“What are you talking about?”

He seemed genuinely confused, as if he truly didn’t understand. Frustrated, Hailla furrowed her brows and raised her voice.

“Anyone can see you’re the one losing out! You just said it yourself: nobles are extremely calculating. Nobles? No — everyone’s like that! Everyone sees it, even I see it! I’m nowhere near good enough to enter a ducal household.”

“……”

“You say my sister can only receive treatment if I marry you, and yet you’re still…

Her voice cracked slightly. Hailla trailed off and collapsed back onto the bed.

She still resented Lian. But even so, in moments like this, it was unbearably difficult. Seeing this high-status man so devotedly in love with her made her waver.

Lian made it impossible for her to doubt his feelings. And that was what tormented her.

She wanted to resent him for loving her so much. She wanted to lash out and ask why he never pointed out how pathetic she was and made her feel ashamed, instead making her feel even more miserable with his kindness. If only he had looked down on her, she wouldn’t be trapped in this whirl of conflicting emotions.

“No.”

“…”

“Hailla, look at me.”

“Ugh… No, let go! Let me go!”

Lian crouched down and looked up at Hailla, who was sitting on the bed. As she tried to lower her head, he cupped her cheeks and gently lifted her face up.

“If I lose you, I’ll lose my mind and die.”

“Sniff… hhk…”

“You’re not lacking anything. To me, you’ve always been more than enough…”

Lian couldn’t go on. He simply embraced her. His arms were warm. Hailla couldn’t think about wiping her tears, which were flowing endlessly, so she simply buried her face in his chest.

Her chest ached with emotion. Paradoxically, she felt a little happy.

“Do whatever you want, Hailla.”

His voice whispered in her ear, sounding distant, like the murmur of a benevolent god.

Rethe woke up three days later. After being fed medicine steadily by the doctor from the Blue House, her complexion gradually returned, and when she regained consciousness, she was well enough to drink water immediately.

Usually, she would have vomited it all up and swatted her sister’s hand away irritably, but this time she calmly allowed Hailla to care for her. The change was striking.

“How are you feeling?”

Hailla’s eyes were clear and anxious, reflecting all her worry. Rethe noticed this and moved slightly to indicate that she wanted a cushion behind her back so that she could sit up. Hailla, accustomed to caring for her, quickly supported her sister’s upper body with practised ease.

“It’s manageable.”

“Okay.”

“There’s no need to tread so carefully. There’s nothing ahead but bad stuff anyway.”

“Sis…”

“I’m not afraid to die.”

“…”

“Everyone dies eventually.”

As Rethe spoke in a resigned tone, Hailla’s face gradually turned pale.

“Don’t leave me.”

“As if that were more frightening than death itself.”

Rethe trailed off in a whisper and fell silent. Something surged within Hailla, making her want to scream. However, one look at her sister’s appearance stopped her. Her face was pale with illness. Her lips were cracked and colourless, and her cheeks were drained of life. The darkness under her eyes sagged heavily, a testament to her long affliction.

Hailla felt the familiar sting of tears rising again. She was tired of it all — tired of crying and of how it always came unbidden.

“I won’t leave you.”

Rethe had always despised her sister’s tears. She often said that she couldn’t stand Hailla’s fragile nature. So Hailla looked her straight in the eye, forced strength into her voice, and declared clearly.

“I’ll never leave you.”

“Really?”

Rethe asked, hinting at something more, as if granting one final chance. Her tone was solemn and sad. Hailla nodded sharply and clung to her sister. Rethe’s body sank further into the pillow.

“I said I love you the most. I mean it; I really do.”

“…”

“Don’t die. So please, don’t die.”

“Okay.”

Hailla’s eyes widened. She had never heard a response like that before. Rethe had always scoffed whenever she wished her well or begged her not to die.

“As long as you don’t leave me…”

“…”

“I won’t die. I’ll live.”

She even gave a faint smile. Overwhelmed, Hailla burst into tears in her sister’s arms.

“Yeah… thank you… thank you, sis…”

“I’ll definitely save you,” she silently vowed, clenching her fist. Her face, flushed with hope and happiness, looked as if Heaven had granted her one last chance.

But that couldn’t be true.

Nevertheless, that day, Hailla went to Lian and told him that she would accept his proposal. The two of them held each other for a long time, silently sharing their warmth.

The medical system of the Talon Empire was grotesquely distorted. Those at the top of the hierarchy knew how to exploit it better than anyone; those at the bottom were too busy trying to survive to pay attention to the national structure or injustice.

Moreover, Talon was a land where the existence of ‘God‘ was taken as a fact. Wasn’t the towering Senir Temple, standing firm on that rigid, unbending land, proof enough of that? The common people accepted the temple’s words as divine law without question and simply endured their illnesses as divine punishment.

According to the temple’s doctrine, unless you paid your dues and contributed to its growth, you wouldn’t even be given the chance to have that punishment lifted.

Consequently, no one objected to the temple controlling all medicine and medical practices. So it was hardly surprising that only nobles, royalty, and high-ranking clergy had access to treatments for rare or incurable diseases – commoners and slaves could never have afforded the enormous costs.

The real problem lay in the dissatisfaction among imperial citizens, who, despite their great wealth, were still bound by the limits of their birth.

It is often the suffering of the privileged that drives change in the world. When illness threatened their own lives, they could rise up in revolt. That’s the power money gave them.

And so, what was created was—

The Blue House.

This unofficial medical facility was quietly managed by the temple. The temple kept the ‘low-born rich’ quiet through backdoor deals and reaped enormous profits.

Meanwhile, the nobles and royals sipped sweet wine and watched the patients being secretly treated from the shadows, feeling superior. Having endured constant reminders of their lowly birth, the commoners simply wanted to return to their former lives once they had recovered, with no desire to challenge the system.

This was how the empire ‘managed’ its people.

“You’d already arranged the backdoor deal from the beginning, hadn’t you?”

“You really are smart.”

Lian stood beside Rethe’s bed and tossed her a compliment like a favour as he looked down at her frail frame.

“I figured from the start that you wouldn’t be obedient.”

Of course, he laced his words with sarcasm. Rethe, lying in bed, simply cast a brief glance towards the window. Once she had confirmed that Hailla had turned and was heading back down to the village, she slowly turned her head back towards him.

“You disgusting bastard.”

It had been a long time since Rethe had shown her disgust so openly when they were alone. But Lian, in a good mood, let the insult slide and sat down in the chair beside her bed.

He lightly tossed the round cloth bag he had been holding onto the floor. With his arms resting on his thighs and his torso slightly hunched, Lian gave off a somewhat dangerous air, but Rethe showed no sign of flinching.

“If you’d just done what I said, none of this would’ve happened.”

The way his hand grabbed her cheek was rough. Their eyes clashed in mid-air, sharp and unrelenting. He was referring to the time she had secretly consumed the entire vial of red poison he had given her before.

“You should have taken it in moderation. Did you think I’d keep watching the two of you laughing it up like that forever?”

He was the kind of man who clung to her every night, eventually making her cry. Despite her begging him to, he never actually penetrated her, but he took his time — loudly enough for Rethe, who was awake, to hear. For Lian, it was an animalistic display of dominance. It was also how he vented his resentment towards Hailla, who could only think of her sister

“Ah, right.”

He removed his hand from Rethe’s face and raised both hands in a casual gesture.

“I’ll admit — you sped things up for me.”

“Good, then…”

“You’ll be going to the temple soon.”

His words drew a long silence between them.

“I’ll give you the treatment, the wealth — whatever I promised, I’ll provide.”

“…”

“As long as you keep your end of the deal.”

“You’re never to see Hailla again. It’ll be better for both of you if you disappear from her life.”

“Both?”

Rethe scoffed inwardly. Lian quickly picked up on the silent ridicule.

“You were the one who made the offer.”

“I know.”

He was right. It had been Rethe who had offered to deceive Hailla and hand her over to him. In return, she had demanded enough money to live in luxury for the rest of her life, as well as medical treatment. Having been a young, beautiful courtesan in a brothel, Rethe had encountered more than her fair share of nobles and their pretensions.

So it was only natural that she recognised Lian’s noble origins the moment they met. She lured him in by saying that he ‘smelled like nobility’ and inviting him to take her hand. Lian gladly accepted the proposal of the greedy, sister-loathing Rethe.

“I don’t care where or how she gets used. Even if she dies by your hand — no, actually, if she does die, that would be better. It’d feel refreshing.”

Lian’s brow twitched, but, as always, Rethe didn’t hesitate to speak her mind.

“So don’t drag your feet. Move things along. I’m not as patient as you think.”

“Thirty days.”

“…”

“Everything will be settled within thirty days. Including your relationship with Hailla.”

He didn’t say the rest aloud, but Rethe easily picked up on the unspoken words – she was sharp enough to know what he meant.

“Then I want to hear it now.”

“……”

“The reason you’re going to such lengths? Why go to such lengths for Hailla when you could have simply killed or locked her away and taken her by force?”