59. Bloody Honeymoon at the Haunted Hotel (3)
Katya instinctively closed the bathroom door as soon as she recognized the intruder’s face.
They heard the sound of someone running away in panic from outside.
As old memories resurfaced, cold sweat ran down Katya’s back and her heart began pounding.
“Why is that person here?”
“What’s wrong? Do you know them?”
She nodded and whispered in Nikolai’s ear.
The middle-aged woman outside was Viscountess Borodin, the principal of Molnitsky Girls’ Academy where the Smirnov sisters had attended before dropping out.
The name was very familiar to Nikolai as well.
That was because it was Oksana’s maiden family.
In fact, Molnitsky Girls’ Academy was one of the reasons for Nikolai’s covert mission.
After becoming Grand Duchess and reaching the peak of power, Oksana had begged her husband to turn the public Molnitsky Girls’ Academy into a private institution.
Rising to become the foundation’s chairperson in one stroke, she entrusted the school’s operation to her cousin-in-law, Viscountess Borodin.
It would not be an exaggeration to say that the Viscountess practically managed the foundation’s operations as well.
Nikolai had received multiple anonymous tips that at Molnitsky Girls’ Academy, which should focus on nurturing the nation’s female talents, tax evasion and money laundering were taking place in collusion with families connected to the Borodin family.
The boyars of the North had reportedly avoided taxation by transferring assets under borrowed names and then making donations to the foundation.
Oksana, who outwardly pretended to be clean, was secretly moving money around like this.
Entrusting the school’s operations to a cousin-in-law instead of close siblings was a deliberate move to secure an escape route for herself and her family if the need ever arose.
Though they shared the Borodin name, she had made her provincial noble cousin into a scapegoat by elevating her to viscountess.
“Why is she here? And why did she enter this room?”
“I’m quite curious about that too.”
“But why are you hiding? We haven’t done anything wrong.”
“She might remember my face.”
Katya said while gathering towels and wrapping one around her head like a headscarf.
“Didn’t you say you only attended lower grades and quit? That must have been over 10 years ago then?”
“I was quite a famous figure.”
“Don’t tell me you pantsed someone there too?”
“Come on, it was a girls’ school, remember?”
“Ah, right.”
“Anyway, all the students knew my name. The principal would mention my name at every assembly as a negative example for students.”
In fact, 90% of the reason she quit school was because of Viscountess Borodin.
Though Katya had been intelligent and achieved excellent grades since childhood, she always failed in etiquette education.
The Viscountess, who frequently visited etiquette classes claiming to observe, went around hitting young girls’ shoulders with a cane saying she was correcting their posture.
When Katya and other boyar children struggled in etiquette class, she would selectively pick on students who were on a scholarship from commoner backgrounds or poor noble children as examples to vent her stress.
Finally unable to endure it anymore, Katya charged at her one day during class.
Literally like a rhinoceros, she had rammed her head straight into Viscountess Borodin’s body.
“Rammed?”
“People only learn that hitting hurts when they experience pain themselves. She fell backwards and became a laughingstock, but after that day she would ask about me in front of the whole school during every assembly. Saying she was worried whether I was following etiquette classes well.”
Even at her young age, Katya could tell this wasn’t special treatment but discrimination.
Since she couldn’t harass her directly, she had chosen to subtly shame her in this way.
Nikolai’s eyes suddenly sharpened as he heard this.
“What are you thinking about?”
“Making a mental record.”
“Of what?”
“Adding a name to the list of people who need to be killed.”
“Oh come on, it’s not that serious. When Mom found out later, she got incredibly angry and threw the withdrawal papers in my face. I’d never seen her that angry before.”
If Baptiski had known, he might have destroyed the principal’s office furniture while pursuing legal action.
But the Duchess, who had known her husband’s fiery temperament since their dating days, ultimately kept it secret from him.
“It’s time to replace the principal.”
“Even though it’s not a public school?”
“Educational institutions are ultimately all under government control. And I was thinking it’s time to turn it back into a public school anyway.”
“I see.”
“By the way, why did you wrap the towel around your head?”
“My hair color is quite rare, isn’t it? I thought she might remember me because of it.”
“You forgot you don’t have strawberry blonde hair right now?”
Katya quickly turned to look at her reflection in the mirror at those words.
She just remembered that when Nikolai dyed his hair with chemicals before departing, she had dyed hers as well.
She now had light platinum blonde hair like Bianca.
“Then she wouldn’t have noticed, right?”
Just as Katya let out a sigh of relief, they heard a commotion in the hallway.
When the two went out to check, they found Viscountess Borodin grabbing the manager and protesting loudly.
[How could you let people stay in such a dangerous place!]
[What do you mean by dangerous?]
[You don’t know this as the manager? Room 404 is a cursed room where evil spirits appear!]
Katya felt something off when she heard Nikolai’s translation.
Wasn’t she the one who had walked into that supposedly cursed room herself?
Moreover, everything from opening the door to taking out the brush from the drawer seemed natural. It’s like she had been at that room many times before.
The brush wasn’t a basic amenity provided by the hotel.
“Your Highness, please go back inside and try locking the door for a moment.”
Though confused, Nikolai followed her instructions.
Click. As soon as she heard the sound of it locking from inside, Katya pulled the door handle.
As expected, the door opened right away.
“I definitely locked it though?”
Nikolai said with a puzzled face to her standing in front.
For a first-time visitor to a room, one would normally try inserting the key first rather than grabbing the handle right away.
But Viscountess Borodin had barged in without a key, opening the door immediately.
As if she knew the door handle was broken.
She continued questioning the manager, unaware that Katya and Nikolai were watching.
Suddenly, someone called out to Viscountess Borodin from across the hallway.
“Principal!”
“Oh my, who do we have here?”
The Viscountess approached happily upon seeing the woman before her.
“Isn’t it Judith?”
“You remember me?”
“Of course! You were such a good and proper student.”
“I’m sorry. I should have visited after graduation, but I was busy getting a job.”
“You got a job? I thought you were getting married?”
“Things just turned out this way. I found something I wanted to do later on.”
The woman called Judith appeared to be a graduate of Molnitsky Girls’ Academy.
Katya felt increasingly strange about the situation.
Given the talk about employment, Judith was presumed to be a commoner.
Why had the attitude of Viscountess Borodin, who had led the discrimination and harassment of commoners when Katya attended, changed so much?
What had happened at Molnitsky Girls’ Academy after she dropped out?
“Yes. This teacher will always support your dreams. Not just men, but women should have dreams too.”
“I always keep your teachings deep in my heart.”
“It feels like just yesterday when you enrolled as a tiny thing, but now you’ve become such a proper lady. How did you get so good at makeup? What did you put on your lips? It’s so lovely, dear.”
“I have another of the same rouge, would you like it?”
“Oh my, I’m not sure if an educator should accept such things from a student.”
“What’s there to worry about when I’ve already graduated?”
Judith laughed good-naturedly as she took out a rouge case from her pocket and placed it in her mentor’s hand.
“I was just having trouble because I lost my rouge earlier, and my lips get so dry during the changing season. I’ll use it well.”
“I’m glad it was just what you needed.”
“So where did you end up working?”
The Viscountess asked while happily putting the unexpected gift into her bag.
“Well…”
“Judith, why are you dawdling? I told you to come up after unpacking.”
Before Judith could finish speaking, a man came down the stairs behind her.
Katya managed to catch the momentary tremor in the Viscountess’s pupils when their eyes met.
“Judith, who is this person?”
“Ah, this is Baron Lantskoĭ. You’ve probably heard of him as he’s famous in the art world. I’m currently working as his assistant.”
“I see… Pleased to meet you, Baron. I am Viscountess Borodin. Judith is a graduate of the school where I serve as principal.”
“Pleased to meet you.”
Baron Lantskoĭ, a renowned painter of Hersen, greeted her with a kiss on the back of her hand.
Seeing this, Katya and Nikolai’s eyes met.
They had both thought the same thing.
That these two were pretending to meet for the first time when they actually knew each other.
“Come to think of it, I heard some commotion earlier. Did something happen?”
“Oh right, in Room 404—!”
The Viscountess clutched her chest with a troubled expression like she had just remembered, turning toward where Room 404 was located.
Only then did she notice Katya and Nikolai standing in front of the room.
“About the evil spirit you mentioned appearing in our room—could you tell us more details? We’re here on our honeymoon, and it feels rather unsettling to just ignore such information.”
Katya asked while looking straight into the Viscountess’s eyes.
