How To Save A Time-limited Young Master - Chapter 5

That might be the truth.

 

After wasting time standing in front of the door, Heloise was going to tell her father that she didn’t meet the Young Lord after returning home.

 

While she was grateful that he came out personally and prevented such an unfortunate incident, Heloise’s mood immediately soured upon looking at his nose wrinkling playfully on his handsome face.

 

In any case, he was the one that brought Heloise over here as his playmate. The reason she hesitated in front of the door was also due to him.

 

Heloise, who was scared of being caught up till a few moments prior, purposefully used a stern voice to prevent others from looking down on her remaining pride.

 

“I was about to enter.”

 

“Oh, I see.”

 

The corners of Zenon’s mouth raised slightly, creating a strange mocking smile.

 

“Well, that doesn’t matter in any case. The most important thing is the game that you’re going to show me today.”

 

“Game?”

 

“Didn’t you say that watching kids cry and scream was uninteresting? Then bring something that’s more fun.”

 

“What…?”

 

“If the games that you brought aren’t interesting, I’ll just continue playing the games I used to play.”

 

A pleasant thought seemed to cross Zenon’s mind, and he added with an ominous smile.

 

“And when that happens, you have to participate unconditionally.”

 

“Why should I?”

 

“I lived decently just like you’d told me to, but it didn’t satisfy me.”

 

“How ridiculous…”

 

It’s ridiculous, but at least within this Langbert mansion, Zenon’s words were the law.

 

If Zenon wanted to, the other children would be immediately invited to do absurd things just like previously, and the adults within this house wouldn’t attempt to prevent his atrocities, with their status as employees being the reason.

 

In fact, his fickle behaviour was something rare in itself. Heloise picked up on the fact that when Zenon Lionerik made a decision, he would be resolute to an unhealthy extent.

 

No matter what, Heloise had to pay the price of criticising his obstinate way of playing games. From the start, she came with the intention of making him stop such acts.

 

She crossed her arms and raised her head.

 

“Fine.”

 

“In that case, shall we listen about what games do people that aren’t beasts play?”

 

Just like that, Zenon grabbed Heloise’s arm and dragged her into the room. Perhaps preparations were done by the maid, as there was steaming tea and refreshments were placed on the table.

 

Heloise spent the entire carriage ride to reach Langbert Mansion thinking about how to handle Zenon. As she just so happened to possess an only child, the only child Heloise didn’t know how to play with her peers.

 

Additionally, soccer and basketball, which boys of his age liked, required a lot of people, and while on the surface it seemed fine, it was inappropriate for a young master who’s about to receive the news of his impending death.

 

“What are the Young Lord’s likes?”

 

“Everything.”

 

“What do you hate?”

 

“Everything too.”

 

It was a joke. It failed. Heloise frowned and first started to talk about herself.

 

“I don’t like embroidery. As well as the art of tea making. Both are terrible. So let’s exclude those two.”

 

“Do as you please.”

 

“Out of consideration for the Young Lord’s health, how about reading books? Shall I read you a book?”

 

“Which book?”

 

According to her father, Zenon reads books well. Apparently, he didn’t show it as he was conscious of checks from his uncle, Marquis Velks, but he liked to study, and the standard of his intelligence was high.

 

Of course, it was hard to say that Heloise had good grades, but her grades were better than being a disaster. As such, it didn’t mean that they were going to do something meaningless like study when they were supposed to play.

 

Heloise thought of ‘A Thousand and One Nights’. Wouldn’t Zenon be interested if she roughly described classical stories that didn’t exist in this world?

 

Just like the story of the king, who was betrayed by his wife and killed a woman everyday, didn’t kill his new wife for a thousand days just to listen to interesting stories, Heloise knew of many stories. Just like how the wise Scheherazade managed to survive the evil tyrant, poor Heloise could also survive the wicked Zenon.

 

Perhaps it was Heloise who believed in fairy tale-like stories. She sat on a chair, and picked up any of the books that she brought, starting to tell a story that she heard of in her previous life.

 

⋄────∘°❃°∘────⋄

 

“Just like that, Cinderella…ate well and lived well…!”

 

“……”

 

Heloise observed Zenon’s mood and with a perplexed expression, brought up the next story. This isn’t how it should be like.

 

In ‘A Thousand and One Night’, the tyrant’s tears poured down his face and he couldn’t even sleep due to excitement… No matter how she looked at it, it seemed to have been ruined.

 

“Next, the title is <The Little Prince>.”

 

“All the stories that you talk about are similar. Shall I look at the title and take a guess? This time, the story will be about the little prince marrying a rich queen.”

 

“You’re completely wrong. Be quiet and listen.”

 

“It wasn’t called <Kongjwi and Patjwi>, but the ending is similar. More than that, how could a person be named as beans?”

[T/N: <Kongjwi and Patjwi> refers to Korean Cinderella. Kong-jwi (콩쥐)’s ‘Kong’ means bean, hence Zenon’s complaint.]

 

This wasn’t at the level of possible failure. This was completely ruined.

 

Heloise shook her head and closed the book. Zenon sat in an improper position, with an arm across the backrest, and spoke sarcastically.

 

“Why? We should continue.”

 

“That’s enough. Let’s move on to the next game. From now onwards, let’s start drawing.”

 

“Drawing. That sounds fun.”

 

The mocking voice remained the same. Nevertheless, Heloise snorted. Who said that this was a drawing contest that noble aristocrats participated in?

 

“Is someone there? I’ll be starting to paint with the Young Lord, so please prepare the drawing kit.”

 

At Heloise’s order, the maids quickly prepared the drawing materials. Zenon looked at the canvas and the paints with a bored face.

 

“What kind of game is this?”

 

“It’s a game where we draw each other’s faces.”

 

“Drawing portraits? It’s so boring that I want to yawn.”

 

“It isn’t a portrait. You have to draw it the opposite way as much as possible.”

 

During her schooling days, it’s a game that she often played with her seatmate during the self-study hours at night.

 

Using her arms to cover the exercise book, and draw each other’s faces in the funniest possible way. And when their works were revealed at the same time, they would laugh at each other at the sight of the prominent cheekbones, jutting nose bridge that looked as if it was flattened, and overly thick lips,

 

Heloise looked at Zenon with a slightly tensed face. Thick hair as dark as the night sky, eyelashes that cast a shadow, and underneath them were light blue-gray eyes, a high nose and red lips.

 

To be honest, there was nothing that should be diminished from Zenon Lionerik’s face. However, Heloise will somehow try to draw him as silly as possible and make him laugh.

 

The easels were set up to face each other, so that they couldn’t peek at each other’s paintings.

 

“You’ve understood, right? Try to draw it in the opposite way as much as possible. I’ll give you an hour.”

 

Without replying, Zenon carelessly lifted the palette and began to move his brush without even drawing a sketch.

 

Meanwhile, Heloise’s situation was not too bad. Her skills were only at the level of drawing Zolaman, but after Viscount Lorca spent hard earned money, she managed to gain pretty good skills.

 

Heloise did her best to draw Zenon uglyly. Although, at the beginning, she wasn’t confident when drawing due to the fact that she was destroying that beautiful appearance, it became doable as she continued to draw. Rather, the thought of Zenon, who would become hopping mad after seeing this, reminded her of the times during night self-study, so it became interesting.

 

Although she would gain some dissatisfied looks for laughing by herself, the two completed their paintings in an hour.

 

As she was pressed for time, Heloise, who couldn’t finish colouring her painting, hugged her canvas that was filled with scribbles and approached Zenon. Zenon, who had already finished his painting 10 minutes ago, didn’t seem interested in whether she peeped or not. He looked elsewhere as if this entire time was spent in boredom.

 

Heloise approached sneakily and took a peek.

 

‘Oh my goodness’

 

There was an enormous beauty drawn there. It was only painted in black so it was unclear, but the one in the canvas whose lips were curved poutingly was Heloise.

 

She doesn’t know what has changed, but her face with a coy smile was attractive enough to catch the eye immediately. Looking at the painting mesmerised, Heloise opened her mouth blankly.

 

“Uh… Why didn’t you draw it the other way around?”

 

“What?”

 

“Didn’t I tell you to draw it the other way around?”

 

“That’s why I drew it the other way around.”

 

“What?”

 

Not understanding at first, Heloise’s expression gradually hardened.

 

‘If this was the opposite, what does my face look like?’

 

It’s a little but too much for her to say this, but Heloise Lorca, who she had possessed, had a pretty cute, no, very cute face.

 

Bright blonde hair that was fluffy to the touch and soft hazelnut coloured eyes, plump lower eyelids that would fill out cutely whenever she smiled, and small and full lips.

 

In this life, she benefitted from her looks, and had never suffered a loss before from those that had seen her. But he drew her like this, and said that he drew her the other way around?

 

“Let me see what you drew.”

 

Heloise used all of her courage to draw him uglily, but she didn’t want to show it to him at all. If this painting was drawn in reverse to reality, wouldn’t Heloise’s painting become something praising Zenon’s beauty?

 

“This rascal is really…!’

 

“Fine!”

 

“Why?”

 

Heloise stepped back, hiding her canvas with a bright red face. Roughly grasping the situation, Zenon raised the corner of his lips slightly.

 

“What’s wrong?”

 

“I–it’s nothing. Let’s stop playing this game.”

 

“What do you mean it’s nothing?”

 

He seemed to finally regain interest, and got up from his seat with his gaze fixed on Heloise. As he approached one step at a time, Heloise would retreat hesitantly. Her anger started to rise when she thought about why she had to hide the painting like that.

 

They had agreed to draw it the other way around, but wasn’t the person that started the teasing Zenon! Heloise gritted her teeth and shoved the canvas to Zenon.

 

“If you’re so curious about it, have a look! I’m going to go now!”

 

‘You d*mned arrogant young master. Whether you have a time limit or whatever, play alone and live alone because of your bad personality.’

 

What do I have to do with what you’re doing?

 

When Heloise glared with true anger, Zenon’s eyes widened and he seemed to be a little surprised. Before he could say anything to her, Heloise left Langbert Mansion without greeting him.