🔊 TTS Settings
Chapter 51
As he was about to leave, the wound on the back of his neck caught her attention. Scarlett hesitated, then finally picked up the bread bag and handed it to him.
“And take this.”
Expecting that he would find it bothersome, Scarlett kept her eyes fixed on the floor as she continued.
“You need to eat well to recover. I heard you’ve been drinking liquor for breakfast these days. How does that make any sense?”
“Do you not remember that I was the one who sent you to the monastery?”
At his words, Scarlett stiffened for a moment before answering with a hardened face.
“How could I forget that.”
“Then why are you concerned about me recovering through proper meals?”
“It’s not concern… Just like you get bothered by me maintaining my dignity, I get bothered by you getting hurt and starving.”
“……”
“Everyone has different things that bother them. I’ll refuse the chaperone, so you take this.”
Victor stared quietly at Scarlett.
He couldn’t understand that side of her. He was convinced she must be hiding something. He just hadn’t yet discovered what.
He gazed silently into Scarlett’s clear eyes that left people’s thoughts in disarray, then accepted the bag and turned away. Out of habit, he immediately handed the bag off to Blight, as he always did with his burdens.
Scarlett stood watching him leave for a while, then belatedly remembered Victor’s coat left in the closet.
“Oh, the coat.”
Normally, he would always have someone to take his coat when he arrived, and of course, someone to bring it back out when he left.
No wonder he kept glancing at her before leaving—it must have been a signal for her to bring him his coat. If there were no servants, then the homeowner should have fetched it. Victor, rather than opening the closet of a house where a woman lived alone, would rather abandon the coat altogether.
Scarlett grabbed the coat and hurried outside, but he was already completely gone.
As she stood there sighing, her neighbor Liv happened to pass by, then stopped and asked,
“What’s with that coat?”
“Huh? Oh. My ex-husband left it behind.”
“What? Why did he come here?”
To say, he was drunk…
She wanted to say it and join in cursing him, but she couldn’t.
Instead, Scarlett shifted the topic with the coat in her arms.
“Why is this coat so heavy.”
“It does look heavy. It’s huge.”
“Yeah… Should I just throw it away?”
When she spoke seriously while looking down at it, Liv replied,
“It looks really nice. Why not sell it?”
“Would a coat this size sell?”
“Yeah… that might be difficult.”
Liv looked like she had plenty of questions but only nodded with a sly expression for now.
Scarlett looked at the coat again. It smelled of the forest. Her chest churned.
Startled by that sensation, she hurried back inside the shop and shoved the coat into the fireplace. Liv, who had followed her in, shouted in shock.
“Scarlett! What are you doing?!”
“My husband always smelled of the forest, and now the coat does too. I hate it.”
Scarlett defended herself firmly, but as she stared at the burning coat, a worried expression soon crept across her face.
“…He won’t ask me to pay him back, will he?”
Liv recoiled in horror.
“You’re asking that after burning it?!”
“I must’ve gone crazy for a moment… Just thinking about that man makes me so angry.”
She said this as she stared at the coat going up in flames.
She couldn’t be sure if it was truly anger that had made her burn the coat. Her resentment over him sending her to the monastery had faded somewhat after a year. Sometimes she even laughed with Victor, and absurdly, there were even moments when she felt her heart flutter.
Would he ever forgive her someday?
Scarlett wondered as she gazed into the fire.
Evil Crimson had not left the hospital for some time. Even if he could, he seemed unwilling, out of fear of Isaac.
Isaac planned to go to court after his eyes recovered further to prove that he no longer needed a guardian. Meanwhile, Scarlett placed an ad in the newspaper:
[Urgently seeking technicians who once worked at Crimson Factory No. 1. Please contact Scarlett Crimson’s clock shop on 7th Street.]
This was to find the technicians who had once been fired after pointing out that Evil Crimson’s clocks were wrong.
She intended to seek their advice and get help proving that Evil Crimson’s clocks were indeed faulty. But even after more than two weeks since the ad ran, no one had reached out.
Scarlett, in the meantime, returned to her daily life. Recently, she had spent most of the shop’s profits on paints. As a result, she had to skip meals for a while, but it was worth it. Seeing the variety of colors allowed her imagination to expand.
She took out a glass jar of rare paint, scooped some onto a palette with a spatula, then dipped her brush and tested strokes on paper before painting a clock.
As she worked diligently on her designs, she suddenly flipped to a new page in her sketchbook and began drawing a machine that came to mind using a spring mechanism.
Immersed in her sketching, Scarlett jumped in surprise at the sound of footsteps on the stairs and quickly shut her sketchbook.
From beyond the wooden-barred door of the workshop, Andrei said,
“I heard you shutting a sketchbook. You were slacking off, weren’t you?”
“…You’re practically a ghost.”
“It’s because the boss keeps slacking that I’ve become sensitive.”
“I was just taking a tiny break, just for a moment.”
Grumbling, Scarlett opened the door and handed him the sketchbook. Andrei flipped through it.
As he carefully studied which clock designs might sell well, Scarlett glanced at her paints and said,
“It’s strange. When I make clocks, I really miss my parents.”
“Strange? That’s perfectly normal.”
“When I was little, I tried so hard not to miss them.”
“Why?”
“Well…”
Scarlett thought for a while, then smiled serenely like an old woman.
“Back then, I was too old to wallow in loss.”
“You were twelve.”
“Exactly. Old enough to see reality clearly. There was no one to care for me and my blind brother. He was the heir, so they didn’t cast him out, but who knew when he might be harmed. So… I worked as a maid. Just to stay in that house rather than go to an orphanage.”
“You painted this clock with fine paints, didn’t you.”
Perhaps finding her personal talk bothersome, Andrei changed the subject. Scarlett smiled.
“Yeah. This one… I’ll make it in three years. Once the recall starts, I won’t be able to make my own clocks for a while.”
“The craftsmen that Evil Crimson fired will return. They can handle the recalled clocks.”
“They’ve already run three newspaper articles on it.”
Nodding slightly in agreement, Andrei looked at her sketch and said,
“That’s a shame. It’s very beautiful.”
Scarlett gave him a suspicious look.
“Why the sudden compliment? You’re just dangling a carrot so you can whip me to work faster, aren’t you?”
“You already know, so why ask? Hurry up and work.”
With a sharp face, Andrei clapped twice in front of her eyes, then unfolded the spring mechanism she had doodled and asked,
“Don’t waste time on stuff like this. What’s it for?”
“Oh, it’s a carousel.”
“A carousel?”
“Yeah. One that spins for a while without people pushing or a steam engine. You know, when people push it you feel guilty, and when it’s steam-powered there’s too much smoke. So…”
“That’s enough chit-chat. Carousel fans might be thrilled, but I’m not. For your information, I’m already fifteen minutes past quitting time. Don’t forget to write down my overtime pay.”
Scarlett laughed incredulously, then wrote down his overtime and said,
“There. Happy? Go home safely, and good work today.”
“Yes, boss.”
As always, Andrei gave a polite farewell and went back down to the first floor.
He quickly finished getting ready to leave. As usual, he locked up the place, even greeted Victor’s men standing guard outside the shop, then walked off at a leisurely pace.
But he soon sensed someone following him. Swiftly, he crossed the street and slipped into an alley. Victor’s men were tailing him.
Opening his bag, Andrei muttered,
“If he’s going to obsess like this, I don’t get why he even granted the divorce.”
He pulled out a hat and coat, put them on, then slipped into a stranger’s house through an open door in the alley and exited via a window, now walking casually.
Having shaken off Victor’s men, he headed straight for the nearby police station.
“Can I help you?”
A policeman asked, and Andrei pulled out his badge.
“Royal Police, Second Class. I need something looked up.”
“Y-yes, sir. What can we do for you?”
He pulled a list from his coat pocket and handed it over.
“Find these people and let me know.”
“Are they criminals?”
“That’s none of your concern. Just track them down. I’ll be back.”
Leaving those words behind, Andrei exited the station.
For an undercover agent to get involved in something like this was dangerous. Andrei had never imagined he’d take such risks while on an infiltration mission.
He found himself ridiculous, but didn’t bother justifying his actions. Spies who questioned their own motives at every step could never do their job. He simply immersed himself in his role.
