C47 —- [2.10 —- The Rose Manor]

In the early morning, a round sun hung in the hazy sky, with a dim color. The endless mountains on the vast plain were wrapped in a heavy mist. Looking from the manor, it seemed like the sky was the same as the mountains, overturning in darkness and becoming more oppressive.

 

At this moment, it was morning, and the servants in the estate were all dressed in dusty uniforms, looking listless. Taking advantage of the free time before the old count woke up in the morning, they gathered together to discuss the recent strange events in the estate.

 

 

“Last night it seems that someone went to play that psychic ritual again, so it works?”

 

 

“Whether it works or not I don’t know, but it seems like it’s easy to get into trouble! Those three people were sent to the hospital, but these days they don’t good ……”

 

“Don’t be paranoid, it isn’t so easy to have an accident, I heard that the three people were just weak, they probably played too much hahaha!”

 

 

The workers were making eyes at each other, as if it meant something, and all covered their mouths and laughed in a flamboyant manner.

 

 

The butler who passed by coughed and reminded the servants to hurry up and start working, the servants were afraid that the butler would complain to the old count, so they walked away, either cleaning up or going to prepare the meal.

 

 

Looking at the scattered people, the butler’s face under the mask became a little better, but remembering the psychic ceremony those people talked about just now, he couldn’t help but take a handkerchief to wipe the cold sweat on his forehead.

 

Although outsiders couldn’t see the recent abnormality in the manor, and only thought it was just a seance ceremony, but to the butler things were far from that simple.

 

 

In the butler’s eyes, this manor had become more and more terrifying, and the root cause of all this terror was the old count who had instructed him to spread the psychic ritual.

 

 

Although the butler didn’t know exactly what this psychic ritual was for, he felt that something that could make the old count specifically mention it wasn’t a good thing.

 

 

However, due to the fact that he was filled with fear of this ruthless master, the butler didn’t think too much about it, and in the days that followed, he spread the psychic ceremony according to the old Count’s orders, and also described it as a hundred times tested psychic ceremony to attract the candidates.

 

 

Sure enough, the only seven or eight candidates left in the manor were all interested in this psychic ritual, not only did they collect materials, they also drew spell formations in the middle of the night, just like the three candidates who were sent to the hospital before, they were fascinated by this mysterious and unpredictable thing.

 

 

And they seemed to have ended up a little better than those three, and were not hospitalized.

 

 

But the housekeeper had noticed that they had become peaceful, incredibly peaceful, for over a week after the ceremony.

 

 

It should be known that before, even at the risk of being discovered by the old count, these candidates had to organize some indulgent parties, as if a day of not doing so would kill them, but now it was more than a week of staying quietly in the room.

 

 

They were like different people.

 

 

The butler once went to see one of the candidates out of curiosity.

 

 

He found that there was no major change in his appearance, but his demeanor had become very strange.

 

 

As if he had fallen into some kind of exuberance, there was always with a smile on his face, but his face was white and bloodless, as if he had had his brains sucked out by the devil, he no longer had his vitality.

 

The butler only felt hairy in his heart at that time, and his sharp intuition made him not dare to go deeper into the matter, only wanting to live out his days in peace.

 

 

But there were some things that couldn’t be avoided just by trying to avoid them.

 

 

After those candidates’ accidents, the butler, who was the old count’s personal butler, gradually realized that there was something strange about his master.

For example, every night, the old count would drive all the servants out of his floor, and gave a strange order that all of them were not allowed to come up until dawn.

 

 

According to the servants who were driven away, occasionally someone would get up in the middle of the night and hear a rustling sound coming from the old count’s floor, as if someone was tearing up cloth or paper, which was weird to the extreme.

 

 

And every morning, the servants who cleaned up the room would inadvertently find some broken pieces of miserable white from the cracks of the carpet, which was said to be a bit like some kind of animal’s skin.

 

 

But these servants all thought that a small animal had broken into the room, so they didn’t take it too seriously, only the butler became pale all of a sudden.

 

 

It was because when he was delivering official documents to the old count one day that needed to be dealt with, he inadvertently looked up and realized that some pieces of skin similar to that thing had fallen off the old Count’s cheeks.

 

And the old count didn’t seem to feel the slightest pain until he reminded him to wipe away those traces on his face.

 

 

The butler who witnessed this scene began to involuntarily pay attention to the old count’s face, realizing that his skin under the mask seemed to be much smoother than before, without those old and bizarre lines, and even vaguely had a bit of the outline of his youth.

 

 

It was almost as if he had been rejuvenated.

 

 

Associated with those candidates’ abnormalities, the butler really couldn’t help his own thoughts, he became more and more cautious, careful to the point of being a little nervous.

 

 

The old count also seemed to notice the changes in himself.

 

 

In order to hide these abnormalities, he changed to a mask that could cover his entire face, even his gloves were changed into long gloves that could hide his skin even more, not revealing a single bit of his skin, and his entire person seemed to be hidden, appearing more and more eerie and horrible.

 

 

The butler didn’t know if it was his illusion, but he felt that as the old count’s body became more and more strange, the aura around him also became more and more strange, as if he was gradually turning into a ghastly existence that was very different from human beings.

 

 

Recently, it was even more intense.

 

 

The butler would feel mentally tense to the extreme just by standing beside the old count, and from time to time he would also produce symptoms of tinnitus and hallucinations, making him more and more tired and his mental state got worse.

 

 

Sometimes the butler would even have a hallucination, in which the old count beside him was no longer a human form at all, but some sort of bloated, slippery, grotesque and ghastly shape.

 

 

The cold sweat on the butler’s face broke out even more at the thought, and he tried to console himself that he was probably overthinking it, but his face grew paler and paler, and all he could do was to wipe away the sweat stains with a handkerchief held in a trembling hand.

 

 

His dim gaze caught sight of the garden around him, where the gardener was repairing the branches of the roses.

 

 

For some reason, the old count had recently started cultivating roses, and in just a few short days, the manor was filled with flowering roses.

 

 

The bright red flowers were competing to bloom, red as if the roses’ buried roots were full of human corpses, and the dark fragrance filled the air.

 

 

The butler, who had worked in the manor for ten years, knew that the old count actually disliked roses, and to be exact, disliked anything that the last count and his wife liked.

 

 

The manor, formerly known as the Rose Manor, was taken over by the old count after the death of the last count and his wife.

 

 

For some reason, he hadn’t hesitated to throw away many of the things his parents had left behind, including the roses that they favored the most, he sacked the gardener, and allowed the roses in the garden to wither.

 

 

And now, the rose manor seemed to have returned to the way it was years ago.

 

 

The butler could actually guess why.

It was because of the candidate named Angus.

 

 

That beautiful, almost demonic young man has recently gotten very close to the old count.

 

 

The cold and gloomy old count seemed to have finally moved on, and was so enamored with that beautiful young lover that he was ready to cut his heart out for his sweetheart.

 

 

These roses were a case in point.

 

 

It was said that Angus loved roses, so the old count easily gave up the loathing that had persisted for several years and replanted the estate with roses.

 

 

Not to mention that once in a while, while passing by, the butler had seen the old count spending time with his young lover.

 

 

The pale but tall man stood with the slender and beautiful youth, whose smile on his snow-white cheeks seemed to compel the heart.
 

And the old count standing beside him changed from his usual apathetic gloominess, as if he was completely mesmerized by the young lover in front of him.

 

 

The infatuation could be seen even with the mask on, allowing his young and arrogant lover to make him carry heavy books at will.
 

The undisguised tenderness and love was undoubtedly unbelievable to the butler.

 

 

It wasn’t at all like the same person as the old count he remembered who was so gloomy and vicious that it was as if he didn’t have an ounce of humanity, and could even leave his parents behind.

 

 

“……”

 

 

The butler’s cold sweat was getting bigger and bigger as he couldn’t help but connect Angus with the old Count’s recent strange behavior.

 

 

In fact, when he was betrayed by Miss Julie and Young Master Reid before, the old count had also become gloomy for a while, caring so much about his appearance that he didn’t even allow others to look up at him.

 

 

But it wasn’t to the point of near insanity like now.

 

 

It seemed that ever since Angus entered the manor, this beautiful young lover had made the old count become less and less like his former self.

 

 

The butler’s intuition made him understand.

 

 

This master of his, who had already been dazzled by beauty, in order to be able to stay with his young lover for a long time, had perhaps fallen into some kind of crazy obsession that he could not extricate himself from, so that he had become the eerie and horrible appearance of today.

 

 

He didn’t know if that beautiful to the extreme youth noticed the strange things on the old Count’s body, if noticed, would he even care?
 

The butler thought of this, suddenly a coldness came over his body, he looked at the garden full of roses, recalling the old Count’s recent horrible to the extreme appearance.

 

 

If the young lover who made him mesmerized left him because of this, now this old count who had become more terrible would become even more horrible ……

 

 

The butler, suddenly a little afraid to think about it, left the garden with a staggering gait.

 

 

In the library, Jiu Shu nestled in the wide sofa, put away the books in his hands, looked toward the rose garden outside the floor-to-ceiling window, the bright red color was passionate like fire, obviously it had only been transplanted a few days but it already bloomed and was flourishing.

 

 

Jiu Shu’s beautiful blue eyes looked at the roses for a while before hearing a commotion from behind him.

 

 

It was the object of punishment coming.

 

 

Jiu Shu sighed silently as he looked up at the object of discipline not far away who had wrapped himself up tightly without revealing a single crack, and the old Count’s slightly flustered eyes were reflected in his azure pupils.

 

 

However, he didn’t say anything, just hooked up his soft lips as usual, revealing a gentle smile, “Give me a hug.”

 

 

The panic in the old Count’s eyes stalled for a moment, and then his eyes softened as he embraced the wine sparing on the sofa.

 

 

His young lover’s limbs were soft, the feeling of being in his arms was like holding a soft cloud, warm to the extreme, he couldn’t help rubbing gently against his lover’s neck.

 

“Haha, it tickles!”

 

Jiu Shu laughed out loud as he hooked the neck of the object of punishment and brought him to the sofa as well, then sat in the old Count’s wide and sturdy embrace and read the book carefully.

 

 

The old count carefully embraced Jiu Shu as much as possible, so that he could comfortably lean on his shoulder and read the book, and the dark pupils of his eyes under his mask looked at the love of his life in his arms with a gaze that was as gentle as water, and he couldn’t suppress the arc of the corners of his mouth that were rising.

 

 

For the old count, every time he was alone with his beloved lover was so blissful that it overwhelmed him.
 

He wanted to kiss his young and beautiful lover, enamored with the gentleness that his lover always carried.

 

 

But at the moment, his face was wearing a mask that completely covered even the lower half of his face, so he could only gently rub against the tips of Jiu Shu’s hair in a somewhat unsatisfied manner.

 

 

Jiu Shu’s soft golden hair reflected its luster under the light, beautiful like a platinum ribbon that was irresistible.

 

The old count reveled in the intimacy with his young lover until the lover in his arms suddenly spoke out, “You’re always wearing this mask lately.”

 

 

Sitting in the arms of the object of discipline, Jiu Shu raised his eyes and smiled at him.

 

 

The careless words seemed to be spoken casually.

 

 

The old count, however, immediately froze, and he was silent for a long time before explaining that he didn’t want to let Jiu Shu see his ugly appearance.

 

 

“……”

 

 

Looking at the subject of discipline who still refused to tell the truth, Jiu Shu seemed somewhat helpless, he knew that even if he immediately exposed the subject of discipline’s lies now it would no longer help, it would only make him even more inferior and depressed.

 

 

“No matter what you become, I will love you as much as ever.”

 

 

Jiu Shu pressed his forehead against the old Count’s mask and met him at eye level, his voice as warm as the warm sun on a cold winter’s day.

 

 

Never mind, it’s fine even if you don’t want to say it.

 

 

Perhaps the only way to untie this knot was for him to become younger, and as for the possible side effects afterward, he had already worked out some clues so far, and would find a way to solve it.
 

“Whatever it looks like.” Jiu Shu repeated, hoping that the object of discipline would truly understand the words.

 

 

The old Count’s looked into his lover’s blue eyes that brimmed in the light and seemed to freeze, a slight amount of moisture seeming to flash through his dark pupils.

 

 

He hugged him tightly, the love in his eyes almost overflowing, so strong that it had reached an almost morbid level.

 

 

To the old count, this pure affection from his young lover flattered him.

 

 

He knew that Jiu Shu didn’t care about his old age, and that the affection he gave him was flawless, but the more perfect this love became, the more the old count would feel unworthy of it.
 

The good thing was that it didn’t matter now.

 

 

Just a few more days, just a few more days and he would be back to his original self, and then he could be with his beloved young man forever without a care in the world.
 

 

The old count hugged his lover, not wanting to part for a moment, his gentle gaze full of hope for the future.

It was night, and pitch black covered the sky. A heavy wind blew up, as if a heavy rain was about to fall.

 

 

The lights around the manor quickly went out and fell into silence, except for the slightly dim lights in the old count’s room.

 

 

—

 

 

A sound like tearing cloth rang out, and it seemed that there was someone sitting in front of the mirror, who was looking closely at his own face.

 

 

In the blurred mirror, the incompletely peeled skin obstructed the line of sight for scrutiny, and a large pale hand seemed to pull off this skin with a slightly impatient force until the whole face was revealed.

 

Rumble– Lightning flashed and thundered outside the window, and the pouring rain finally poured down, knocking on the glass windows of the room.

 

 

The old count looked at himself in the mirror, the fine lines and signs of old age and flabbiness that had once overwhelmed him disappeared from his pale face.

 

 

The deep, gloomy brows of his youth reappeared in the mirror.

 

 

The old Count’s pupils slowly dilated, as if he wanted to let out a laugh, but the etiquette belonging to the nobility still allowed him to gradually calm down, and his pale and slender fingers covered his agitated face as he looked at himself in the mirror again.

 

 

The man in the mirror had deep brows, and his young skin no longer had any dull fine lines, the way he looked when he was in his youngest and most handsome stage, twenty years old.

 

 

The old count looked long and hard at the face, which was similar in age to Jiu Shu, and slowly hooked the corners of his mouth into a smile full of sickly love.

 

 

Now he could be with his beloved Jiu Shu forever.
 

In the dimly lit room, the pale man still seemed to laugh out lowly, laughter filled with pure joy, intoxicated in the beautiful fantasy of the future, he was lost in his fantasy.

 

 

Therefore, he didn’t notice that under the light of the thunder outside the window, his shadow reflected on the wall seemed to gradually distort, revealing some kind of strange and horrible shape.

 

 

The corners of the room at some point grew mold spots, like it was caused by the heavy rain, but also like some kind of constantly growing and spreading moss, it seemed both slippery and sticky.
 

---

TN:

See ya Thursday ✌️