#THE_LAST_MINUTE_GROOM_S3
©Sir_Zach
EPISODE 43
“How?”
“Tell Brian the truth and set him free. He might forgive you… And I heard you kidnapped his mother?”
She let go of Nanny Xie and nodded, “I did, but I let her go after making a deal with Hwang.”
“You didn’t ask him for a child, did you?” the woman glared at her.
Nancy stayed silent, an affirmation of the question.
“How could you?!”
“Nanny Xie, the doctor said I only have this month to get pregnant. He said…” She paused and swallowed. Seeing the horrified look slowly crawling onto Nanny Xie’s face, Nancy nodded slowly as hot tears slid down her cheeks.
Nanny Xie shook her head in disbelief as she took a few steps back,” N– no, this cannot be real!”
She glanced at Death and Nightcrawler. The two had their heads down and refused to look at her.
“Talk to me!… Is she telling the truth?!” The woman yelled in pain. One could feel the heartbreak in her voice.
Nightcrawler raised his head and promised, “We’ll search for the Rainborite ore, I promise you, Madam!”
“Is the rainborite ore so easy to find?” The woman broke down in tears and sat on the floor, slapping her chest and blaming herself. If it weren’t because she thr_@tened Nancy with her life, Nancy wouldn’t have agreed to accept her twin sister’s heart, nor would she have accepted to come with her mother to SIN CITY. Everything was her fault! She thought.
Nancy and Nanny Xie consoled each other through the night. She spent the night at Nanny Xie’s place.
___
Meanwhile, at the Hwang Mansion, the maids were causing trouble for a fellow maid at the servant quarters.
Rossa hasn’t been having good days in the servant quarters ever since she joined the servants, but it got worse today after she was appointed Brian’s chef.
All the servants who never liked her because she came from a less privileged country took their bullying to another level.
Earlier today, they came up with two rules she must follow, or else they’d ki|| her. Rossa, who was ‘shivering’ like a drenched chick, didn’t dare to fight back.
One of the rules was that Rossa would only eat the leftovers from the servants, and if there weren’t enough for her to eat, she’d sleep on an empty stomach. Another rule she must follow if she doesn’t want to die is Rossa will only take her to bathe after everyone else.
The reason they came up with such heartless rules was to get her to be noticed by the butler for the wrong reasons.
When she doesn’t do her job well because she doesn’t have enough to eat, she’d definitely be fired. If that doesn’t work, then the fact that she’d be coming late to work would certainly do the trick. So they thought.
Rossa allowed herself to be bullied without fighting back. Why should she when she has use for these bullies? If only they knew they’d gotten targets on their backs, they would have left the smiling Rossa, who never gets angry, alone.
It was late into the night, and everyone was sleeping, yet Rossa was just about to take her bath. They thought this would be inconvenient for Rossa, but unfortunately, they had no idea they were making things easier for her.
Like right now, after everyone had gone to sleep, Rossa locked the doors and entered the bathroom. Filling the bathtub with warm water, she opened the zip of her black and white uniform and let the cloth slide off her shoulders, then walked to stand in front of the mirror.
Observing her cubby self in the mirror, her lips stretched into a faint smile before she looked down at her chest. There was a silver pendant on her neck that extended down to her cleavage. Rossa touched the pendant and played with it for a moment before gently tugging it down.
Once she did that, a thin zip appeared, and the silicon body slowly started to part, revealing a fair, smooth, and clean body.
Soon, the fat silicon bodysuit dropped to the white tiled floor while an average body stood on it. From where the line of the necklace on her neck was, she pried it open with a finger before dipping the rest fingers into it and slowly peeled the mask off.
Without the head mask and chubby body, what was standing in front of the mirror was none other than, Jeslyn!
Her skin soon started to blush from how tight the silicon skin was on her. Seeing this, she reckoned that her warm bath would be ready by now, so she went to soak herself in the tub for a few minutes.
About an hour or two later, Jeslyn wore the chubby silicone and mask one more time, then looked for her locker and brought out a black nightwear, and put it on before going out of the bathroom to sleep like nothing had just happened.
…
*At dawn…*
The servants awoke and rushed through their morning routine, like dressing their beds and taking their baths, yet Rossa was still asleep. They giggled excitedly, believing their plan was working. Once they were done with their morning routine, they hurriedly left their quarters to resume morning duties. They thought that Rossa would be sent away today, so they did their work with much excitement.
Even the Chefs were excited at the thought of Rossa getting fired. Her work is not much, yet her salary was increased. Now she’s earning as much as the senior chefs are. How can a maid who has no qualification for being a chef make the same amount as them? Most of the time, all she does is come to work late and stay idle, gist and laugh with the Young Master who sees everyone else as $h|t!
Why is she different? Why does she have to own it all and leave them with nothing? What’s so special about her that the Young Master found her food delicious? Neither Madam Nancy nor the Young Master had praised them for their excellent cooking before, yet the Young Master never stopped showering her with praises since morning and even promised to get her a gift!
Jealousy and hatred lead to the reason all the servants decide to teach Rossa a bitter lesson so that wherever she goes after this, she will learn to stop stealing the limelight.
Thirty minutes later, the butler arrived, and all the servants, plus the chefs, stood in a straight line for their regular weekly assessment. The butler, an advanced man with an unfriendly air and piercing eyes, walked by the female servants one after another.
The man stood before a maid and took some strands of her hair, then smelt it, “Your hair has an awful smell. Pack up, you’re fired!”
He walked away from the lady without giving her a second to speak. Then continued until he spotted another lady with a fault. After checking everywhere on her body, he grabbed her fingers and said in rage, “Your nails are too long, and germs can build up in there… you are fired!”
The man went further until he arrived at the last person, Rossa. The man paused for a while to observe her. He raised his hand, wanting to touch her face, but she held his hand in mid-air and smiled, “is there dirt on my face? I’ll take it off, don’t stress, Grandpa,” she gently put the man’s hand down and dusted her face, yet there was nothing on her face.
“You just woke up?” the butler asked with a frown.
Rossa nodded and said in a low yet cute voice, “Yes, Grandpa.”
The man wanted to rage, but seeing how cute she was, he held back his tongue; “I’m not your grandpa,” he glared at her.
“Ok, I’ll call you grandpa butler, how does that sound?” she beamed.
The old man wanted to chastise her again for acting like his spoiled granddaughter but couldn’t bring himself to, so he sighed and pointed towards the kitchen, “Make sure your dishes are ready in one hour thirty minutes.”
“Yes, sir!” she giggled and ran off.
Other servants were fuming and calling her ugly names in their minds, but there was nothing they could do right now, so they had to endure until they got a chance.
Rossa finished cooking at exactly one hour-thirty minutes, but after serving the dishes, Brian came around and told her Nancy wasn’t home.
“My mom isn’t here, so have a seat.”
“I didn’t make her portion anyway. Hope she didn’t travel?” Rossa sat on one of the chairs with a scowling face.
“I’m not sure. By the way, how’s your plan coming around?” he asked softly.
“I told you we can’t talk about such things. Aren’t there CCTV cameras all around here?” she almost glared at him but controlled herself.
“Ah, true, I’m sorry about that…” The atmosphere became awkward.
“I haven’t seen your father since I was employed, where did he go?”
Brian shook his head, “Not sure.”
Meanwhile, Nancy had left Nanny Xie’s place and was heading home. Looking out the car window in silence, she thought about the advice her Nanny gave her. After a while, she shifted her gaze to the two guys in the front seats.
“Have you found who burnt down the hospital?” she asked out of the blue.
“Yes, ma’am, it was one of Sir’s men.”
Nancy slowly nodded, “Where’s the person?”
“He’s being punished.”
A long silence filled the car for a while before Death asked, “Ma’am, why do you take the blame for everything and make people belive you did things you are innocent of?”
Like when Brian accused her of setting fire to the hospital and pointed a gun at her, Nancy didn’t deny the accusation, nor fight back, making Brian believe she really did.
“Whether I accept or not, no one would believe me, so what was the point?… But this time, I hope Jeslyn is intelligent enough to know right from wrong.”
Nancy didn’t speak anymore after that. The car drove steadily until it got to the Hwang Resident.
Nancy met Brian eating and ‘a maid’ sitting at the dining table, talking with her son. She pretended like she didn’t see that disrespectful action. The maid stood up, probably to explain what didn’t need explanation, but before she could speak, Nancy raised her hand to stop her.
“You two, meet me in the garden in the next two hours!” She went away after that.
Rossa felt her breath hitched in her throat all this while, which is why she still couldn’t react after Nancy left.
“It’s fine now, she might probably think we were dating.”
“And you think that’s a great thing?”
“At this point, there’s really nothing we can do.”
“I can’t go to the garden empty-handed, let me go and make some cake.” Rossa left the dining room after that.
…
*In the garden…*
The smell of fresh flowers permeated the place, selling tranquility and serenity that people like Nancy couldn’t buy, no matter the money they had. She was wearing a white gown and was sitting on a plain white cloth that was spread on the grass. From afar, the woman looked lonely and sad.
Rossa frowned slightly at the weird feeling of sadness that engulfed her for a moment but immediately ki||ed it before her conscience would be awoken. She walked forward with Brian and knelt in front of Nancy while placing the tray she was holding down, she said;
“Ma’am, I brought you another type of cake,” she tried to sound like she was happy, but the sadness around Nancy could not be ignored.
Brian sat beside her and asked, “Mom, what’s wrong?”
Nancy felt a slight joy. This was the first time Brian noticed something was off about her. Her demeanor changed to the facade of a powerful woman, “Do I look unwell?”
“Quite.” He replied and turned away. She was still acting Ɓîtçhy, so there was no need to care about her anymore, he thought.
The woman’s lips curled down in slight unhappiness, an action that went unnoticed by the two.
Feeling the cold treatment the two were giving each other, Rossa cleared her throat and said;
“I know I’m not in the right position to say this, but ma’am, your skin is getting paler and…” she lowered her head.
“Are you suddenly scared?” Nancy asked in a cold voice.
“No,” Rossa shook her head.
Nancy raised a brow, “Everyone is scared of me. You’re the first to say this to my face.”
Rossa was caught off guard, and so was Brian, but she immediately beamed, concealing her nervousness again.
“It’s not their fault they’re scared… You look frightening, but I’m not scared of you because I used to have an aunt who was like you, but she was extremely kind at heart.”
Nancy shifted her gaze to scrutinize her lying lips before she asked, “Where is that aunt of yours now?”
Rossa sighed and let her shoulders slump, “she died five years ago.”
“Hm,” she replied and picked a piece of cake with chopsticks.
“You said these aren’t Moon cakes?”
“Yes”, Rossa nodded fervently.
“What are these called?”
“It’s an osmanthus cake.”
“What are the ingredients?” she asked.
“Glutinous rice, osmanthus, and sugar.”
“Why did you decide to make this even though moon cakes are sweeter?”
“Because of the health benefits… My grandmother used to say that osmanthus cake helps against depression and eases mental stress. The leaves are also medicinal when brewed as tea.”
Nancy glanced at her, “Do I look depressed?”
Rossa watched her for a moment before she slowly nodded.
“And you feel you can cure me?”
This time, Rossa shook her head, “Only a depressed person can help themselves heal. External help is just to render support.”
Nancy rested her back on the tree trunk behind her, “You are intelligent. No wonder he likes you.” She took a bite from the cake with her chopstick before she put it down and moved her gaze to the blue sky.
Brian and Rossa were left in a daze. The two thought Nancy was referring to their relationship but had no idea Nancy was looking beyond their facade.
Rossa was becoming increasingly nervous, and the atmosphere was making her uncomfortable. Nancy was a heartless woman, and Rossa feared that she wouldn’t hesitate to ki|| her right there and then. Rossa immediately looked around, there were no guards anywhere, so she asked, “Your guards aren’t with you today.”
“I’m alone, you can ki|| me now, they won’t cause you trouble,” Nancy uttered while still looking at the white sky. There was no moon and the weather was quite chilling…
Brian and Rossa exchanged a glance, what Nancy said sounded too suspicious, but a moment later, Rossa managed a small laugh, “Ma’am, I didn’t know you could joke too. Why would anyone want to ki|| you?”
Brian was nervous for Rossa but when she maneuvered her way around the tense situation, he also joined in the fun and smiled.
Nancy shifted her gaze to Jeslyn, making sure her eyes were boring holes in her before answering. “Because I’ve caused them harm? Isn’t that enough reason to have people disguise themselves and come into my house to ki|| me?” seeing the horrified looks on their faces, she snorted, “It’s the audacity for me, really. How bold of you, Jeslyn, coming into my house like this!” She laughed, but there was no humor in her voice.