"Your hands have grown so slender, too."
Cui Ciyou murmured softly, his large hand securely enclosing the little fist Alice had swung at him.
The delicate, warm, remarkably supple feel of it against his palm made him marvel once more.
"They really are a young woman's hands now."
"Not like before, when they were still a little chubby, like a child's."
That unthinking remark of his...
Seemed to become a spell, draining every last bit of strength from Alice in an instant.
The girl's ferocious air, like that of a little lioness with her hackles raised...
Vanished without a trace.
Her body went completely limp.
She buried her burning cheeks deep in Cui Ciyou's embrace.
A voice as faint as a mosquito's buzz, filled with unprecedented shyness, came from his arms.
"It... it was Mother..."
"Hmm?"
Cui Ciyou responded with interest.
"Mother... spoke to me today..."
Alice's voice faltered.
Every word seemed to carry a hint of desperate resolve.
"She told me... said... said that you're a normal man too, Ciyou."
"We... we're already engaged, and we're about to leave on a long journey."
"It's a long way, so..."
She suddenly drew a deep breath, as though she were about to perform some sacred ritual.
"So I came... came to fulfill... my duty as a wife!"
When Alice squeezed out those last few words with all her strength...
Only their heartbeats remained in the air, pounding like drums.
Cui Ciyou was utterly stunned.
For all his calculations, he had never imagined this.
Behind Alice's "night raid" was none other than Lady Hilda, that "God-level mother-in-law," personally coaching her and lending a hand!
Cui Ciyou had thought it was Philip's doing.
In the original story, Philip had wanted to bind Rudeus, that promising future prospect, to House Boreas's cause.
He had