The next morning.
Ailiya, wearing her signature spotless black-and-white maid outfit, wielded a special long-handled dusting broom as she methodically cleaned the crystal chandeliers hanging high in the main hall of the first floor.
[Gained Life Experience Points: Maid +5]
Listening to the extremely regular system notification in her mind, Ailiya’s mood was calm.
However, that calm was soon shattered by a noisy, tactless figure.
“Ahem!”
Leo had specially changed into a flashy wine-red silk shirt today, his collar slightly open, his blonde hair slicked back with gel.
He paced back and forth in the hall with steps he thought were mature and charming, occasionally stealing glances at the working Ailiya from the corner of his eye.
When he “casually” passed by the ladder Ailiya had set up for the third time and flipped his bangs in an exaggerated manner, Ailiya finally stopped what she was doing.
Standing on the ladder, she looked down at the blonde underneath, who was desperately seeking attention like a peacock displaying its tail.
“Young Master, may I ask what exactly you want?”
Exposed in front of everyone, Leo’s face reddened, but he was clearly prepared today. He cleared his throat, looked up with a somewhat wandering gaze, and tried to speak in a buddy-buddy tone.
“Um… Ailiya, you know we’re kind of friends now, right?”
“So?”
Ailiya continued dusting with the duster.
“So… can you teach me some of those cool, one-hit knockout fighting techniques?”
Leo rubbed his hands together, finally revealing his true purpose.
Ailiya looked down from the ladder, her gaze like that of someone looking at a hopeless fool.
“Young Master, my fighting techniques are for combat. Teaching them to you for showing off will only increase the probability of you getting beaten to death after causing trouble outside.”
With that, Ailiya turned around completely, selectively blocking out Leo’s noise, and continued focusing on her cleaning.
Completely ignored, Leo was not discouraged. Like a persistent sticky plaster, he began trying different ways to cozy up.
***
Half an hour later, Ailiya was wiping the vases in the corridor. Leo approached with a glass of iced freshly squeezed juice, his face full of flattery.
“Ailiya, you must be tired from work, right? Here, have some juice to quench your thirst. I squeezed it myself.”
Ailiya didn’t even lift her eyelids.
“Not drinking.”
Another half hour later, Ailiya was pruning the precious rose branches. Leo, having produced a delicate little fan from somewhere, followed behind her, fanning her.
“Ailiya, the sun is a bit strong today. Let me block it for you. Is the fanning force suitable?”
“Young Master, if you really have energy to burn, I suggest you go help clean the horse manure in the stable. That would be an excellent test of your patience.”
Flattery was completely useless on this cold-blooded maid. After repeated setbacks, Leo finally realized that this low-level ingratiation was ineffective. He rubbed his chin, thought for a moment, his eyes lit up, and he turned and ran off to the estate’s kitchen.
About an hour later, Ailiya had finished pruning the flowers and was resting on a long stone bench in the garden.
“Ailiya! Look what I brought for you!”
Leo rushed over excitedly, carefully holding an extremely exquisite white porcelain tray.
On the tray was a stack of multi-layered cream mousse cake, exuding a rich milky aroma and the fragrance of various flower petals. The cake’s appearance was extremely elegant, clearly the work of the estate’s head chef, Carter.
Ailiya glanced at the delicate cake but still maintained her expressionless coldness.
“Not eating.”
“Hey!”
Leo panicked, directly shoving the tray under Ailiya’s nose, the fragrance wafting straight into her nostrils.
“This is the floral mousse cake that Chef Carter put a lot of effort into making specially! Ailiya, even if you’re mad at me, can you bear to see such a top-tier cake made by Chef Carter’s hard work be coldly ignored and eventually thrown into the slop bucket?”
Leo tried to guilt-trip her. Ailiya folded her hands in front of her, her ice-blue eyes piercing through the cake, looking sharply into Leo’s eyes.
“If such an exquisite cake was born for some boring and persistent purpose of yours, then it had no reason to exist from the start.”
Leo choked, his face reddening, knowing his little scheme was seen through again.
“Ah… forget it, forget it.”
He placed the tray on the stone table beside Ailiya in defeat.
“I’m just treating you to eat it, no strings attached. Consider it a small thank you for agreeing to accompany me to the royal capital in the pavilion yesterday. Eat as you like. I won’t bother you.”
With that, Leo unusually didn’t continue to pester. Instead, he stepped back two paces, put his hands in his pockets, and pretended to be “just passing by.”
Ailiya looked at the fragrant cake on the table, then at Leo standing nearby, putting on an act. She extended her gloved hand, picked up the silver spoon beside her, elegantly scooped a small piece, and put it in her mouth.
The rich milk fragrance mixed with the fresh floral scent exploded on her taste buds. Sweet but not cloying, it was truly a rare delicacy.
“Spit it out.”
Ailiya spoke casually while savoring the cake slowly.
“Out of the blue like this, what exactly do you want?”
Seeing her finally eat, Leo’s eyes lit up instantly, like a puppy that smelled a meat bone. He immediately dropped the act and leaned in.
“I want you to teach me! Teach me that kind of one-hit kill, life-saving hand-to-hand combat that doesn’t require much magic power!”
Leo’s eyes were extremely fervent.
“No.”
Ailiya refused decisively without a second thought. She didn’t want to waste time on a half-baked mage.
“Why not!”
Leo scratched his head anxiously. Without a half-second of hesitation, Ailiya explained bluntly.
“Because you’re too weak, too poor in constitution, and too slow in reactions.”
Leo didn’t give up. His eyes darted around rapidly as he began to offer his own ideas.
“Think it over. Don’t you still have a whole bag of blue fluorspar from the ore mine that you haven’t dealt with? I can help you process those useless stones for free!”
“Not needed.”
Ailiya elegantly crossed her legs, the black maid dress swaying along her slender calves, revealing a small section of her ankle wrapped in pure white stockings. She scooped another spoonful of cake and put it in her mouth.
“I’ll handle it when I have time. You, Young Master, should save your energy for practicing the water bullet spell.”
Seeing Ailiya sitting there, enjoying the top-tier cake he had brought while ruthlessly rejecting his request, Leo was so angry his teeth itched. He couldn’t help but sneer sarcastically.
“Hmph, you have no qualms about eating my cake while rejecting me so comfortably!”
Ailiya’s movements paused slightly. She tilted her head, a hint of amusement flashing in her ice-blue eyes.
“Didn’t someone say this was a thank-you gift just to express gratitude, and that I should eat as I please?”
Ailiya naturally popped a cream-covered strawberry into her mouth, her tone flat and matter-of-fact.
“Since it’s a free gift, I’ll follow his wishes and enjoy it with a clear conscience. Or is the Young Master going to go back on his word on this matter?”
“You… you woman! You’re completely unreasonable!”
Leo was left speechless. He found that in front of this woman, his intelligence and eloquence were always crushed. At this critical juncture where he longed to become stronger but had no way out, the last shred of the boy’s pride was thrown away.
“Please!”
Leo suddenly, without any dignity, put his hands together and made an exaggerated begging gesture at Ailiya, even his eyes turning red.
“I really want to get stronger! I don’t want to go to the royal capital and be treated like a useless waste again! I’ll agree to any condition, as long as you’re willing to teach me…”
He gritted his teeth, his mind going blank, and the shocking words he had heard old drunkards begging for drinks at the Wind Moon tavern blurted out, earth-shattering.
“If you’re willing to teach me, I’ll even let you step on my face right now!!!”
The moment the words fell, the entire back garden fell into a deathly silence. Even the birds singing in the trees seemed to freeze at this utterly perverted declaration.
Ailiya’s hand holding the silver spoon froze in midair. The small piece of mousse cake fell with a plop onto the tray. Her normally calm ice-blue eyes were now wide as saucers.
She stared at the blonde boy, whose face was bright red but wore a look of “ready to die,” as if looking at an unspeakably perverted piece of trash.
A full ten seconds passed. Ailiya took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing the urge to kick him into the fountain.
“Huh?”
Ailiya moved back in extreme disgust, her voice carrying an unprecedented chill.
“Hopeless.”
Just as Leo realized what an incredibly stupid thing he had said and was about to cover his face and apologize,
“Leo…”
An icy voice drifted down without warning from the second-floor window above the two of them. Leo’s entire body trembled violently. He stiffly looked up.
“How dare you utter such vulgar, lewd words completely devoid of the dignity of the Kastian clan, in broad daylight in the estate’s garden, to a lady?!”
Lady Elsa was leaning halfway out, her usually dignified and gentle face now covered in a terrifying gloom. In her hand, she tightly gripped a reddish-brown thorn whip.
Then, without even bothering with the stairs, Lady Elsa leaped down from the second floor and landed steadily on the garden lawn. The tip of the whip scraped across the grass, making a hissing sound.
“M-Mother! Let me explain! I just…”
Leo was scared out of his wits, backing away repeatedly, unable to finish his sentence.
Seeing this, Ailiya calmly put down her cake plate. She stood up and straightened the hem of her maid dress. Then, from behind the bench, she skillfully pulled out a long-handled mop used for cleaning dust.
“Madame, for this perverted young master full of vulgar thoughts, verbal instruction has clearly lost its effect.”
Ailiya’s tone was as flat as if discussing what to eat for dinner.
“I suggest adopting the physical correction method.”
“Just what I had in mind.”
Lady Elsa nodded flatly. The thorn whip in her hand snapped with a crisp crack.
Leo looked at the two women slowly approaching him like Death Gods. His eyes darted left and right, not knowing which way to flee. Sweat poured down, and he swallowed a dry gulp with difficulty.
This was the first time in his life he faced two terrifying women, both of unfathomable strength and determined to beat him to a pulp.
“What I said earlier was an exaggerated figure of speech… do you believe me?”
“Mother!”
“Ailiya… Sister Ailiya… Spare me!!”
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