The Duchess's invitation arrived the very next morning, delivered on perfumed parchment by a liveryman who looked down his nose at the Valerius estate's "merchant" sensibilities. Kenji was summoned for tea in her private gardens. Seraphina saw him off with a predatory glint in her eye. "She's testing you," she'd purred. "Don't disappoint me."
The Elysian gardens were a masterpiece of controlled beauty. Every flower bloomed in perfect harmony, every path was flawlessly manicured, and the very air seemed polished. It was breathtakingly beautiful and utterly sterile. Annalise was waiting for him in a white marble gazebo, looking as perfect and serene as her surroundings.
She poured tea with a grace that could make kings weep. "Master Kenji," she began, her smile once again a polite, beautiful mask. "Your observations at the gala were... novel. I confess, my curiosity was piqued. I have been trying to decide what your angle is."
"Angle, Your Grace?" Kenji asked, taking a sip of the exquisite tea.
"Of course," she said with a light, airy laugh that didn't reach her eyes. "Every man who approaches me has one. Some want my wealth. Some want my influence. Some simply want the prestige of being seen with the Duchess. So, tell me. What is it that you want?"
This was the test. He couldn't lie, and the truth of his System was impossible to explain. So he chose a third path: absolute, disarming honesty about his immediate intentions.
He set his teacup down and looked not at her, but at the flawless garden around them. "Your Grace," he said, his voice soft. "May I be impertinent one last time?"
Intrigued, she nodded.
He pointed towards the base of a perfectly sculpted marble statue. There, growing defiantly from a hairline crack in the stone, was a single, vibrant, common wildflower. A weed.
"That flower," he said. "It has no place here. It's not rare, it's not exotic, and it disrupts the perfect symmetry of your garden. By all accounts, it should be plucked out. And yet... it's the most interesting thing I've seen all day."
He turned his gaze back to her, his expression sincere. "It's the only thing here that isn't trying to be beautiful. It just is. It's real."
Annalise followed his gaze to the wildflower, and a flicker of a forgotten emotion crossed her face.
Kenji pressed his advantage. "What I want, Your Grace, is to offer you an escape. Not to a secret rendezvous or a rival's ball. I want to offer you an hour of being... a weed."
Her eyebrows rose in genuine surprise.
"There is a small stall in the Merchant's Quarter," he continued, "that sells honey-dusted sizzle-eels on a stick. They're greasy, they're cheap, and they're the most delicious things in the entire city. I want to take you there. No titles, no guards, just two people in simple cloaks, eating street food and watching the chaos of the market. I want to give you an hour of being nobody. An hour of being real."
Silence. The Duchess stared at him, her polite mask completely gone, replaced by an expression of pure, unadulterated shock. In her entire life, men had offered her jewels, poems, estates, and even their lives.
No one had ever offered her a greasy eel on a stick.
The sheer, unvarnished absurdity of it was a cannonball through the walls of her boredom. It was an invitation not to a tryst, but to an experience—something so far outside the realm of her existence that it was utterly, intoxicatingly novel.
Then, a sound broke the sterile perfection of the garden. A sound Kenji had never heard from her. A genuine, unrestrained peal of laughter. It was bright, and warm, and it made the whole garden feel alive.
"Honey-dusted sizzle-eels?" she finally managed to say, wiping a tear of mirth from her eye. "Master Kenji, you are without a doubt the most ridiculous man I have ever met."
She stood up, and for the first time, her smile was not a shield or a key, but a reflection of pure, unadulterated delight. "Friday evening. Meet me at the northern gate. And Kenji?" she added, a playful sparkle in her violet eyes. "You're paying."
As he walked away from the gazebo, leaving the Duchess still chuckling to herself, a triumphant chime echoed in his mind.
[YOU HAVE DEMONSTRATED A UNIQUE VALUE THAT SEPARATES YOU FROM ALL OTHERS!]
[By offering an escape from her gilded cage into authentic, simple reality, you have earned her respect in a way no other suitor has.]
[HEART PHASE ADVANCED!]
[Duchess Annalise Valois: [Phase 2: ESTEEM].]
[Affection: 25/100 (A Breath of Fresh Air)]
[She now sees you as a source of genuine surprise and a potential antidote to her ennui. The path to her trust is open.]