DLMSWSHH Chapter 17

TL: Hua

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Chapter 17: Compilation

A few more days passed, and Zhong Ming had become quite proficient in his duties.

Standing at the back kitchen door leading to the garden, he glanced down at his ledger. He looked up at Matthew and Archie, who were resting after moving supplies into the house.

“The books are short by twenty.”

Matthew, sitting on a crate, paused in the middle of smoking. Archie, the ginger-haired manservant, also stiffened and lowered his head.

Neither spoke. Zhong Ming wasn’t in a hurry. His gaze swept over the crates on the ground. He now knew exactly what goods entered the mansion each day. Combined with the missing amount—

“Which one of you hid an extra pack of cigarettes?” Zhong Ming said calmly, eyes downcast.

Matthew and Archie flinched simultaneously. After a long silence, Matthew cleared his throat awkwardly. He stood up from the steps, pulled a pack of cigarettes from his back pocket, and handed it to Zhong Ming.

“…Really can’t hide anything from you.”

A smile touched his emerald eyes. He took a few steps closer, leaning a hand against the doorframe and looking down as Zhong Ming wrote in the ledger. Standing on the steps, Zhong Ming was still half a head shorter than him; the posture made it look like Matthew was boxing him in with his arms.

Matthew watched Zhong Ming, who was half-hidden in his shadow. His Adam’s apple bobbed.

Zhong Ming didn’t respond. He focused on balancing the accounts. He flicked open the cigarette pack with one hand and saw two were missing.

Matthew had likely swiped the pack and shared one with Archie. Zhong Ming looked up to see Matthew with a cigarette dangling from his lips, smiling at him.

Zhong Ming reached out and snatched the cigarette right out of Matthew’s mouth. Under Matthew’s stunned gaze, he dropped it on the ground and crushed it with his foot.

Then, he looked at Archie sitting on the crate nearby. Archie shivered under the gaze and obediently took the cigarette out of his own mouth.

Zhong Ming retracted his gaze and said softly, “Don’t do it again.”

He turned and walked away. Matthew stared at his back, dumbfounded, frozen for several seconds. Then, he smacked his lips and couldn’t help but sigh: “Since when did his temper get so big?”

Though he said it that way, there was no displeasure on his face. Upon closer look, his green eyes held a trace of excitement. He rarely spoke to lower-level menservants, but this time he broke his rule and turned to Archie.

“See that? If he keeps acting like this, wouldn’t he run the whole household with an iron fist in the future?”

Archie was a dull man; he just looked up, said nothing, and looked away. Matthew didn’t mind. He chuckled, pulled a cigarette from his own stash, lit it, and squinted through the smoke at Zhong Ming’s retreating figure.

Inside the archives, the whip Tao had left on the table days ago had long been put away in a cabinet.

Zhong Ming sat at the desk, fountain pen in hand. He looked down at the words on the page, reciting them in his mind.

Ludwig walked to the edge of the gray lake. To retrieve the pearl bracelet dropped by Princess Fancy, he waded into the water and was never seen again.

The neat, complex script on the page was reflected in his eyes, and an image formed in his mind. He could almost see a noble youth in armor, sword in his left hand, stepping into the gray lake under the cover of the black forest, vanishing into its depths.

It felt like a somewhat eerie, somber romance.

A faint smile touched Zhong Ming’s lips as he set pen to paper.

On the other side of the room, Tao sat behind the desk, chin resting on one hand. His wristwatch shimmered. His gaze was fixed on Zhong Ming. After a while, he suddenly pulled his legs off the desk, stood up slowly, and walked behind the youth. He looked down at the handwriting on the paper. After a long silence, he spoke: “Your handwriting is actually quite good.”

The tip of Zhong Ming’s pen paused. He looked up at him. Tao arched an eyebrow.

“What? Can’t I give you a compliment?”

He was completely unapologetic, feeling not the slightest bit of guilt for his sudden change in attitude. Turning around, he pulled three books from the shelf.

“Sections 32, 145, and 3. Transcribe them all.”

Zhong Ming glanced at them, picked up his pen to continue writing, and asked casually, “What are these for?”

Had he asked this a week ago, Tao likely wouldn’t have even spared him a glance. But in this godforsaken place, someone with a bit of culture was a rare find. Tao had to admit he was feeling a touch of favoritism. He paused, then replied, “These are Young Master Albert’s bedtime fairy tales.”

Snap.

Zhong Ming’s nib jolted to a halt, leaving a long, dark ink smudge across the paper.

Tao immediately frowned. “Hey, don’t forget the penalty system is still in effect.”

He looked at Zhong Ming’s pale, slender hand holding the pen. For a fleeting moment, the urge to leave a scar on it surged within him, but he quickly suppressed it.

With such beautiful handwriting, if I have to hit him, I should at least avoid the hands, Tao thought silently. Recalling the scars he had previously left on that soft palm, he felt a rare flicker of regret.

Completely unaware of the dark thoughts swirling in the mind of the well-dressed man beside him, Zhong Ming stared at the text on the page, his brow furrowed. He couldn’t believe they gave such eerie material to a child as bedtime reading.

No wonder Albert has such a twisted and unpredictable personality, Zhong Ming thought.

However, it wasn’t his place to critique someone else’s parenting. He switched to a fresh sheet of paper and continued writing.

In a principality within the Eastern Forest, a child was born with skin as white as snow, yet flushed with the red of fresh blood, and hair as black and lustrous as ebony.

Seeing the familiar words, it suddenly clicked for Zhong Ming. Isn’t this Snow White? Finally, something that seemed relatively normal. Relieved, he kept writing.

This lovely child was dearly cherished by the king and queen. At his full-moon celebration, the queen gifted him a pony; a year later, the king bestowed upon him a sword symbolizing courage and strength.

Zhong Ming’s pen faltered slightly. His gaze locked onto the pronoun. It was clearly the masculine “he/him.”

…S-snow White Prince?! Zhong Ming’s eyes twitched. He had lost all faith in these “fairy tales.” He mentally checked out and began transcribing on autopilot.

He didn’t stop until the bell rang to signal the end of his shift. Aside from the dissonance caused by the protagonist’s gender, the story of the “Snow White Prince” was actually fairly normal. It told of a young prince, beloved by the Lord, who set out on an adventure to slay a dragon lurking deep within the forest. However, this traditional adventure had a bizarre ending: after enduring countless hardships and finally facing the dragon, the prince was betrayed by the golden toad he carried. He was infected with a strange toxin that stripped away the Lord’s blessings.

The story ended abruptly there. It was left unknown whether the prince ever cleared the poison or succeeded in slaying the dragon.

Zhong Ming was speechless. If he had read a story like this as a child, he would have found it incredibly frustrating. He wondered what these people were thinking. After handing the bound “fairy tale book” to Tao, he pushed the matter to the back of his mind.

Another week passed, and Zhong Ming had become quite proficient at his work in the archives. Even Tao was forced to admit to Madam Mary that Zhong Ming was a very capable assistant.

Madam Mary was visibly stunned. Upon hearing Tao’s praise, she stood frozen for a long moment before frowning at Zhong Ming. “You’ve been educated?”

Most of the menservants here had low levels of education. Like Matthew, most had only ever read the Bible and were barely literate, let alone knowledgeable in advanced subjects like mathematics or astronomy.

In the setting of this horror game, the Church was the sole source of knowledge for most European families. Almost all schools were established by royalty, nobility, or great lords; only the wealthy and elite had the chance to attend academies.

Zhong Ming looked up and said somewhat uncertainly, “…I believe so.”

Though his memories were fuzzy, he must have at least attended university in his past life. Otherwise, given how competitive society was, he probably wouldn’t have even landed a corporate job.

A complicated expression crossed Mary’s face. After a moment, she stepped forward and placed a hand on Zhong Ming’s right shoulder. “Since you are educated, you should focus even more on your work,” she said. “Don’t waste your thoughts on wicked distractions.”

Her words sounded almost like an earnest piece of advice. Zhong Ming didn’t quite understand her meaning, but he nodded obediently nonetheless.

However, if anyone was truly shocked by Zhong Ming’s sudden rise to importance, it was the other lower-level servants. Most of them were assigned basic manual labor; the lucky ones stayed indoors, while the unlucky ones worked outside in grueling conditions.

Now everyone knew Zhong Ming was Tao’s right-hand man, managing the ledgers and overseeing various affairs.

Nothing breeds resentment like perceived inequality. Every day when Zhong Ming returned downstairs, he could feel the increasing weight of hostile glares. One day, he was even locked inside the bathroom while showering. If Li Yizhi hadn’t happened to walk by, he likely would have spent the entire night there.

When he saw Li Yizhi at the door, Zhong Ming breathed a sigh of relief but remained suspicious. “How did you know I was in here?”

To avoid conflict, he usually showered when he thought no one was looking. Li Yizhi, tall and elegant, leaned nonchalantly against the doorframe. Crossing his fingers, his phoenix eyes crinkled as he said, “I did a quick calculation and knew you were in trouble.”

The bit of gratitude in Zhong Ming’s heart instantly vanished. Li Yizhi followed him with his hands in his pockets, smiling. “Do you want to know who did it? I can calculate that, too.”

Zhong Ming said flatly, “No need. I’m not interested.”

It was likely one of the usual suspects. Being new and currently lacking the power to retaliate, he figured he was better off not knowing.

Seeing that Zhong Ming had his own ideas, Li Yizhi nodded, then asked curiously, “Speaking of which, what do you and Tao do in the archives all day?” He lowered his voice. “That creep hasn’t been using a whip on you, has he?”

Zhong Ming glanced at him. Li Yizhi certainly seemed to know every servant in the mansion well. He shook his head and said, “Nothing like that. I just transcribe stories for the young master.”

Even if those stories were strange.

However, upon hearing this, Li Yizhi’s expression turned odd. “What stories?”

Zhong Ming looked at him and recited a short passage from memory. “Something like that. A bit weird, right?”

But Li Yizhi’s expression grew even stranger. He remained silent for a long time. Just as Zhong Ming was starting to find the silence awkward, Li Yizhi spoke slowly: “You can actually read the words in those books?”

Zhong Ming blinked, nodding. “Can’t you?”

Li Yizhi stared at him intensely. After a moment, he pointed to his own head. “This game’s translation system only works for speech, not text.”

Zhong Ming froze. Li Yizhi continued, “The setting of this game is ancient Europe. Among the lower servants, only Archie can barely recognize a few words. Why can you read it?”

Zhong Ming’s eyes widened. He was completely stunned, unable to find his voice.

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