Xue Yunfeng looked at him in bewilderment. "Huh?"
Linde pursed his lips, then finally laughed. "That Lady Rose went straight for the real target, though she probably didn't find what she wanted.
"The woman she impersonated—the one called a Shadow Guard but actually a Shadow Assassin—is the one most closely connected to this matter."
Xue Yunfeng tilted his head. "The female steward? I remember she only impersonated her; she never made a move on that woman... Right, what was her name? I rarely hear any of you call her by name."
"Other than my mother, only Ellie occasionally calls her by name. She spent her entire life trying to diminish her own presence... not in the usual sense of the word."
Xue Yunfeng understood immediately. "She wanted everyone to think she was just an ordinary head maid... preferably to the point where they forgot she was a professional?"
Linde nodded. "When Ellie was little, she and the butler were the ones who raised her. No matter how close she appeared to them, it would seem perfectly natural. If anything, it reinforced the impression that she was Ellie's nanny, so calling her name once in a while didn't matter.
"Oh, right. Her name is Parris."
"Rose..." Xue Yunfeng found it truly unbelievable. "She's an evil goddess who wallows in filth. After observing her for so long, she might even have impersonated Parris and entered her room, or perhaps... used Silk Spiders to control her directly.
"If that thing really was in Parris's hands... how could Rose have felt absolutely nothing?"
"Parris is utterly loyal to my mother." Linde brushed the hair from his forehead and said somewhat blankly, "Even her own children and Ellie, whom she raised with her own hands, are insignificant when compared to my mother's interests.
"I used