Author: 冬瓜茶仙人 / Winter Melon Tea Immortal
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 55
The rabbit-headed shopkeeper had made a promise with Alice.
Before leaving the castle last time, they had agreed on a reliable meeting spot near the kitchen garden. It was the vegetable garden near the kitchen. When Alice arrived, she saw half a Lloyd Rabbit head peeking out from the edge of a haystack, looking almost like a real rabbit under the dim moonlight.
Alice, undeterred by the bushes that might scratch her clothes or the grass stains that could dirty her hem, squeezed behind the haystack without hesitation.
“Listen.” Alice gasped for air. “Mother has gone to the front hall—to speak with the Baron. She knows every girl. I can’t disappear for too long.”
The rabbit-headed shopkeeper said in his reassuring tone, “I’ve found help—a very good doctor. He’s procured a powerful drug for us. Just a little bit dissolved in liquid can put a wild ox to sleep for three hours.”
They planned to give Mistress Daisy, the castle’s watch dogs, and the guests a taste of their own medicine—being controlled by drugs. But when Charlie returned to the castle, he found the plan difficult to execute.
“The kitchen is too crowded,” he whispered. “It’s meal prep time now, so people are constantly coming and going—it’s hard to slip in. I could wait for a lull, but I’m afraid by the time it quiets down, the ball might no longer need food.”
Alice wrung her fingers anxiously.
She had hoped Charlie would find a secret passage or something that would allow them to intoxicate the guests and then sneak away, because Charlie always seemed so capable and sure, and his knowledge of magic had convinced Alice he was an experienced and resourceful man.
“There’s something else I don’t understand,” Charlie said, as if something just occurred to him. “You said the ball is held in the central greenhouse of the castle, right?”
Alice nodded.
Charlie studied her expression, his tone becoming more serious. “What’s interesting is, when we sneaked in earlier and looked at that greenhouse from a distance, guess what? It was just a semicircular glass house surrounded by thick curtains. There are no lights, no music, and no people, just like the flower beds and lawns outside.”
Alice’s eyes widened. “That’s impossible—we were all there. The girls, Mistress Daisy, all the guests, long tables covered in white cloths, roast lamb and apple pies on them, a piano and flute playing, and a huge chandelier hanging overhead. I’m telling you. I just ran out of there!”
“I absolutely believe you,” Charlie said without hesitation. “So I think the problem with this castle is a bit bigger than I thought, but not insurmountably so,” he quickly added, seeing Alice’s expression.
“Just like you said, ‘Only guests with an invitation can attend the ball.’ That might not just be literal. It means that, apart from those already in the castle, anyone outside without an invitation is excluded from that mysterious ball. Even if you put the ball’s champagne under the ‘outsider’s’ nose, they can’t see it.”
This was something Charlie and Erica hadn’t anticipated.
To be safe, they had intercepted the Baron’s carriage. Without anyone using magic disguises, Erica took the Baron hostage to try to get into the ball as accompanying personnel, Dr. Salman could only enter the servants’ area posing as a coachman, and Shopkeeper Charlie was hiding under the carriage, a complete stowaway.
If the plan went smoothly, they would be able to sneak into the kitchen to drug the banquet food or infiltrate the ball to strike at the highest administrator, Mistress Daisy. But after discovering the restriction of the invitation card, their available manpower and opportunities were severely limited.
Alice was almost in tears. “What do we do now? I must, must take Lily and leave. All the girls want to leave. We all secretly agreed…”
Charlie cut her off. “What do you mean agreed? Do the other girls know about the plan?”
Alice looked slightly confused. “Initially, it was just Daphne… She’s really brave. I thought she would agree to the plan, and she did. Then she told a few trustworthy girls because she thought you’d need enough inside help when you act, but then we found out that after we stopped eating the soup, all the girls wanted to leave the castle immediately.”
She looked at the rabbit-headed shopkeeper uncertainly, wondering if she had messed up and upset him by leaking the plan, as he had previously made it clear that for safety’s sake, it was best to keep this matter secret.
“We didn’t discuss this widely,” Alice added nervously. “We’re not allowed to whisper. Most communication was through coded language and gestures. ‘They’ definitely didn’t catch any proof.”
Charlie looked at her and laughed.
“You think I’m upset? No, no, no, how could I blame you for your courage? In fact, I’ve thought of a better way.”
Alice looked at him.
“We don’t have invitations. There’s only one companion who might have entered the ball with the Baron. She’ll help as much as she can, but it might be limited.” Charlie reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a crystal vial. The pea-sized pills inside glistened in the moonlight.
“But you don’t need invitations. You said all the girls agree with the plan, right?”
Alice seemed to understand and nodded.
“No scent. It dissolves in two seconds and takes effect in half an hour. A tiny pill can put a wild ox to sleep for three hours,” Charlie whispered, cradling the vial in his palm. “You know the rules of the ball, you know the guests, you know how to succeed.”
Alice hesitated, her eyes falling on the vial and then looking up at Charlie.
Those round rabbit eyes were looking at her gently.
“Don’t mind how they see you, Alice,” Charlie said. “You’re not flowers in a greenhouse, but warriors fighting for freedom, and I am quite sure of that.”
The girl with the lace headband looked at him, tears welling up in her eyes.
She suddenly reached out and grabbed the vial.
Mistress Daisy was furious.
She had high expectations for this early spring ball.
After a long winter with no income, she urgently needed those arrogant and wealthy guests to pay her bills—contrary to what the foolish “Triton River Daily” wrote, she wasn’t a “kind-hearted woman, that’s calm inside from years of selfless and generous contributions.”
Just maintaining the operation of the castle was a major expense: daily cleaning, garden maintenance, kitchen management, and laundry all required manpower, not to mention the extra people needed to guard those ungrateful girls.
Besides, she had bought a garden villa in a small city south of Ropappas, not too far nor too close from here, where she could live in the villa when there were no balls, drink tea in the sun, and attend the gatherings of the town’s noblewomen—those truly elegant gatherings where they wore gloves to drink tea and discussed poetry while wearing the latest fashionable hats.
She had no husband, children, relatives, or friends, and was the sole highest authority in the castle.
Those smelly gardeners and laundry maids thought her third-floor room was the most luxurious and comfortable place in the world, but Mistress Daisy actually disliked it here, which was why she spent a substantial amount of money to acquire another property.
She had been planning this for a long time, drastically cutting the castle’s expenses in order to afford a villa that was previously owned by a Viscountess.
Mistress Daisy had spent her whole life pursuing social mobility. In that city, where no one knew her, she was a wealthy, elegantly-behaved widow, and nobody knew where her wealth came from.
If given the opportunity to connect with the local nobility, perhaps she could donate some money for a title or even marry an elderly nobleman.
The more satisfied she was with the life she planned, the more impatient she grew with the castle, but the castle was her golden goose, and there was no one else to keep it warm for her—Mistress Daisy had no one she trusted; not even the hallway hound was allowed into any of her rooms.
For now, she still had to focus mainly on the castle. At least she couldn’t leave it for too long now because her subordinates were too foolish. Without her oversight, they would incessantly create chaos: some parts of the road had become potholed due to melting snow, delaying the water cart for over an hour, which caused chaos in the kitchen and nearly resulted in the banquet table going without dishes. Then there were passersby who came near the castle asking for water, and a meddlesome servant actually let them into the kitchen, where the curious outsiders kept looking around too much… Although outsiders without invitations couldn’t access the ball, it was still hard to explain why a quiet, desolate castle’s kitchen was busily preparing massive amounts of roast lamb, fruit pies, and sausages, prompting Mistress Daisy to order her sternest overseer, Miss Mince, to handle the matter.
Not just the passersby annoyed her, but also her most prominent guest, the Baron.
He hadn’t gone south for the winter, which made his health weaker than the previous year. This changed his usual habit of attending banquets alone. This time he insisted on having his cousin accompany him: the young man, reportedly studying at a medical school, could attend to him at any moment.
Mistress Daisy was firm on the one invitation, one guest policy, but given that the Baron was the highest status guest that evening and usually very generous, she reluctantly made an exception (only because the Baron hinted that his cousin was also interested in the ball and might soon become an independent guest).
Mistress Daisy put down her pen, looking at the name of the Baron’s cousin, Erica, which she had just written on the list.
This was one of the core secrets of the castle—the key to attending the ball wasn’t actually the invitation, but the names she wrote in this black hardcover book.
Nobody would know that this book, which didn’t need magic to manipulate and turned the whole castle into an enchanted realm, was the “real” key to entering the castle.
It was a peculiar contractual ritual. During the ball, as long as a name was written down, it would be accepted by the rules of the book, entering the realm affected by this book.
As the host, she shouldn’t leave the ball for too long.
She stood up, adjusting her skirt, ready to leave the room, when she caught a glimpse from the corner of her eye of a curtain not properly drawn across a door that faced the study—but if someone observed from outside the castle, they would notice that there was no window there.
She walked over, reaching out to grab the corner of the curtain.
A long, resentful sigh came from behind the curtain.
“Shut up, you wretched woman,” Mistress Daisy said coldly.
The sigh stopped.
The study was quiet for a moment, then a giggle came from behind the curtain, as if a mischievous young girl was hiding there, joking with her.
Mistress Daisy’s expression shifted several times before she disgustedly pulled the curtain tightly shut, sealing the sound behind it.
She closed the door of the study, and the hound she had raised herself sprang to its feet.
“Guard this door for me, sweetie,” she whispered. “Don’t let anyone in.”
The hound seemed to understand her words, lying back down on the mat by the door.
Mistress Daisy picked up her skirt and descended the stairs. Miss Mince was holding a candelabra, waiting for her.
“No suspicious people,” Miss Mince reported quietly from behind her. “This afternoon, a dirty young man with a strange toy didn’t use the main entrance… They didn’t even know this place was part of the city and wanted to find out how to get into the city. Peter let them drink water in the vegetable garden. Coincidentally, the bread had just come out of the oven, and they begged to have some after smelling it, which caused a delay for a while, and they missed the time to close the door.”
Mistress Daisy turned her face slightly. “You didn’t feed them, did you?”
“Not a crumb of bread,” Mrs. Mince asserted firmly. “I scolded them loudly and had Peter lock them in the cellar before the ball.”
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