Don’t Ask, It’ll Hurt If You Know - Chapter 36

The maid, Vessa, did not answer, but her silence was a swift confirmation. She was indeed Maria’s exclusive maid. Chloe finally understood why Vessa acted as if she were Bianca’s superior. At the same time, a laugh escaped her because an even better subject for her experiment than Maria Lloyd had just appeared.

“Wh-what. Why are you laughing all of a sudden!”

Vessa, who had no way of knowing Chloe’s inner thoughts, shouted in extreme distress when Chloe suddenly burst into laughter. It was said that a maid resembled the mistress she served; Vessa’s shouting and ill-mannered behavior were identical to Maria Lloyd’s.

As Chloe couldn’t stop laughing, Vessa’s face flushed as if she had suffered a grave insult, and she glared at Emily.

“How dare you lie to our Young Lady? I won’t let you off, you!”

“I, I…….”

“I was the one who said to bring her because I wanted to apologize to Maria, so I’d prefer you didn’t take your anger out on an innocent person.”

When Vessa moved as if to grab Emily’s collar right away, Chloe snatched Vessa’s hand. She deliberately pressed down on the bone, gripping her painfully, and Vessa writhed in an effort to pull away.

If she were in Chloe Elena’s body, she would have easily endured and even overpowered her, but it was impossible in Bianca Lloyd’s body. Even resisting was difficult.

She’s annoyingly weak, honestly. Chloe clicked her tongue and released Vessa’s wrist. Vessa stumbled backward, put her hands on her hips, and glared with wide eyes.

“How dare you lie to the Young Lady! You didn’t think you would just get away with this, did you? I’ll tell the Young Lady and the Madam!”

Vessa expected the frightened Bianca to profusely apologize, begging her not to tell. That’s how it always was. Then, Vessa planned to haughtily raise her chin and thoroughly ridicule Bianca Lloyd, the Young Lady who was only a noblewoman in name.

“Go ahead and tell them.”

As she scoffed and gave the impression she could do whatever she liked, Vessa was extremely flustered and looked back at Emily. Emily also wore a bewildered expression.

Ignoring them, Chloe looked around, found a vase on top of the chest of drawers, and gave a faint smile. There were no flowers in the vase, but there was water. Rotten water that had been stagnant, not changed for a long time.

“A-are you really okay with me telling them? This time, it won’t just end with being locked in your room!”

“I don’t care. More importantly, let’s do one experiment before you go.”

“What kind of……Aack!”

[Splash water on Vessa’s face.]

Following Bianca’s bucket list, Chloe splashed the water on her face. The amount was small, but it was enough to defile her face. It was even more satisfying because a horrendous rotten stench came from the water.

Vessa also wrinkled her nose at the terrible smell and tried to wipe her face, but it was useless. Instead, the feeling of it soaking deep into her skin was driving her crazy. Vessa glared at Chloe, her face on the verge of tears.

“H-how could you do something like this!?”

“That’s an amusing thing to say.”

Chloe smiled sweetly and placed the vase in Vessa’s hand.

“It’s nothing compared to what you did to me.”

In truth, Chloe didn’t remember what Vessa had done to Bianca. She hadn’t memorized the diary’s contents in detail.

However, Vessa’s name often appeared in the diary, and Chloe assumed Bianca had written that wish because Vessa had done something.

As expected, Vessa’s eyes shook violently, as if she was feeling guilty. Chloe watched in fascination as Vessa clutched the vase with an even more trembling hand, then tapped her shoulder.

“Be sure to tell your Young Lady and the Viscountess.”

That way, they would come, and she could test other things too.

Just as Chloe was about to emphasize it again, she suddenly felt the strength drain completely from her body. Simultaneously, her vision went black, and her consciousness rapidly faded.

The unsettling sensation that she still hadn’t gotten used to, even after experiencing it several times. That’s why she laughed. If her prediction was correct, this was the sign that she was returning to her original body.

Of course, she couldn’t rest assured until she opened her eyes again and confirmed she had truly returned to her original body. Chloe desperately wished for the conclusion to be clean this time and let go of the thread of consciousness.

* * *

The light that penetrated the pitch-black world was extremely bright and intense. Thanks to that, the first thing Chloe did the moment she woke up, now wide awake, was run to the vanity and look in the mirror.

“Ugh, I’m going to die.”

Her body wasn’t in as terrible a state as last time, but it was still poor. Just walking from the bed to the vanity made cold sweat stream down her back.

Chloe vowed that she definitely needed a full-length mirror by her bed and stared at her reflection in the vanity mirror.

Slightly messy blonde hair, rough skin, cracked lips lacking color, and blue eyes that were unfittingly full of life.

“I’m back…….”

She had worried so much that she might be wrong, so this was a tremendous relief. Her blue eyes, filled with emotion, shimmered.

Chloe, who had been staring intently at her reflection like some foolish man who loved his image in the water so much he drowned, soon slapped both of her cheeks hard.

“Snap out of it. This isn’t the time to be like this.”

She didn’t know when she would switch back to Bianca Lloyd, so she had to do everything she could before then.

Chloe completely calmed her excited mind with a short deep breath and first checked the time.

“11:10.”

The bright light outside the window confirmed it was morning. Since it was also morning when she was Bianca Lloyd, and the time was about 10:30, it seemed the body switch took approximately 30 minutes.

It didn’t take long this time. If the difference was only an hour or two, she would have dismissed it, but the last time there was a difference of over half a day, which made her a little puzzled.

Thinking about the reason for the difference, Chloe pulled the bell pull next to her bed. It was the cord connected to the room of Dorothy, the nursemaid’s daughter and her exclusive maid.

Shaking the bell would bring anyone nearby, which would be faster, but she deliberately pulled the bell pull because there was something private she wanted to ask only Dorothy.

“Ah, Young Lady!”

“Young Lady Chloe is awake!”

“We are so relieved that you woke up safely, Young Lady!”

She clearly only called for Dorothy, so why did everyone rush in?

Chloe stared, dumbfounded, at the crowd of people gathered in front of her bedroom door. It was an enormous number, as if everyone working at the Count Elena’s mansion had come. The white-haired Head Butler and Head Maid, both nearing their 60s, were also there.

Most were extremely moved and crying as if they had experienced a miracle, but the person crying the most was, without a doubt, Dorothy.

Dorothy hugged Chloe tightly and poured out all her tears and snot.

“Huuuueegh, Young Lady. Young Lady Chloe. I’m so glad you woke up. If you hadn’t woken up like this, I was going to just kill myself……!”

“Why would you kill yourself? Just calm down and stop crying, stop.”

Since the situation was like this, Chloe had to waste precious time comforting and soothing the servants, including Dorothy. Of course, she was grateful to the people who had worried about her, but she kept growing anxious, not knowing how much time she had left.

“Chloe!”

Contrary to Chloe’s wish for the situation to end quickly, her parents and her eldest brother, Aaron Elena, appeared, making the situation even worse.

“My daughter, are you alright? Are you in pain anywhere? Is anything uncomfortable? Huh? You’re fine now, aren’t you?”

The Countess Elena carefully cupped her extremely thin daughter’s cheeks with both hands, her cheekbones noticeably protruding, and asked. The Countess’s face was also haggard, though not as much as Chloe’s. Tear marks were clearly visible around her eyes.

The Count Elena was the same, and Aaron Elena also looked fine at a glance, but a closer look revealed his eyes were red-rimmed.

Chloe’s eyes, after looking over her family’s faces, also grew gradually moist.

When the servants spoke with tears in their eyes, saying they had worried so much, her anxious and bothered feelings were frankly greater than her gratitude. There was no time. Their sincerity hadn’t been fully conveyed to her heart.

But her family was different. Just seeing their noticeably haggard faces made her heart swell, and her anxiousness and other thoughts vanished. The area around her eyes grew hot, and her vision became hazy.

She was afraid that if she opened her mouth, a huge lump would burst out, but since there was something she absolutely had to say, Chloe wrapped her arms fully around her mother and parted her lips.

“I’m sorry for…… worrying you. I’m truly sorry, Mother.”