Chapter 6
II.
Three years ago.
After a winter so long it was almost dreadful, Giselle’s seventeenth spring finally arrived.
Flowers bloomed upon the cold, frozen earth, and the trees that had trembled through the winter winds with dry branches all season began to put forth leaves.
The garden, with its appearance previously erased beneath a blanket of snow, recovered its former vitality as fresh greenery rose throughout it.
The gardeners had spent all winter brushing snow from the heads of the statues now became busy again. An unmistakably excited mood hung over them at the thought of decorating the garden anew for spring after the long rest that was winter.
It wasn’t only the scenery outside the manor that had changed.
As if they had all been huddled up, holding their breath to endure the cold, the inside of the manor was also more lively than before.
People’s clothing had grown noticeably lighter, and just as their clothes had lightened, their steps and movements had become visibly more spirited. Faces that had been stiffly frozen had softened considerably.
I welcomed all these changes. But it wasn’t because the dreadful, long winter had ended.
“I can finally meet that man.”
It was because, after a long wait, the chance had come to meet Raven Barietsch, the male lead of the original work.
According to the original, in the spring of the year Giselle turned seventeen, the two first meet when Giselle saves a pitch-black crow that has been shot and collapsed in the garden behind the manor.
And that crow was none other than Raven Barietsch.
In early winter, when I was sixteen, the moment I realized that I had transmigrated into 〈The Crow Loves the Jewel〉 as Giselle Vellasi, there was only one thing I decided.
To reach the bad ending with him.
In order to achieve that, their first meeting was more important than anything else.
‘I have to make that man not just love me, but desire me to the point of madness.’
Generally speaking, the greater the desire, the better. The farther away I shone, so far that he couldn’t reach me no matter how hard he tried, the better. Even so, the more desperate he became to possess me, the better.
To make Raven Barietsch that way, the beginning was the most important.
‘According to the original, Raven fell for Giselle the moment he first saw her.’
It wasn’t only thanks to Giselle’s beautiful appearance.
The reason Raven in the original couldn’t tear his eyes away from her was because of Giselle’s eyes. Those jewel-bright, vivid blue eyes, shimmering and rippling beneath the gentle spring sunlight, and the tender affection overflowing within them.
That was what opened Raven Barietsch’s heart. So I, too, had to approach him like salvation.
At that moment, as soon as Raven sees Giselle, he thinks this. That this is a fated opportunity God has prepared for him, and that she must be an angel sent down from heaven to comfort him, who had been scorned as ominous.
To make him believe that, first, I needed to dress myself up.
‘There’s no time a woman blessed with beautiful looks appears more angelic than when she adorns herself beautifully with all her might.’
So as soon as I confirmed that spring was in full bloom, I had been sitting before the dressing table since the early morning, leaving myself in the maids’ hands.
The maids carefully brushed and arranged my silver hair, which was quite rare even within the Vellasi family, then fixed my half-up braided hair with pearl pins.
The clothes they put on me next were a comfortable chemise dress suitable for a light stroll through the garden, with frills along the hem and a beautiful blue fabric design that emphasized the waist.
Beneath it, shoes wrapped in pale pink satin gave off an elegant sheen.
“…At this rate, anyone would fall for me.”
Looking at my appearance as it grew more beautiful by the moment, I murmured without realizing it.
At those words, the maid who had been focused on doing my makeup came to her senses a beat late and asked,
“…What did you just say, Miss? I think you said something a moment ago too…”
“It’s nothing. I was just talking to myself.”
She quickly accepted my answer, then soon began chattering to me with a slightly excited air.
“In any case, you’re so beautiful, Miss. Anyone who sees you would have no choice but to fall for you.”
“…Is that so?”
It was what I had wanted to hear, but most of what maids said was often flattery, so I answered moderately.
Then the maid furrowed the space between her brows slightly, glared lightly, and said,
“Of course. Naturally, Miss. Look in the mirror. At your brilliantly beautiful self.”
“……”
“If you’re already this beautiful at seventeen, then once you come of age and make your debut, all of high society will surely be buzzing with your name.”
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