On the second floor, Hastur and Audrey stood by the railing, looking down at the cat and the dog below.
Seeing that Susie was actually imitating her elegant gait, and even deliberately showing it off, Audrey completely lost her composure.
"You know, Susie, um, it always likes to imitate others because it's very smart, so sometimes it copies the way I walk."
"I really didn't deliberately teach it how to move its feet in sequence, or how high it should lift its legs."
Audrey's cheeks flushed slightly. Seeing how her earnest explanations only seemed to further confirm that she had indeed taught Susie how to walk elegantly, she felt even more embarrassed.
"Mr. Hastur, let's go inside and talk." Audrey took a deep breath, pretending nothing had happened, calmly brushing past the matter.
In her heart, she regretted it, back then, she really shouldn't have acted on a whim and taught Susie how to walk gracefully.
Just thinking about how seriously she had once taught Susie, bit by bit, how to lift its legs and take steps made both sides of her cheeks feel like they were burning.
"Susie really is very smart."
Hastur gave a brief evaluation and walked ahead. When they reached the study door, he added, "With such an elegant walking posture, Miss Audrey must have worked quite hard teaching Susie back then, right?"
"..." Audrey froze on the spot. It wasn't until Hastur had already gone into the study for a while that she reacted.
She tried hard to suppress her shyness, at least appearing calm on the surface, as if she hadn't been affected at all by that remark.
"Mr. Hastur, that joke isn't funny."
"Mm, I'm just making a reasonable guess."
"When we're young, we always do some interesting things. Mr. Hastur, were you always this calm and wise in the past too?"
Having steadied her emotions, Audrey answered generously. That way, it wouldn't be too awkward.
After all, teaching Susie to walk elegantly was, for an owner, also a kind of honor.
Seeing that Audrey had regained her composure, Hastur had no intention of continuing the topic and instead said, "I recently obtained a new batch of Roselle's Diaries, but some parts haven't been fully studied yet, so I can only sell a few pages for now."
"That's fine." Taking the long view, Audrey didn't dislike this kind of trading method.
Hastur took four pages of Roselle's Diaries from the drawer and handed them to Audrey. Seeing her treasure them as if she'd obtained priceless gems, he felt a little guilty.
These four pages were all written by him in one go back then. There wasn't much substantial content, most of it was a pile of Roselle's romantic escapades.
Hopefully Mr. Fool could endure it. In any case, he himself didn't want to read them a second time, lest his eyes be polluted.
"Is it still the original price?" Audrey's sudden question made Hastur freeze for quite a while. Had the always-generous Miss Audrey actually learned to haggle with him now?
After a moment of silence, Hastur carefully chose his words and said, "If Miss Audrey is experiencing some financial difficulty, the price per diary page isn't completely non-negotiable."
"What if I'm in very, very serious financial difficulty right now?"
"…One page of Roselle's Diary for 100 pounds?" Since Audrey had put it that way, Hastur directly cut the price in half.
"Mr. Hastur is truly generous. Alright, deal." Audrey didn't give Hastur the slightest chance to regret it and immediately finalized the deal.
Although he still earned 400 pounds, Hastur somehow felt like he'd lost 400 pounds instead.
Judging by how readily Audrey paid, she didn't look the least bit financially strained.
"I'm not deceiving you, Mr. Hastur. A few days ago, following Earl Hall's arrangements, I invested in a new project," Audrey explained softly.
Hastur frowned slightly and said, "With Earl Hall's wisdom, you shouldn't need to put up any of your own money. You'd just take out a mortgage loan from the bank, right?"
"..." Audrey's expression stiffened, her gaze drifting a little.
She had indeed invested in a new project, and indeed hadn't spent a single penny.
The reason she'd said that earlier was simply to enjoy the pleasure of earning money from Mr. Hastur's hands, even though that money was originally hers.
Seeing Mr. Hastur continue to stare at her, Audrey forced herself to stay calm and said, "Mr. Hastur, I still have a literary salon to attend later. I'll take my leave for today, we can chat again when there's time."
"..." What could Hastur say?
He could only escort the clearly amused Audrey out of the study and down the stairs.
In the first-floor hall, Ariella, who was asking Susie for advice on how to be even more elegant, stiffened slightly, shook its jet-black fur, and ran to Hastur's feet, placing its two little paws on his leg.
Hastur bent down and picked Ariella up. On the other side, Susie cast a resentful glance at the indifferent Audrey, silently turned around, and walked step by step toward the main door.
At that moment, its figure seemed filled with weathered desolation, as if countless stories had once happened to it.
Audrey's eyelid twitched slightly. She knew Susie's acting addiction had flared up again.
But it was fine. As long as she ignored it, it would return to normal after a while.
"Susie, Emperor Roselle once said: life is a lonely journey that goes misunderstood. Only by learning to enjoy loneliness can one go farther."
Hastur's voice made Audrey's heart jump. Sure enough, Susie let out a near-whimpering sound, then walked straight out the door without looking back.
"..." Audrey was momentarily stunned. She didn't know whether that sentence really came from Emperor Roselle, but Susie, you're a dog! How can you be so easily moved by people's words every time?
"Susie really is very smart. It easily understands what I say." A faint smile appeared on Hastur's face, looking very appreciative of Susie.
"Mr. Hastur, you've also read The Complete Quotations of Emperor Roselle, haven't you?"
"No." Hastur answered honestly. He always just said things offhand and then pinned Roselle's name on them.
Audrey didn't say anything more and led her two personal maids away.
When they reached the main door, Susie was lying on the ground, lazily wagging its tail.
Audrey wanted to laugh, but held it in, putting on a stern face as she said, "Susie, weren't you going to enjoy your lonely journey all by yourself?"
"Woof!" Susie immediately scrambled up from the ground, went to Audrey's side, and began fawning nonstop.
The rough meaning was: a lonely journey is nice, but I have Audrey with me.
"Hmph, let's go." Audrey lifted her chin slightly, a smile flowing at the corners of her lips. It really was a delightful afternoon.
After seeing Audrey off, Hastur looked down at the Ariella playing dead in his arms. He reached out a finger and teased its little head. After waking it up, he said: "Weren't you just learning how to walk elegantly from Susie? Come on, let me see how well you've learned."
"Meow."
"Don't deny it, I saw it all from the second floor."
"Meow…"
Ariella murmured softly, then, taking advantage of a moment of inattention from Hastur, jumped out of his arms and fled.
....
At night, as Hastur was preparing to go to bed, he went to the window and discovered that a line of words had appeared on the paper crane sent by Will: Double the ice cream.
"Is there some good news he wants to inform me of?"
Hastur understood very well what Will meant. He took the paper crane down, placed it in his palm, and then went to bed and fell asleep.
In his dream, Will appeared, sitting in a wheelchair and pushing the wheels forward himself.
Hastur asked curiously, "Weren't you already discharged from the hospital?"
"Just because I'm discharged, does that mean I can't sit in a wheelchair?"
"Of course you can. Do you need my help?"
"No need, I can take care of myself."
Hastur laughed, but still walked over and pushed Will's wheelchair, saying, "If that's the case, then you should be able to make ice cream yourself too, right?"
"If there's free ice cream to eat, why would I waste time making it myself?"
Will shot Hastur a glance, seemingly puzzled as to how he could ask such a question.
After some idle chatter, Will finally explained the purpose of his visit tonight.
That Earl Gill, whose Beyonder characteristics, Hastur was eyeing, had been so angered by his unfilial descendants these past few days that he'd collapsed. He was expected to die on his sickbed tomorrow night.
If they wanted to seize the Baron of Corruption Beyonder characteristic on the Earl, tomorrow night would be an opportunity.
"Although this sounds a bit immoral, I've been waiting for this day for quite a while." Hastur was in a very good mood. His Briber potion was almost fully digested. As long as he took Earl Gill's Beyonder characteristic, he could advance to Sequence 6.
"Morality is something you threw away the moment you chose this Beyonder pathway, wasn't it?"
"Will, you're absolutely right. So I've decided, from now on, if you want ice cream, you'll have to figure it out yourself."
"??"
"Since I have no morality, naturally I won't follow any principle of repaying kindness."
A black line flashed across Will's forehead. He changed the subject and said, "There's another matter I want to discuss with you tonight."
"Will, you actually used the word 'discuss'?" Hastur's expression turned serious. Will rarely spoke to him in such a tone.
"It's like this. Recently, I've gotten used to chocolate ice cream and strawberry ice cream. I want to switch to a few new flavors. I heard that a rainbow ice cream has become popular lately, each color has a different flavor. I'd like to try it too."
"…This is actually your main purpose for coming tonight, isn't it?"
"You can't put it that way. This is just a bonus reward." Will chuckled awkwardly, left behind a reminder to bring the new rainbow ice cream, and then disappeared.