just as I thought. Even though I have already done this in the Black Book space, this kind of pain is still hard to endure in reality.”
“After all, it is my thumb being dislocated.”
But fortunately, that pain had not been endured for nothing.
Once his thumb was dislocated, his hand was indeed able to slip easily through the shackle.
Television dramas really did not lie to me!
After successfully pulling his right hand free, Muen pressed his hand against the ground, aligned it carefully, and then—slammed it down hard.
Crack.
The sound of bone shifting rang out again.
And so did the agonizing pain.
“Hiss—damn it, setting a bone really does hurt even more than dislocating it.”
Tilting his head back, Muen gritted his teeth and forced himself to endure it.
But he did not even have the time to stop and recover from the pain.
Even after his thumb had been reset, bruising still surrounded the joint, and his hand could not stop trembling, but he had no time to care about any of that.
He had no idea when Ann might return.
He had to hurry.
Muen raised his hand and, with trembling fingers, slowly pulled something out from his mouth.
It was the thing he had hidden desperately beneath his tongue just now, the thing Ann had nearly discovered…
A fish bone.
And it was also the key to his freedom.
Lockpicking LV8.
Looking at the record in the Black Book and feeling the results of his painstaking practice, Muen could not help but reveal a lucky smile.
Father, Grandfather, and all the ancestors of the Campbell family, I wronged you.
Those bizarre books you stuffed into the library were not useless after all!
At the very least, that book called 《Fish Bones Can Pick Locks Too—One Hundred Ways to Commit Burglary》 was extremely useful right now!
“All right. Let us begin.”
Muen took several deep breaths to steady himself, and to stop his hand from trembling.
Pinching the fish bone between the fingers of his right hand, he carefully extended it toward the keyhole of the shackle on his left hand, his heart practically rising into his throat.
Success or failure would be decided in this one move!
…
The result was even smoother than Muen had imagined.
With his Lockpicking skill at the lofty height of LV8, not only were the shackles restraining him easily opened, even the large, reassuring-looking lock on the iron bars was quickly pried open with the fish bone.
Ann had clearly never imagined such a possibility.
She had been cautious enough not to even leave Muen any clothes, yet she still had not anticipated that he would somehow learn a heaven-defying skill like picking locks with fish bones.
Father, Grandfather, ancestors of the Campbell family, my thanks once again!
It really was wonderful that you were a bunch of idiots who disliked reading and had nothing but muscles in your heads.
“I need to get out of here as quickly as possible.”
After opening the door lock, Muen cautiously stepped out from behind the iron bars.
The light outside the cage was even dimmer than inside, illuminated only by glowing stones set into the ceiling every few meters.
Fortunately, it did not affect his vision too badly.
“This place… seems to be some kind of underground storeroom?”
Looking at the pile of miscellaneous items around him, Muen vaguely began to remember where this was.
At the very edge of the Duke’s estate grounds, there was an underground storage room once used by the maids to keep all sorts of odds and ends.
Later, after the estate was renovated, it was abandoned.
Muen remembered that when he was a child, he had once come here to explore, only to fall hard because it had been too dark.
Subconsciously, Muen touched the corner of his forehead, where he could still faintly feel a small mark.
“If I remember correctly, it was Ann, who had only just become my personal maid at the time, who comforted the tearful little Muen and rescued him from this place.”
“And it was also from that time onward that Muen began relying on Ann more and more.”
“Back then, Ann was so gentle. She was like an older sister.”
…
So why the hell had she turned into such a dangerously unhinged yandere now?!