Tia looked at her without averting her gaze.
“I already have someone I love,” she repeated.
“And we’ve loved each other for a long time. So, Miss Lina, I cannot accept your feelings.”
Lina sat there, not moving for a long time.
She just looked at Tia, at that excessively beautiful face, as if trying to find some trace of a lie in it.
But she found nothing.
“Who is it?” she asked.
Tia was silent for a moment.
“Mephia.”
Lina’s brow furrowed slightly.
“Who is she?”
“An Inquisitor.”
Lina’s brow furrowed deeper.
“Inquisitor?”
She repeated, her lips curling downward into a complex arc.
“Heh.”
At that moment, she seemed to have taken off her mask of grace and elegance, becoming acerbic and bitter.
Especially her gaze toward Tia began to show mockery and confusion.
…
She let out a cold laugh, then asked, “Miss Tia, do you know who I am?”
….
Tia nodded and replied calmly, “I do.”
She paused.
“But true love never looks at status or position, does it?”
So, she, the Marquis’s daughter, had lost to an Inquisitor?
Lina fell silent.
Then she suddenly smiled, that smile full of sarcasm.
“I don’t believe you.”
Tia looked at her without speaking, and Lina stood up, looking down at her, her tone full of threat and possessiveness:
“You say you love her? Fine, take me to meet her.”
“Miss Lina, this…”
“In front of me,” Lina interrupted her.
“In front of me, tell her you love her.”
“If she also says she loves you, then I’ll admit you’re telling the truth and not fabricating lies to avoid me.”
Tia silently gripped her skirt and asked, “And if it’s a lie?”
Lina smiled.
That smile held a hint of cruelty, along with desire and greed.
“Miss Tia,” the temperature of her words became more chilling, “you do know the consequences of deceiving a Marquis’s daughter, don’t you?”
She would have her, even if by any means necessary.
Tia didn’t think much about it.
If she wanted to prove to Lina that she and Mephia were in love, she couldn’t hesitate now.
So she immediately nodded and agreed.
Soon, Tia brought Lina to the Inquisition.
After some inquiries, they finally found Mephia sitting in the Meditation Room.
Mephia seemed to have just finished reviewing some documents.
She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, and her eyes glimmered with a cold luster in the light.
Tia raised her hand and waved gently.
“Mephia!”
Her voice echoed in the room.
Mephia looked up, and there was an elusive glint in her gaze, but soon she shifted her attention to the woman beside Tia.
As if thinking of something, she narrowed her eyes slightly.
“What’s wrong? Coming to see me at this hour?”
Tia took a deep breath.
She turned sideways, revealing Lina standing behind her.
“Let me introduce you. This is Miss Lina, the Marquis’s daughter from the Imperial Capital. And this is the one I told you about, my—”
She paused, looked at Mephia, and blinked lightly.
Once, twice, three times.
Then she smiled shyly and whispered, “My love, Mephia.”
After saying that, she was like a maiden in passionate love—not just her eyes, but her whole body became shy and coy, as if she had completely fallen into the river of love.
But Mephia looked at her with a completely calm face, as if she hadn’t received the secret signal at all.
Tia’s heart sank slightly.
Lina stepped forward and sized up Mephia.
Upon seeing her cool face, her eyes also flashed with a few traces of greed and admiration, but in comparison, she still preferred Tia.
After all, she liked the soft, sweet type of girl that could be controlled at a glance.
“So you’re Mephia?”
She took a step forward and probed.
“I heard from Tia that you two are in passionate love?”
Mephia finally shifted her gaze from Tia’s face to Lina.
Then, under Tia’s extremely tense gaze, she calmly nodded.
“Of course. Is something the matter?”
Tia let out a huge sigh of relief, and gratitude toward Mephia welled up in her heart.
But unfortunately, after speaking, Mephia took a step forward.
She reached out, gently wrapped her arm around Tia’s waist, and pulled her closer into her embrace.
Tia’s body stiffened in that instant.
That hand was very cold.
Through the thin fabric of her skirt, the temperature of Mephia’s fingertips came clearly.
She could feel that hand resting lightly on her side, not with much force, but with a strong sense of possession.
She knew that Mephia was doing this to solidify the false pretense that they were lovers, but even knowing that, her heart skipped a beat.
Lina’s gaze fell on that hand, and the corners of her mouth drooped slightly.
“Nothing. I just never heard that the Count’s daughter was in a passionate love, so I was a bit curious and came to confirm it.”
Mephia let out a light laugh and tightened her hand slightly on Tia’s waist.
“It’s normal that you haven’t heard. After all, Tia, as a Count’s daughter, values her personal reputation. Such private matters as passionate love naturally rarely get out.”
Tia stood beside her, her body stiff as a stone.
…
She could feel Mephia’s hand lightly caressing her waist, the temperature of that hand clearly transmitted through the fabric.
Then… that hand suddenly slid downward a bit.
Landing on her…
Tia’s breath caught at that moment.
That hand was gently resting on her soft buttocks.
The pressure was very light, almost just a faint touch, but that sensation was so clear and so real that her cheeks instantly became burning hot.
Her fingers tightened slightly.
Mephia…
She raised her head and looked at her.
In the end, she still saw that faint hint of amusement in her eyes.
Damn it! Mephia was taking advantage of her at a time like this!
Just as Tia was getting angry and preparing to find a way to counter Mephia, words that made her pretty face blush came from beside her ear again.
“It seems Miss Lina still doesn’t believe us. How about this, Tia.”
Her hand moved away from Tia’s soft buttocks, gently lifted, and landed on Tia’s cheek.
That hand was very cold, but the fingertips carried some kind of burning heat.
“Kiss me.”
Tia’s pupils contracted slightly.
She looked at Mephia, at those golden eyes so close, at that cool, fair, enchanting face…
Her heart pounded like a drum.
“…Okay.”
Even though Tia’s neck was already covered in a blush, and Mephia’s tone was full of amusement, under Lina’s piercing gaze, she still agreed.
She stood on tiptoe.
Her lips lightly touched Mephia’s cheek, a brief contact and then parted.
But that brief touch seemed to ignite something between them.
Tia returned to the ground, her cheeks so red they almost bled.
She lowered her head, not daring to look into Mephia’s eyes or at Lina’s expression.
In her heart, she was mentally punching Mephia.
Not only that, but whether it was an illusion or not, she felt that today’s Mephia was completely different from her usual self.
It was as if the harmless little white rabbit had shed its coat to reveal the true form of a big bad wolf.
Mephia, on the other hand, touched her own cheek, and the curve of her lips rose further.
After savoring the sweet kiss for a moment, she turned and looked at Lina.
“What do you think?”
Lina’s eyes were sharp.
She crossed her arms and let out a cold snort.
Her original suitor’s demeanor had undergone a three-hundred-sixty-degree change, becoming somewhat aggressive.
“Miss Tia, please excuse yourself for a moment.”
Tia looked at her with confusion, then looked at Mephia with a worried expression.
Mephia, in turn, patted her head and said calmly, “Don’t worry, it’s nothing.”
After hesitating for a moment, Tia finally turned and left the Meditation Room.
Now only Lina and Mephia remained in the room.
The sunlight slanted in through the window, but the temperature in the room strangely kept dropping.
When it nearly reached freezing point, Lina spoke arrogantly.
“Now that she’s gone, I’ll be blunt.”
“I want you to leave Tia.”
Mephia went back to the sofa and sat down.
Then she leisurely crossed her legs, and the amusement on her face grew even stronger.
“Oh? On what grounds?”
Lina took a step forward, getting closer to her.
“A mere Inquisitor is worthy of her? Watch your own life.”
As the Marquis’s daughter, she had such power.
In the Imperial Capital, although the Inquisition was the Emperor’s tool, they usually also showed respect to the nobles of the Imperial Capital.
As for Inquisitors like Mephia, her Marquis family had disposed of dozens, or at least over ten.
Justice? Kindness?
Hmph, in the Imperial Capital, such virtues were death warrants.
“Are you threatening me?”
Lina let out a snicker, her smile with a hint of smugness.
“Threatening? No, no, no. I’m just stating the facts.”
She leaned forward slightly, getting even closer to Mephia.
…
“As an Inquisitor, you should know best the consequences of offending a powerful noble’s daughter. I’m kindly reminding you because you’re quite good-looking.”
Slap—!
She reached out, intending to touch Mephia’s cheek as well, but in return, Mephia slapped her hand away.
Rubbing her hand, Lina wasn’t angry, only sneered repeatedly.
“Otherwise, don’t blame me for being rude.”
In her heart, she almost wished this woman would keep resisting her, so she could legitimately use her family’s power to make this Inquisitor ‘disappear’ in an accident.
To be able to get two beauties at once, she felt coming to Hela City was really the right choice!
Mephia, on the other hand, propped her chin on her hand, still maintaining that mysterious smile.
“Are you sure?”
Those three words interrupted Lina’s fantasy of a beautiful future.
She looked at Mephia, and an inexplicable chill surged in her heart, as if everything she was doing now could bring devastating destruction to herself and even her entire family.
But how could that be?
The person before her was just an ordinary Inquisitor.
Even if she had some power in the Imperial Capital, so what?
Why would a truly powerful and influential Inquisitor come to Hela City?
She was clearly exiled here!
This means there’s no faction supporting her!
But just as she was consoling herself like this, one sentence from Mephia froze her in place, and the smile on her face instantly disappeared.
“As far as I know, the Claude Marquis family is not as clean as they appear on the surface.”
“What did you say?”
“Do you really want me to say it? Not only do you secretly engage in slave trade that violates Imperial law, but you also have dealings with certain underground organizations. Besides that, there are countless other illegal activities…”
Mephia let out a sigh and said, “Are you sure you want to threaten me?”
Lina’s face turned as pale as paper in that instant.
….
“You, you, you…”
She opened her mouth to retort, but found she couldn’t say anything.
The Claude family’s slave trade was only known to a few within the family.
So how did this Inquisitor know about it?
Could there be a mole in the family?
And what about the dealings with underground organizations?
Was it a frame-up?
If it was true, how come even she didn’t know?
The more she thought about it, the more Lina lost the courage to meet Mephia’s eyes.
At this moment, she suddenly realized she had made a fatal mistake.
She had underestimated this person.
Completely underestimated her.
But she was, after all, Lina Claude.
She took a deep breath, forcibly suppressed the fear in her heart, and rekindled that lazy smile on her face.
But that smile now looked a bit forced.
“Heh, an Inquisitor dares to stretch your hand so far…”
As she spoke, she stood up from the sofa and walked all the way to the door of the Meditation Room.
Before leaving, with a hint of determination and madness, she said in a low voice, “Just wait. Not only will I ruin your reputation…”
“I’ll also take Tia away from you!”
After that, she didn’t say another word.
She turned around and disappeared from the Inquisition, but her departing figure no longer had the calmness and elegance of when she arrived.
After she left, Tia walked into the Meditation Room, her face radiating a happy, sweet smile.
“Thank you, Mephia.”
She expressed her thanks, one hand on her chest, and her expression held not only gratitude but also a kind of relief of surviving a disaster.
“If it weren’t for you, I wouldn’t know how to face her.”
Mephia turned around and walked toward her.
Then, just like Lina had done to Tia in the garden, Mephia cornered her against the wall, one hand bracing against the wall beside her.
Lowering her head, she said softly:
“Don’t thank me, Tia, because this matter is far from resolved.”
As she spoke, she looked out the window at the scenery tinged with yellow.
“That young lady will come back.”
Tia fell silent.
Of course she knew.
Lina Claude was not the type to give up easily.
Today’s setback would only make her more persistent and more insane.
But she still smiled lightly, a smile like a blooming white flower.
“I know, but to get through this once is enough.”
“… Is that so?”
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