Chapter 721: Burning Love
Everyone gasped in horror.
"Young Master, no!"
"Please come back! It’s utterly filthy!"
"Someone of your status should not go in there!"
Miss Lydia looked really worried, and her husband was shocked to see Cassius right by his side.
"My lord, what are you doing here?! Why did you come to this dump like me? Please go back. There’s no need for you to come here at all. It’s beneath your status!"
But Cassius simply scoffed and said.
"Who cares about status and what not?" He said firmly. "All I see right now is someone who needs help. And since I can most definitely help out without any real consequence to myself, there’s absolutely no need for me to hesitate."
He rolled up his sleeves further.
"I’ve come here to help you search. That’s all there is to it."
But the man couldn’t accept this. His face was stricken with worry.
"I know, I understand, my lord." The husband said desperately. "You’re a very kind and gentle man. We’ve felt that kindness deeply with how you rule over this estate and care for its people. We’re truly, deeply grateful for everything you’ve done for us."
His eyes were filled with genuine gratitude as he spoke.
"But still—you can’t do something like this!" He continued, his voice breaking slightly. "This is a place where even common folk would hesitate to enter willingly. Even I can barely manage the smell, and I’m just a simple tailor!"
He gestured helplessly at Cassius.
"Someone like you—a true noble among nobles, someone who lives in a grand estate and dines with royalty—you should absolutely not be in a place like this! Please, I’m begging you, my lord!"
The people above on the bridge also encouraged him, their voices overlapping:
"Yes, yes, young master, come back up quickly!"
"Don’t stay down there!"
"This isn’t appropriate for someone of your standing!"
"We appreciate your kindness, but please!"
Miss Lydia, still crying, called down through her tears.
"Please, young master, don’t bother yourself with this small, petty matter of ours! Just come back up! I don’t want you to suffer because of my foolishness!"
But Cassius simply smiled warmly at all of them.
"I’m sorry." He said gently but firmly. "but I can’t do that."
The husband looked surprised and distressed.
Cassius continued, "I’m honestly quite passionate when it comes to love affairs, which should be fairly obvious to everyone, given how much of a womanizer I am."
This made several people on the bridge let out involuntary laughs despite the situation, shaking their heads at his shamelessness.
But then Cassius’s expression became more serious, and he looked down at the man beside him in the water.
"But at the same time, I’m not just passionate about my own romantic pursuits." He said meaningfully. "I’m passionate about love itself—about other people’s love as well."
His voice became softer, more sincere.
"When I see a sight like this, something so heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time, a man willing to wade through filth for the symbol of his devotion to his wife, there’s absolutely no way I can just stand by and do nothing."
He looked directly into the husband’s eyes.
"So if you try to push me away or insist I leave—"
Cassius said with a playful smirk, though his eyes were kind
"—I’ll have no choice but to execute every single one of you for insubordination."
This was obviously a joke, and everyone knew it, but it made the people above groan in amused exasperation at his ridiculousness.
Seeing that no one else objected anymore, Cassius shook his head and, to everyone’s surprise, pushed his hands deep into the filthy water and started searching for the ring alongside the husband.
The crowd fell silent in awe as the young master of the Holyfield estate stood knee-deep in wastewater, helping a common tailor look for a lost ring without a single complaint on his face.
The scene brought tears to the eyes of everyone watching.
Where else in the world would you find a master like this? Anywhere else, a noble wouldn’t spare a second glance at common folk.
They might do the bare minimum—a donation here, a kind word there. But they would never lower themselves to actually help. Not like this.
But here was Cassius, diving into wastewater without a second thought, for the sake of an old married couple.
The people of the town felt an overwhelming wave of gratitude. They had landed on a treasure trove of fortune, blessed to live in an estate ruled by such a man. They looked at Cassius like he was a saint.
The woman who had been speaking looked at Cassius with pure adoration in her eyes—then caught herself.
She realized, with a jolt of panic, that this could completely ruin the date Cassius was on.
Everyone in town knew he was taking Lady Maria out. There had been so much gossip, so much excited chatter about how she might become the newest lady of the Holyfield family.
But what Cassius was doing now was not gentlemanly.
People of high status would look down on this—wading through filthy wastewater, sifting through it with his bare hands.
It was something even commoners would hesitate to do, given the stench of human waste and refuse.
If news of this spread, every noble in the kingdom would mock him.
Of course, Cassius himself was not the type of person who would care about such opinions. The woman knew that much about her young master.
But she was thinking about Maria’s perspective.
She felt certain that Maria would be disgusted by this sight.
Even though she was known as a saintess of compassion, surely even she would find this scene too disturbing. Surely she would start disliking Cassius because of this undignified display.
The woman was about to quickly intervene—to save Cassius’s reputation, to make some excuse for why he needed to leave immediately—
But the moment she opened her mouth to speak, she stopped.
She froze completely.
Because the sight before her made her speechless.
Right now, Maria was not looking at Cassius with disgust. She was not looking at him with disdain or disappointment.
She was looking at him with pure, unadulterated love.
Her eyes were shining, brimming with emotion. Her lips were curled into a gentle smile. A faint blush colored her cheeks.
She looked like the very embodiment of a woman in love, so beautiful that the woman staring at her felt her own cheeks flush.
While she was staring at Maria in awe, almost like she was gazing at a goddess—
Maria turned to her and asked gently, "Does Cassius normally do this type of thing all the time?"
Hearing this question, the woman immediately wanted to deny it, to protect Cassius from looking too strange or improper.
But when she saw Maria’s pure, open face and the way she was looking at her with such earnest curiosity, the woman felt as if she could not lie at all.
She was compelled to tell the truth.
"I’m sorry, my lady." The woman said in a grave manner, as if she didn’t want to admit it but had no choice. "But it is true."
She took a breath.
"My lord is simply too kind and too helpful at heart. No matter what grievances the people have, he always listens to them and tries to help them out personally." She shook her head. "And that’s not even the most shocking part—he always tries to do the work himself, with his own hands."
Maria listened intently, her eyes never leaving the woman’s face.
"I’ve personally seen him going around from business to business and family to family, helping people out with random tasks."
The woman continued. "If it were just some simple menial chores, that would be one thing. But he often takes on truly burdensome, difficult tasks that no noble would ever consider."
She paused, looking uncomfortable.
"One time—" She said with clear dismay in her voice "—there was this old man who relied on transporting and selling manure to different fields as his livelihood. This is how he’d supported his family his entire life."
Maria’s eyes widened slightly but she said nothing, just continued listening.
"Unfortunately, the old man got very sick one day and couldn’t do his job, even though he had a very important delivery scheduled that day with substantial profit to be made."
The woman explained in dismay. "His son was out of town at that moment, so he desperately needed someone to take over the delivery for him."
She sighed.
"But because of the nature of his work and the low status associated with it, he didn’t have close friends he could rely on. Even the people he tried to hire didn’t want to do such a job."
"It was considered too demeaning, especially since the worker would have to transport the manure around in a cart, and the smell would be absolutely horrible."
Maria nodded slowly, understanding. Even though it seemed cruel, in this society such class divisions were unfortunately common.
The woman continued. "But it was then that, coincidentally, my lord was passing through that area. He heard about this problem from some local merchants."
She looked at Maria carefully.
"Everyone thought that perhaps he might send one of his servants to help—that would already be exceptionally kind. But to everyone’s absolute shock, he himself took the reins of the cart and went around delivering the manure personally."
Maria’s breath caught, but not with disgust—with wonder.
"People tried to stop him." The woman said quickly. "They argued against it vehemently. The old man himself was horrified and begged him not to. But once again, just like today, Cassius went against everyone’s wishes."
She smiled slightly at the memory.
"He said it would be insincere to just push the job onto someone else while taking all the praise and credit. He also added that he genuinely wanted to experience what the work was like, to understand what this man did to support his family."
The woman shook her head in amazement.
"So he spent the entire day going around to different farms, delivering manure. Can you imagine?"
"It was quite a fright to all those farmers who were expecting a simple delivery, only to see the master of the entire estate personally handing them their order!"
She chuckled.
"That incident was the talk of the town for several days afterward. People couldn’t believe it."
Then her expression became worried again, and she looked at Maria with concern.
"My lord is simply like that, you see." She said earnestly. "There’s nothing any of us can do to change his nature. He just...cares too much."
She bowed her head slightly.
"Please, my lady—please don’t look down upon him for these actions. I beg of you. He’s a genuinely kind-hearted person, and he doesn’t deserve any disdain for trying to help others. His intentions are always pure."
She spoke in a slightly defensive manner, clearly hoping that Maria would not judge Cassius harshly.
She was already planning on bringing all the other women here and making Cassius seem like a much better person so that Maria would completely forget about everything.
She braced herself, expecting to see judgment on Maria’s face.
Instead, she saw love.
Pure, radiant, unwavering love.
Maria was staring down at Cassius—at his filthy robes, his stained hands, his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat and grime. He should have looked disgusting. He should have looked like someone to be pitied.
But to Maria, he looked like the most beautiful man in the world.
The woman stared, utterly bewildered.
She had never seen such devotion in anyone’s eyes. Neither had the others watching. They exchanged glances, wondering at the miracle before them.
What they didn’t know was that Maria had stopped fighting.
All day, she had been trying to push her feelings down. Denying them. Running from them. Telling herself that she was a sister of the church, a mother, a woman who should know better.
But seeing Cassius here, in the filth, helping strangers without a second thought—something inside her had broken.
All her life, she had done good deeds. She had helped the poor, healed the sick, comforted the dying.
Even though many people praised her for her charitable works, she was technically doing all of this for the Goddess, almost as if she were on a divine mission.
It wasn’t purely her own will that drove her actions.
It was because she was a sister who was supposed to help others that she did these things.
She had sometimes wondered: if she weren’t a sister at all, if she were just a normal woman, would she still be doing all this work? Would she have the same compassion?
It had always pricked at her mind, that question.
So now, to see Cassius—a man who was neither a priest nor a saint, a nobleman who could have simply looked down upon the world from his privileged position and done absolutely nothing for common people—choosing to do something like this...
It completely broke her heart in the most beautiful way possible.
He wasn’t performing kindness for a reward. He wasn’t seeking praise or recognition. He simply saw someone in need and acted.
It was everything she had ever wanted in a partner.
She had always dreamed, in the quietest corners of her heart, of finding someone who shared her values.
Someone who would stand beside her in the mud and the filth, who would work alongside her without complaint, who would understand why she did what she did.
And here he was.
The barriers she had built around her heart crumbled. The walls she had constructed to protect herself from these feelings collapsed.
She couldn’t deny it anymore. Couldn’t push it away. Couldn’t pretend.
She loved Cassius.
And she wanted to spend the rest of her life with him.
Even if it meant abandoning her sisterhood.
Even if it meant turning her back on everything she had known.
Even if the entire world condemned her.
She didn’t care.
Because without him, nothing else mattered.
And even at this moment, she did not want to be without him.
So, suddenly, to everyone’s surprise, Maria moved.