Chapter 90
Rose’s pupils trembled with unease. Rose was pretty, but terribly stupid, and she tended to believe and obey whatever Pig Dog said without question.
“The lord’s mistress, huh.”
On second thought, it didn’t sound like such a bad thing. The unease in Rose’s eyes instantly shifted and she began to sparkle with a different, hopeful light.
“Really? Then you won’t throw me away?” she asked.
Out of all the men she’d met, Rose thought Pig Dog was the best-looking; she assumed, because she liked him so much, every other woman must feel the same. She’d come worried that a young, pretty lord visiting here might fall for him.
“Of course not, Rose. There’s no woman who satisfies my nights the way you do. She’s just a green girl. This will be a purely formal marriage.”
“Of course. I’ll do whatever you tell me. I’m not like that green girl.”
Rose said that proudly and pushed her ample chest forward.
“You’re good like that. So Rose, from now on you won’t be my mistress — you’ll be my cousin. How about that? Can you do it?”
“Yeah. Of course. I can do it well. Besides, you and I look a lot alike.”
Rose nodded enthusiastically. With her thick blonde hair and bluish eyes, she resembled Pig Dog like a sibling. Because Pig Dog loved himself so much, he was attracted to Rose for looking like him.
“Now, change out of that dress into something modest that doesn’t show your chest.”
Pig Dog said as he stared at Rose’s full breasts. Her rounded, pale breasts were marked with red spots from the night he’d left on them. As if his appetite was whetted just by looking, Pig Dog buried his face in her breasts one last time and sucked hard again.
“Hmm… but I like this dress.”
The blonde with the pale skin looked especially good in red; she knew she looked most beautiful in a red dress. Wanting to appear pretty in front of the young lord, Rose whined reluctantly.
“Hush. Even if you dress like a nun, you’re far more beautiful than that youngster outside. So don’t worry, okay?” Pig Dog spoke while continually touching Rose’s pale skin.
Easily excited by small stimuli, Rose twisted her body and made a lascivious moan. Pig Dog, enjoying her reactions as if she were a well-trained dog, suddenly stood up.
“Now, go change quickly. Have the maid do your hair. I don’t have much time. Come out as modestly dressed as possible. Don’t wear any jewelry.”
“Yes. Okay.”
Rose answered with a bright, childlike smile. Her face, flushed red from brief caresses, looked like a blooming rose.
Donghee was speechless as she looked around Pig Dog’s reception room. None of the poverty and hunger she’d smelled on the way here lingered in this place.
From the carpets to the smallest ornaments, everything looked expensive. It was even more lavish than the reception room at Grace Castle; there were many costly items.
Having not yet heard the villager’s story, Donghee could already guess how Pig Dog ran his domain just from what she saw here.
She silently calculated how much she could get if she sold all the decorations, when Pig Dog hurried over, out of breath.
“I’m terribly sorry to keep you waiting. I didn’t expect My Lord to come, so it took a while to prepare the servants,” Pig Dog said bowing as he stood beside Donghee. As he approached, a strong scent of roses hit her — a perfume she hadn’t noticed earlier. He was the sort of man she liked even less for it. Donghee glanced at him and then pretended to admire the ornaments in the room.
“Many rare things,” she said in a flat tone as she looked at the row of sculptures on the wall.
“You recognize them, my lord. Speaking of those sculptures, they are absolutely unique in this world. I bought them ahead of time to gift to a woman I love,” Pig Dog said in a tender voice and stared intently at the lord. He looked at her as if to say, “That woman is you,” but the lord did not give him so much as a glance.
At first, the lord had been so startled that she hadn’t looked him squarely in the face, but now Donghee noticed he — the young lord — was actually quite handsome. If Rose was flashy and coarse, the Grace lord had an air of elegance and dignity.
“Yes. If he becomes Pig Dog’s wife, someone like this would suit him better. Rose is crude and ignorant; it would be shameful to show her off,” Donghee thought.
Rose had been the wife of a poor serf. When Pig Dog had gone to collect long-overdue taxes a few months ago, he’d taken her instead of taking the taxes.
She hadn’t refused when he brought her along — she had dumped her crying child with her husband and quickly followed him. That had been half a year ago.
“How much did you buy them for?” Donghee asked, not taking her eyes off the statues. The item that attracted her most was a life-sized female doll. Her long, waist-length blonde hair looked like real human hair had been implanted, and the doll’s face, with carefully made eyelashes, looked almost alive. It was eerily like Pig Dog himself.
“They are so beautiful. That sculpture is called Adrian.”
“Adrian?”
“Yes. The person who made that doll made it thinking of his dead daughter, and I liked it so I bought it.”
Pig Dog boasted as he showed off his collection.
As the lord stood looking at the doll for a long time, Pig Dog stepped over, took Adrian’s hand, and gently presented it to the lord.
It was a doll with articulated joints like a real person. Even the finger joints moved one by one. You could tell how much care the maker had put into it. It looked like a human-sized, articulated ball-jointed doll that would sell for a high price.
“If the maker made it thinking of his daughter, he would have hesitated to sell it,” Donghee said.
“He would have, yes.”
“So how did you come to own it?”
“Well, I used… certain methods. When I want something, I get it — that’s just how I am.”
Pig Dog smiled confidently, but Donghee ignored him.
“You treat these dolls better than your own people,” she said.
“Oh, you can’t compare Adrian to lowly folk. We nobles can’t be lumped together with the commoners,” Pig Dog said with pride.
“Oh?”
Encouraged by the lord’s apparent interest, Pig Dog grew bolder.
“As you saw on your way here, those people aren’t the sort to be reasoned with. They should be grateful I let them live on this land, but they complain endlessly.”
Pig Dog wore a smug expression and posed in front of the lord, convinced that no woman could resist his smile, his charm, his alluring lips.
The naïve young lord probably couldn’t help but tremble inside, Donghee imagined. But—
“You?”
Donghee, who had been quietly listening to Pig Dog, cut him off with a single question. Pig Dog’s grin froze — he realized he’d made a mistake and hastily tried to recover.
“It’s not me, my lord. It’s Your Lordship. Lady Grace allowed me to live on this land, after all.”
“Hey.”
“Yes?”
Pig Dog, still puffing himself up, blinked at Donghee’s abrupt interruption.
“Stop talking and bring me the tax ledgers for the past three years.”
“What?”
Pig Dog repeated as if he couldn’t understand. This was absolutely not the direction he wanted things to go. He couldn’t comprehend why Donghee was so indifferent even while looking at him.
But those who had grown used to watching Handsome and Taechang would have no trouble seeing through this bloated, useless man who looked like an old, dried piece of ghee. Donghee’s voice was cold.
“Bring the ledgers — the books recording tax receipts and expenditures. The books you use to record the taxes you collected from your people. The ledgers listing the taxes paid by Idor Village. I don’t like repeating myself, and you look like your earholes are stuffed with fat so you can’t hear. I’ll say it nicely one more time: stop blinking those insect eyes and hurry up and fetch the ledgers before I gouge those fish-eyes of yours.”
At Donghee’s fierce words, the Red Bear and the knights who had been standing near the Grace lord formed a human screen around her.
Pig Dog felt something was terribly wrong but didn’t know how to act. He goggled around with a look of injured innocence, but there was no one to take his side.
There were servants — big guys who usually acted as his guards — in the reception room, but even when Pig Dog glared at them as if to say “kill,” they only stared blankly.
“My lord, please listen to me a moment. Just speak to me —”
If Pig Dog could be alone with the lord, he was sure he could talk her around. But Donghee waved her hand as if shooing away an annoying fly.
“Red Bear.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Follow that man and make sure he brings the ledgers exactly as I said. Don’t let him hide or do any foolishness. If he dares say there are no ledgers, tear his mouth open right then and there.”
“Yes! Understood.”
“And return that doll to its original owner. He made it thinking of his daughter, you say.”
Donghee stared at the pristine sculpture and said.
“Yes, I’ll send people to track down the maker.”
“If you find him, bring him to our domain.”
“Eh? Ah! Yes, understood.”
Red Bear answered quickly and then turned Pig Dog around.
“Where are the ledgers kept?”
Even while using respectful language toward the noble, Red Bear’s tone was deadly.
Soon after, Pig Dog brought the ledgers, and Donghee’s expression as she inspected them became as terrifying as when she faced Curlen.
A chilling silence fell; all that could be heard was the nervous rustle of pages being flipped. The more pages she turned, the louder the sound seemed, and Pig Dog’s shoulders shrank with each turn. The swaggering image from before had completely vanished.
“You took a lot of taxes from villagers who barely survived the drought. With taxes they didn’t pay me, you bought these creepy things. Isn’t that so?” Donghee asked, and the already forced-to-his-knees Pig Dog shook his head quickly and denied it.
“Th-that’s not true. Most of these sculptures— I inherited them from my parents!”
“Parents? You mean the Pagayaro family that left you this estate?”
“Yes! My family—”
“Shut up! I don’t care. Seeing you, it’s clear you lived like a Pagayaro.”
“It’s not Pagayaro — it’s Pwagayaro!” Pig Dog retorted hotly, but Donghee snorted with contempt.
“Anyway, you pig-headed peasant-master.”
“……Yes?”
“You’re no longer a village head. You are a criminal who illegally exploited the people and embezzled taxes. Red Bear!”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Immediately lock that man in the underground prison and confiscate all his property. Open the granaries and give every last grain to the villagers — leave none behind.”
