’My darling Julian,’ the Marchioness read, her voice dripping with mock sentimentality, ’The way my father looks at me, thinking I am his pure, obedient daughter, makes me laugh at times. If only he knew that while he negotiates my marriage to a high-ranking Duke, I am dreaming only of the nights we spent in the hunting lodge. Evelina is a fool for her devotion, and I shall use her dowry to fund our escape once the Duke is sufficiently bored of her...’

The ballroom had gone pin-drop silent.

The saintly snow, Selene, the paragon of virtue who had spent years looking down on the unrefined people, was revealed in a single paragraph as a cold-blooded adulteress and a thief of her own sister’s future.

The letter detailed not just a lover, but a calculated plan to defraud the Alvarez estate.

Ace, who had blended in the shadows for the entire day, felt a wave of cold fury wash over him.

He had never cared for much for the Snow Family so their actions barely bothered him. But the sheer, brazen mockery of the woman he had married irked him.

To others, it might have looked like an accident. But he had observed everything and he knew Evelina did it all purpose, not caring about his reputation or hers in the slight.

Evelina, on the other hand, enjoyed playing the role of the horrified and confused sister while the System blasted up/

[Notification: Saintly image Shattered!]

[Target: Selene Snow’s Reputation: 0/100 (Status: Social Leper)]

[Notification: Target ’Ace’ is 90% incensed.]

[Reward: +700 Heart-Wrecker Points!]

[Current Balance: 4700 Heart-Wrecker Points]

Evelina sighed in her heart. She had been mourning her stagnant balance for a while now. Had she known that her balance would blast up in one Midsummer’s tea, she would have taken some time off to pray for more such occasions.

At this moment, the Empress moved and Evelina snapped out of her thoughts.

The Empress leaned forward, an amused look on her face as she spoke,"A hunting lodge, Lady Selene? And here I thought you spent your evenings in the chapel, praying for the Empire’s prosperity."

The crowd of the court, ever quick to turn on a fallen bird, began to hiss the moment the Empress spoke.

"How scandalous!"

"And to think we let our daughters associate with such a creature!"

"Using the Duchess’s dowry? It’s a crime against the Crown!"

Selene’s her mascara ran in black streaks down her face, her wet pink chiffon making her look like a piece of raw meat left in the rain.

She looked for her father, Baron Snow, but he was currently backing away into the crowd, his face barely masking the shame and terror he felt. It was obvious that he wasn’t going to save her; he was already calculating how to survive the fallout.

Evelina leaned down, as if to help her sister up, but she stopped just inches from Selene’s ear. Her voice was barely a whisper.

"At times, dear sister, you should learn to step back when there is still space for you," Evelina smiled, "Or else, the fall becomes very ugly."

Selene let out a shattered shriek, barely able to comprehend the events around her anymore.

She scrambled to her feet and fled the Rose Pavilion in complete desperation.

The reputation of the Snow family had disintegrated into dust with the revelations that were made.

Evelina caught Ace’s eye across the room. He didn’t look away when their eyes met and there was an undeniable tension in the eye contact.

The Midsummer’s Tea had begun as a ritual of practiced elegance that had been passed in the royal family for years but the ending of it was so unexpected that the guests had long turned unsettled.

The atmosphere had long turned heavy with an awkwardness lingering in the air.

Evelina stood at the center of this storm, attracting all sorts of gazes to herself.

She was not the one humiliated or exposed in today’s events, but somehow every event that had transpired in the Imperial palace was connected to her.

Although she was not in the wrong, people still judged her. It was funny to Evelina. Had she fallen victim to these schemes, her reputation would have been destroyed further.

But now that she flipped the script, and revealed everybody’s true face, they still judged her.

It looked like regardless of whether she was the victim or the villain, she couldn’t escape people’s judgement.

Evelina sighed in her heart. Luckily, it was fine by her. In the second life of hers, the last thing she chased was people’s validations.

Across the pavilion, Ace stood in the hadow of a marble pillar, his arms crossed over his chest.

His military coat, decorated with medals for his bravery and strategic brilliance, felt suddenly restrictive to him. He had arrived late, intending to fulfill his barest duty: to escort his wife home at the end of the night.

It was a task he usually delegated to a footman or a bored lieutenant, a menial chore he felt was beneath the dignity of the Iron Duke.

But today, he hadn’t been able to do so. No matter how he thought of avoiding Evelina, she haunted his mind. In the end, he had arrived here and witnessed the show she had stayed.

He had stayed in his corner, deciding to watch his wife perform.

And at some point, Ace had expected the old Evelina to reappear.

He expected the adrenaline to fade and for her to collapse into a corner, trembling and searching for his protection.

He had been preparing himself to step forward, to finally save her from the fallout, to be the hero who would shield her from everyone who dared to look at her.

He expected her to need him. He... wanted her to need him.

But as the Empress gestured for a fresh pot of the rare tea, Ace realized his expectation was just a delusion.

Despite being in the hot waters, Evelina didn’t look for him even once.

And what was ironic was that he was the one who couldn’t control himself in the end. The sight of all those hawks watching his wife made his chest burn.

’Fuck it!’