Chapter 16: The Second Princess’s Deception

Crowlina suddenly shrieked, her face turning deathly pale as she gazed at the corpse with profound concern. “Heavens, what happened?”

“Shh, shh! Keep your voice down, sister.” Lucia had nearly jumped out of her skin from Crowlina’s scream, quickly moving to soothe her and explain.

Upon hearing Lucia’s account, Crowlina realized Lucia was truly the bewildered one, having merely ‘attended a noble’s ball, woken up here, and known nothing else.’

Crowlina couldn’t glean any more information. However, Lucia’s earlier panic suggested she feared attracting the mansion’s guards.

This implied the mansion was still under Crowlina’s control.

“We need to find a way to escape quickly,” Lucia said, her voice laced with worry. “If the owner of this place returns, we’re finished.”

Crowlina hummed in agreement. “I have a way out.”

“What way?” Lucia pressed immediately.

“Follow me.” Crowlina took Lucia’s hand, leading her out of the secret room and into the study.

Crowlina noticed a gardener still tending to the flowers outside the window, instantly feeling relieved that everything in the manor was well.

She secured the iron door leading to the secret room, then boldly settled into the study owner’s high-backed chair, padded with soft velvet. She beckoned to Lucia:

“Come here, sister.”

Lucia cautiously glanced out the window, ensuring the gardener had their back to the study. She then slipped to Crowlina’s side, asking with a hint of unease,

“What is the plan?”

Crowlina patted her own thigh. “Sit on sister’s lap, and I’ll tell you.”

Lucia couldn’t comprehend how Crowlina had transformed so utterly. From a timid, respectable woman cowering from a noble’s advances, she now resembled a dissolute noble intent on seducing a respectable woman.

Yet, in this situation, Lucia didn’t want to argue with Crowlina for long. She simply wanted to know the escape plan as soon as possible.

She pursed her pink lips, suppressing her embarrassment, and sat on Crowlina’s lap.

Crowlina wrapped her arms around Lucia, holding her tightly. With a beaming smile, she produced an eye mask and began to fit it over Lucia’s head.

Lucia, of course, refused, twisting her head and attempting to slide off Crowlina’s lap.

Crowlina leaned close to Lucia’s ear, whispering softly, “Don’t be afraid. The eye mask is part of my plan, sister.”

“You are an angel, aren’t you? Your eyes are too prone to causing trouble, so please cooperate with your sister.”

“I can just close my eyes, actually,” Lucia said weakly. However, hearing a somewhat reasonable explanation, she became much more compliant.

After all, an eye mask could be removed at any time, making the two methods not so different. She allowed Crowlina to put on the eye mask, adjusting the elastic band.

“If I don’t reveal my identity as an angel, can you really get me out, sister?” Lucia asked in a hushed tone.

“Mhm, mhm. The master of the mansion occasionally brings female slaves in and out. As long as we disguise ourselves as slaves, we can slip past,” Crowlina began to weave her lie.

‘Isn’t this sister the daughter of a wealthy merchant who was just abducted?’ Lucia thought. ‘How does she know all this?’

Lucia’s body stiffened, her hairs standing on end.

“Oh dear, sister seems to have let something slip,” Crowlina’s voice remained melodious and laced with a smile. To Lucia now, however, it sounded like the laughter of a demon.

Lucia suddenly pushed up, trying to break free from Crowlina.

Crowlina’s arms encircled Lucia’s body, firmly locking her small frame and arms in place. No matter how Lucia struggled, she remained trapped in Crowlina’s embrace, unable to escape.

Crowlina leisurely called out towards the door:

“Someone! Bind her.”

Lucia was gripped by intense panic. She could see nothing, only hear someone opening the door, approaching, and then the sensation of being held down, ropes tightening against her skin.

Well. Lucia knew she had been thoroughly kidnapped. Furious, she demanded,

“Crowlina, what are you doing?”

“Why are you doing this to me?”

Crowlina did not answer Lucia. Instead, she conversed with the servants, inquiring about her sister’s whereabouts.

From their conversation, Lucia learned that Crowlina’s sister was Princess Delia Yass, who had greeted her at the Grand Sacrifice. This Crowlina was referred to as the Second Highness.

Crowlina’s true identity was the Second Princess of the Yass family. This realization utterly stunned Lucia.

Even with this information revealed, Lucia still couldn’t understand why the ‘hostage’ she had rescued from the Yass family’s ‘dungeon’ was the Yass family’s Second Princess.

If the Second Princess was merely a figurehead, stripped of power and imprisoned by the First Princess, that would make sense. But why could this Second Princess command household servants and even express such concern for the First Princess?

Lucia couldn’t comprehend it; her mind was overwhelmed.

Alas, as the saying goes, one regrets not having studied more when the time for application comes. If Lucia had read more adult learning materials in her previous life, she wouldn’t be stumped by such a simple problem or make such a basic mistake.

Lucia felt herself being carried away, brought into a quiet room, and placed onto something soft that must have been a bed.

Her vision was entirely black from the eye mask, and she couldn’t even tell if the room’s lights were on. But for Lucia now, whether the lights were on or not no longer mattered.

Her hands and feet were tightly bound with ropes, making escape impossible. Even the eye mask on her face couldn’t be removed.

She wriggled her body, rubbing the eye mask against what she presumed was a pillow for a long time, but the mask didn’t loosen in the slightest. After all, the elastic band had been specifically adjusted for her. Without her hands, it wouldn’t come off.

“Sigh…” Lucia sighed. She felt her life as a transmigrator was a complete failure.

On her first day after transmigrating, she had barely escaped Rod Valga’s control, only to be kidnapped by the Yass family. Was she really going to be thoroughly… ‘handled’?