Chapter 39: Small Traps
“I’m so sorry, but I’m just that popular with the young ladies.”
Jasmine maintained a neutral expression, simply nodding to acknowledge the maid’s words before continuing to eat her meal at a leisurely pace. Compared to Jasmine, the maid across from her ate much faster. After all, she ate less and mostly liquids, so her speed was naturally much quicker. After finishing her meal, she saw that Jasmine was still eating and even waited for a while.
She wanted to urge Jasmine to hurry up but felt it wouldn’t be appropriate. After all, Jasmine was only human, and it was understandable that she ate slowly.
After a while, Jasmine finally finished her meal. She placed her tray in the designated area and followed the maid to the second miss’s room.
The second miss’s room had the same layout as Adele’s. Upon entering, there was a living room, much larger than the one in the school dormitory. Further inside was her living quarters, which included a bedroom and a dressing room.
The maid stopped at the dressing room. Jasmine pushed open the door and saw the second miss being attended to by maids. The second miss was very young, only six years old. Jasmine had heard that she would soon be going to the human breeding facility to choose her own human maid—though calling it a maid, Jasmine felt it was more like a blood bank. Only a vampire like Adele would refrain from drinking human blood.
The second miss also seemed to possess the demeanor of a thirteen clans noble. Just combing her hair required three maids bustling around her. Seeing Jasmine arrive, the second miss raised her hand, dismissing the maids. She then jumped down from her seat, her puffy skirt bouncing, and walked over to a small table, pulling out a chair and sitting down. Her movements were fluid and graceful. After settling down, she called for Jasmine to sit opposite her.
Jasmine didn’t stand on ceremony and sat down as instructed. The second miss asked a maid to brew a cup of black tea. She picked up the cup, took a sip, and immediately put it down. Although she pretended to be nonchalant, Jasmine knew that the little girl must have burned her tongue. Like her elder sister, she had a sensitive palate, so getting burned was a common occurrence.
But the second miss had been taught noble etiquette from a young age, so even if she was burned, she would pretend nothing had happened in front of so many people.
She remained silent for a while, seemingly trying to intimidate Jasmine, but in reality, she was waiting for the burning sensation on her tongue to subside. After a while, the second miss finally spoke, “How is Adele doing at school…” Her voice became slightly slurred towards the end.
She had indeed burned her tongue, and it hadn’t fully recovered yet.
After all, she was still underage, and her healing ability wasn’t that strong yet. It was perfectly normal for her to bite her tongue and become teary-eyed after struggling to speak a long sentence with a burned tongue.
Jasmine looked at the second miss across from her with an impassive expression. She had indeed bitten her tongue. It must have been very painful, as her eyes were welling up with tears. She looked as pitiful as yesterday when she had been scolded by her elder sister.
To avoid hurting the second miss’s fragile ego, Jasmine pretended not to notice and calmly answered the question, “Miss Adele is doing very well at school. Since I can only see her after class, I can only tell you about things that happened after class. Miss Adele eats and sleeps well. Also, she gave a speech as a freshman representative because she had the highest score upon enrollment, and she also achieved the highest score in the final exams.”
“When leaving school, she was admired by other young ladies for carrying her own suitcase and giving a speech about noble etiquette.”
The second miss was clearly interested in this. The tears in her eyes disappeared, and even with her lisp, she asked, “Oh? Tell me more.” Hearing this, Jasmine almost broke character, but years of maintaining her ice queen persona allowed her to quickly regain her composure. She replied expressionlessly, “It’s like this…” She recounted the scene that happened before they left school.
The maids behind the second miss all looked disapproving, as if they couldn’t understand the logic. But the second miss’s eyes shone with admiration, feeling proud of her elder sister. However, she still maintained a tsundere facade, refusing to openly acknowledge Adele’s accomplishment, “Hmph, her actions are indeed worthy of the Blake family name. As the eldest daughter of the family, she must set an example!”
After a while, the second miss’s lisp had improved significantly, but she still stumbled over the word “eldest daughter,” pronouncing it as “eldesht.” They chatted for a while longer, and when the second miss felt she couldn’t get any more information out of Jasmine, she started acting like a proper young lady, instructing Jasmine, “You did well. Continue to serve Adele well at school, or I won’t let you off the hook so easily!”
“Yes, Second Miss, I understand.”
The second miss put on a serious expression, nodded, and then waved her hand, dismissing Jasmine. As soon as Jasmine left the second miss’s room, she was caught by Adele. Unlike the second miss, who had sent someone to summon her, Adele had come to grab her directly.
She asked Jasmine where her clothes were. Hearing this, Jasmine just wanted to curse. It had been so long since she had cleaned Adele’s room, how could she possibly know? But in reality, Jasmine actually knew where the clothes Adele was asking about were. The maids, when cleaning Adele’s room, wouldn’t change the layout. Whatever Adele’s room looked like before she went to school, it would still look the same now.
Jasmine had an excellent memory. She instantly recalled where Adele’s clothes were.
But she couldn’t appear too certain. She could only say, “Are they on the second shelf in the closet?” Hearing this, Adele, still claiming that she didn’t know where they were, dragged Jasmine to her room. Jasmine found the clothes Adele was looking for and left the dressing room first. After Adele changed and came out, Jasmine looked at her.
Adele personally loved Gothic clothing, but she wouldn’t wear it at school, only practical casual clothes. After all, Gothic clothing was beautiful, but it was too elaborate and inconvenient for daily activities. But it had to be said that Adele looked very good in dark clothing. With her long, silvery-white hair, this outfit, and the decorations in her hair, she looked like a doll from a display window.
Adele was about to say something to Jasmine when she heard the second miss’s voice from outside, “Adele, you haven’t forgotten, have you? Father wants us to have dinner with him tonight!”
Of course, she hadn’t forgotten. She just wanted to spend some time with Jasmine first. Hearing her younger sister’s words, she could only say to Jasmine, “Then Jasmine, I’ll find you later. I’m going to dinner now.” Jasmine nodded. After Adele left the room, she started thinking.
The Blake patriarch was back? That meant the matter had been settled, or perhaps… that White Werewolf had already been brought to the castle by the patriarch and was now being interrogated in a dungeon somewhere in the basement. Jasmine couldn’t smell the basement. The smell was too strong, a mix of various scents from the many otherworldly beings imprisoned there. Plus, it was separated by thick stone walls to prevent otherworldly beings with a keen sense of smell from attempting a jailbreak.
Jasmine thought for a while. The patriarch, Adele, and the second miss were having dinner in the dining hall now. Didn’t that give her some free time? After Adele and the second miss were gone, Jasmine left Adele’s room and returned to her own. She used her threads to disguise herself, then climbed out the window, avoiding the patrolling vampire guards. After confirming that there was no one in the patriarch’s room, she snuck in and landed softly on the floor.
She was familiar with the patriarch’s room, very familiar. She had been here many times before, stealing information and passing it on to the Human Resistance Army, making a significant contribution. She loved coming to the patriarch’s room. She never left empty-handed.
As expected, she found a letter on the patriarch’s desk, but she knew this was just a decoy.
The Blake patriarch was a cunning old fox with a bit of paranoia. He always felt that someone was trying to harm him, so he often played these games of truth and deception. To be precise, it wasn’t entirely paranoia, because Jasmine really did frequently enter his room to snoop around. Although the Blake patriarch had no evidence, his sixth sense told him something was amiss.
Unfortunately, in Jasmine’s eyes, the Blake patriarch’s little tricks were nothing special. She had read too many novels and watched too many TV series of this genre in her previous life. And she had sometimes secretly observed the patriarch setting up his traps. She knew all his tricks.
This time, Jasmine searched for a while before finding the trap. It was simple to describe, but difficult to find in practice. It was a classic trap she had seen before. The real letter was hidden in a secret compartment in the drawer. The patriarch had added a false bottom to the first drawer, which had to be pushed up from below through a small hole. Otherwise, if the false bottom was simply removed, it would trigger a small switch inside, causing a fire and burning the entire drawer.
The small hole below required using the quill pen on the desk. By inserting the end of the quill into the hole and pushing up the false bottom, one could retrieve the letter.
“You’re quite playful for your age.” Jasmine had been able to find this switch because she had seen an identical trap in an anime before. Moreover, she had exceptional observation skills and a keen sense of smell. She smelled the magic stone hidden within the false bottom of the drawer. This world didn’t have gunpowder, so using a magic stone as an ignition device was indeed a clever idea.
But magic stones were expensive! The patriarch was so wasteful.
If Jasmine wasn’t afraid of being discovered by the Blake patriarch after removing the magic stone, she might have stolen it. She took the real letter from the secret compartment and, after confirming that it had already been opened and wasn’t sealed, she opened it, muttering, “See, you’re just too confident. If you had set up a few more layers, I might have fallen for it.”
The letter contained a report on the recent airship incident. As expected, the otherworldly beings’ motive was the high bounty on the thirteen clans members. However, one point caught Jasmine’s attention: it mentioned suspicions of someone within the airship company being bribed by otherworldly beings.
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