Chapter 96: 96

In the middle of the night, sitting on a concrete fence, Michelle swung her legs carelessly while Ivona paced around the top of the wall anxiously. “Where are they? You said they would come here at midnight. The moon’s already high up, so where are they?” she glared at Michelle, but she just smiled and leaned back a bit.

“They were here from the start…” Michelle finally spoke, her voice a soft hum, carried through the space by the wind, as she lifted her arm and pointed to one of the small buildings next to the Ostrich family’s mansion.

Looking where Michelle was pointing, Ivona frowned. “How can you know they are there?” she asked with a frown.

At first, Michelle didn’t feel like speaking, but seeing the daggers in Ivona’s eyes, she sighed. “I have better hearing than you. While we were behind the bushes, hiding from the Ostrich family’s patrolling guards, I overheard them speaking about ’two bastards’ who were captured by the General.”

That made Ivona arch a brow. “Two bastards could be anyone. How can you be sure it’s Anastasia and Kieran?” she questioned. “The guards didn’t say anything more?” she added.

“Of course they did,” Michelle jumped off the concrete fence and landed softly. “They said that the guy looked dangerous and that the girl was harmless. Doesn’t that fit the description of our lovebirds? Kieran, who never smiles because of his past, and Anastasia, who grew up sheltered in the Helens family.”

Ivona frowned a bit. “Saying that Anastasia is harmless sounds odd…” she said, feeling her skin crawl imagining it. Anastasia was far from harmless, even though she grew up sheltered and couldn’t cultivate, when she wanted to, she was a poisonous person who could drive someone crazy with underhanded malice. She could insult someone while masking it with compliments and concern, but not like the Young Ladies Michelle met at the Harvest Festival Banquet. She did it so flawlessly that even her own victim didn’t realize they were being insulted. The words just cut them deep inside, somewhere they didn’t even know it hurt.

“I just repeated what the guards said. I naturally know the truth.” Michelle smiled. “Now, come on with me! We’re going to see what the two are plotting.”

“What if they are really in trouble?” Ivona asked. “Will we help them?” she added.

But that caused a smile on Michelle’s lips. “They aren’t so incompetent as to get into trouble so deep…” She started humming a song she remembered from her past life. Ivona didn’t know it, but it was a song about death and torture. “And if they really end up in trouble they can’t get out of, we can help them a bit. Of course, we won’t pull them out of trouble, but we will make it easier for them. If we completely saved them, Kieran would be angry…”

Jumping off the wall, Ivona followed Michelle, who just blatantly walked towards the small building where Kieran and Anastasia were locked up. “Hey?” Ivona grabbed Michelle by her arm to stop her. “Can you at least act like you are worried about them?”

Her words made Michelle tilt her head to the side. “Why should I do that when I’m not worried?” she asked with a smile, but it was more of a rhetorical question. “I mean, Kieran doesn’t want us to worry about him, so if we act worried, he’ll just feel guilty. And Anastasia is similar. This is why they get along so much.”

“But…” Ivona still wasn’t convinced. “Even if Anastasia doesn’t like it when others worry about her, I don’t think she would be happy if you didn’t show any concern at all.”

“That’s where you are wrong,” Michelle said as she walked to the back of the small building. A few meters above the ground was a small, closed window, with metal shades blocking it for soundproofing. “Anastasia grew up in high aristocratic society where fake concern was served to her daily, so she gained a natural disgust for it. Right now, she might not remember it, but the natural disgust is already carved into her soul, and even I wouldn’t be able to remove it with my memory manipulation skill.”

Hearing that, Ivona narrowed her eyes. “As far as I know, your acting skills are far above anyone else’s, so why wouldn’t you be able to fool her into thinking your concern is real?” she questioned. “You were able to fool her just fine when she woke up after you wiped her memories,” she added.

“I never said I can’t fool her, but why should I bother with it? I’m not concerned about their safety since everything is going according to Kieran’s plan, and to fool Anastasia, I would need to put more energy into it since she is better at discerning sincerity than others, and I’m too lazy to do that.” Michelle spoke with a smile as she formed an ice spear in her hand and stabbed it into the wall in front of her.

One after the other, she stabbed ice spears into the wall, forming a ladder to climb up to the window. There, she summoned her ice fire and started burning the metal shades. The temperature of the flame was so low that the metal shrank with a loud thud and fell out.

Ivona quickly moved to the side so the metal piece wouldn’t hit her. Then, she turned her head up to stare at Michelle. “Can’t you be quiet? Guards will come!”

“Says the person shouting in the middle of the night!” Michelle chuckled as she broke the glass of the window. She made sure to send her spirit energy into the building the moment she broke the glass, so the shards wouldn’t scatter around and hurt the people under the window. The spirit energy then caught the glass shards, and Michelle pulled them out and sent them down to the ground.

“Hi!” Michelle peeked her head through the window and looked at Kieran and Anastasia sitting in the middle of the room. “How do you feel down there?” she asked with a teasing smile.

When Michelle’s words fell, Kieran and Anastasia turned to look at her. “What are you-” before Kieran could finish his words, Michelle climbed through the window and landed in the dark room.

“Wait, Michelle!” Ivona shouted from outside and quickly climbed the ice ladder. “I thought you wanted to help them, not join them in being locked up!”

“You should come here too! The guards will be passing by soon!” Michelle said as she leaned against the wall lazily.

Hearing that, Ivona sighed and climbed through the window. “Do you think they won’t notice the ice ladder you made?” she asked with a frown.

“They won’t.” Michelle smiled and waved her hand. Then, the ice spears in the wall flew up and into the window, then into her hand.

Seeing both Ivona and Michelle in the dark building, Kieran felt his head throb. “Why did you come here?” he asked with a frown. “And, Michelle, don’t lie that you were concerned. I could believe it if Ivona said that, but you aren’t able to feel something like concern!” he didn’t forget to tease even though he was quite annoyed.

Michelle’s smile widened. “As you said, Ivona was concerned about you, and I came to watch a show,” she said. Then, she suddenly went quiet and looked at the window above them.

A voice came from the window. “Why is this down here?” a man asked outside. “Was that what caused the loud bang?”

“I don’t know, but it’s suspicious…” another man said. “Should we check the building?” he asked.

“No!” the first man said. “General forbade anyone from going there. He locked someone there and is waiting for their allies to come rescue them.”

“Then, we should go report this to the General. He should know about this.”

The sound of footsteps faded into the background, and Michelle smiled. “So, Kieran, I helped you, didn’t I?” she tilted her head. “You wanted the General to come see you.”

“But my guess is that you won’t leave and will stay here, right?” Kieran questioned.

Michelle shrugged a bit. “I’ll stay here, but don’t worry. General Ferdinant Ostrich won’t notice me. Or Ivona. We will just observe.” With that, she formed a thick, black mist around herself and pulled Ivona into it, retreating to the darkest corner of the room.

Seeing that, Kieran wasn’t really surprised since he was aware that Michelle had dark element spirit energy, but Anastasia, who had barely seen any spirit energy, was shocked. “How did you do that?!” she exclaimed.

Kieran decided to explain it to her: “It’s her spirit energy. She solidified it into mist and hid in it.” Then, he heard footsteps approaching. “Now, quiet. Someone’s coming.”

Soon, the door opened and a middle-aged man with full gray hair walked in, his expression chilly and serious. “What? Did your friends come to save you?” he asked coldly. “They are somewhere in my mansion, thinking they can find a way to get you out of here, but they just fell into my trap. Soon, my guards will catch them and bring them here to join you.”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep