As night had just fallen, while Alda was galloping recklessly across the girl's body, Mr. Mo, dressed as an elderly nobleman, arrived by carriage at an estate in the northern outskirts of Berely.
The estate, sprawling across several hundred acres, was surrounded by oak woods and vineyards. Two streams wrapped around the roughly leaf-shaped estate, their banks planted with brilliantly colored chrysanthemums. It was early autumn, and the cold wind was bleak, yet the chrysanthemums were blooming boldly into the wind. Their rich fragrance drifted far on the breeze, shrouding the entire estate in a heavy floral scent.
Etris lifted the curtain and stared wide-eyed at the estate, which appeared especially tranquil beneath the starlight. Though it was night, her vision was no different from daytime. She could even see the veins on an oak leaf drifting in the wind two thousand meters away.
Her eyes were quiet and pure, like those of a newborn child. But if one looked closely, countless unfathomable things seemed to flicker in their depths. If one stared too long, one could even sense how greedy her eyes were, madly seizing every scrap of information from the outside world and ceaselessly engraving all that she saw into the immeasurable world within them.
"Etris, this estate will be where you live from now on!" Mr. Mo gently stroked Etris's head. Before others, Mr. Mo was mysterious, imposing, and beyond offense, but now he was so gentle and kind, exactly like every benevolent, loving father in the world.
Etris showed little reaction to his words. She merely nodded almost imperceptibly, then extended a hand and beckoned outside the carriage window. A bunch of grapes hanging from a nearby vine immediately flew up and obediently landed in her palm. Her tender little hand tightened slightly, crushing the grapes,