Chapter 88 : Chapter 88
Volume 2
Chapter 12 : There Will Always Be a Butterfly Beating Its Wings
“You—”
The teacup in Selicia’s hand instantly exploded into icy shards with a sharp crack.
Dark blue frost spread rapidly from beneath her feet, and in the blink of an eye, a terrifying chill engulfed the entire room.
The breath of death touched Muen’s heart with undeniable clarity.
Muen clenched his teeth to keep himself from trembling on the spot.
Fortunately, fate was finally on Muen’s side for once.
Selicia suddenly staggered.
The frost that could have frozen Muen into an ice sculpture in an instant stopped only a single step away from him, unable to spread any farther.
“How despicable.”
Selicia shot Muen a resentful glare with her icy eyes, revealing a trace of unwillingness.
Yet in the end, before she could do anything else, the drug took effect, and she collapsed limply to the floor.
“Hah...”
As the killing intent faded, Muen was finally able to let out a long breath of relief, though a trace of lingering fear still remained in his eyes.
“As expected of Selicia.”
If the drug had taken effect two or three seconds later, she probably really would have killed him without the slightest hesitation.
“But no matter what, I was the one who won in the end.”
Having survived the ordeal, Muen could not help but feel delighted.
“Do you even understand what true modern wage-slave underhandedness looks like? Do you know the sheer brilliance of that sleight of hand I honed at dinner tables and drinking parties?”
He really had almost been cornered into a dead end by a Selicia who was even more cautious than he had imagined, but what she had never anticipated was that both cups of tea had been drugged.
Muen had gambled on one thing alone: that once Selicia saw him drink first, she would lower her guard, if only for a moment.
Thankfully, he had won the bet.
“And I really ought to thank that shopkeeper for selling such potent stuff. It actually knocks someone down the instant it touches them!”
Expensive things truly did have their reasons for being expensive.
No wonder it had cost a full one hundred and thirty thousand Amiel!
If he ever needed anything again, he really should go patronize that shopkeeper’s business once more.
“And now comes the main event.”
Looking at the unconscious, defenseless Selicia, Muen could not help growing tense again.
But now that things had reached this point, the arrow was already on the string.
There was no turning back, and no other road left for him to take.
...
The fire in the fireplace flickered, and warmth gradually returned to the room.
Muen bent down and carried Selicia over to the sofa.
As for why it was not a bed... if he invited Selicia to a private room with a bed in it, even a fool would know something was suspicious.
Fortunately, the sofas in the Duke’s estate were all large enough.
“So what exactly am I supposed to do next?”
“If I remember correctly, in the original book, Muen Campbell was caught by the protagonist just as he was taking off Selicia’s clothes.”
Muen cast a glance at the door.
In the original book, that idiot of the original owner had not even thought to lock the door while doing something like this.
That was why the protagonist, who had wandered here by pure accident, had only needed to push the door open casually to witness Muen Campbell attempting to violate Selicia.
“If that is how the original plot unfolded...”
“Then if I am going to put on an act, I have to commit to it completely. I am going all in!”
Staring at the sleeping Selicia, Muen could not help feeling his mouth go dry.
This was perhaps the weakest and most defenseless Selicia could ever be.
The frigid aura that always surrounded her had already dissipated, replaced by a faint fragrance that kept drifting into Muen’s nose and tugging at his wavering reason.
Selicia’s white gown was simple and elegant, yet that only made her cold beauty stand out all the more.
“One must neither look upon impropriety nor touch it, but I have no choice. Please forgive me.”
Muen muttered a few words of apology, then slowly reached out with slightly trembling hands. Gently supporting Selicia’s light body, he felt his way toward the zipper at the back of her gown.
His hands did not seem to obey him. He fumbled several times before finally finding the zipper.
Ziiip—
At the clear sound of the zipper sliding down, Muen’s heartbeat quickened by several more beats.
He swallowed a mouthful of saliva that might not even have existed, then with his still-shaking hand, caught hold of the gown’s shoulder straps resting against Selicia’s fair shoulders.
Then, slowly, very slowly, he drew them down to either side of her arms.
Her skin was smooth, so smooth that it brought to mind white ribbons floating atop milk.
And at that moment, Selicia’s ample chest made its presence known.
Even after both straps had slipped down completely, the gown still held firmly to the most important places.
Helpless, Muen could only extend a finger once more, hook it into the front of the white gown, and slowly tug it downward.
And so, a deep and shadowed cleavage gradually emerged, while the soft curves beneath were faintly revealed.
Only when even the white mist that veiled that moonlike fullness had been exposed by half did Muen withdraw his hand, still wanting to see more.
“This... should be enough, right?”
Her clothes were in disarray, her soft bosom partially exposed.
No matter how one looked at it, this no longer resembled an ordinary conversation.
Muen glanced at the tightly shut door.
The protagonist still had not appeared.
“Could it be that this still is not enough?”
After thinking for a moment, Muen stripped off his own men’s formalwear as well, all twenty kilograms of it, bearing a fairly strong and well-built upper body.
Then he braced both hands against the sofa and positioned Selicia beneath him.
Though there was in fact no physical contact at all, anyone who saw that pose would think it extremely intimate.
In a Soaring Phoenix novel, a scene this suggestive was already the sort of thing that would get readers cursing in thousand-post threads, the kind of development that counted as a complete explosion.
If no one came to save her now, that would truly be rather rude!
But...
The protagonist still did not appear.
“Could the timing be wrong? Do I need to wait a little longer?”
Thinking that, Muen held the pose and remained motionless, quietly waiting as time passed second by second.
Three minutes...
Ten minutes...
Half an hour!
“What the hell!”
With his arms already aching unbearably, Muen finally broke down and cried out,
“Protagonist, what on earth are you doing? The heroine is lying beneath me, completely at my mercy, so hurry up and come save her!
With this much time, shouldn't anything have been enough already?”
And yet even so, Ariel, the protagonist and Selicia’s destined savior, still showed no sign of appearing.
“Did I do something wrong?”
Muen began retracing everything he had done that day.
First, he had invited Selicia to a private room.
There was definitely no mistake there, because this plan had already existed in Muen Campbell’s mind from the start, and the room had been prepared long ago.
There was no way it could differ from the room in the original book.
Then there was the matter of drugging Selicia.
That definitely was not the problem either, because Selicia was indeed lying beneath him right now.
And last...
There was only the protagonist left.
In the original book, the protagonist had gone off alone to look for the washroom after her dress was stained by red wine accidentally spilled on her by a clumsy maid.
But because she had no sense of direction, she got lost and wandered into this room by mistake, unintentionally ruining Muen Campbell’s evil deed.
But why had she still not come? Had she gotten so lost that she wandered somewhere else entirely?
Wait.
A clumsy maid?
Once again, Muen noticed the crucial detail.
The maids of the Duke’s estate were always impeccably trained.
Even if they were made to walk a tightrope while carrying stemmed wine glasses, they would have no problem at all.
How could the word “clumsy” possibly apply to them?
Not to mention the disgraceful act of accidentally spilling red wine onto a guest’s dress.
If something like that truly happened, the head maid would have to resign and take responsibility for it!
Unless...
The maid’s spilling of the wine had never happened because she was clumsy at all.
But because...
She was sick.
Yes, that had to be it.
The maid in the original story must have made that small mistake because she was ill.
And where was the maid who should have played the role of pushing the plot forward?
She was resting.
Resting because of Muen’s own orders.
She could not possibly appear at tonight’s banquet, nor could she accidentally spill red wine onto the protagonist’s dress.
Which meant...
The protagonist might never appear after all.