Chapter 238: The Picture of a (Di)stressed Mess
“Good afternoon, Matriarch Telana. Thank you for agreeing to this humble request for a meeting.”
“Of course, it’s only polite.”
Telana present a gloved hand to Zhen Hai in order for him to kiss it, as was polite form of greeting from a young man to an older woman.
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=Not quite. Peep the palms, Pathos.=
=Check the middle bump, the hand our lord is about to kiss.=
=The question isn’t if he will notice, the question is if he will mention it to her, at all.=
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Once Zhen Hai had finished giving his greetings, Zhen Liu moved in to give his.
“Wonderful to see you again, Lady Corrada,” Zhen Liu said as he politely moved in to kiss her hand as well.
Zhen Liu couldn’t help but notice that as he took the hand into his own, the lady it was attached suddenly stiffened up. So much so that he saw a small bump going around the inside of her gloved hand and instinctively ran his thumb over the portion of the hand. Judging from the multiple layers he could feel, it was clearly a bandage.
‘Strange. I wonder how she injured her hand,’ Zhen Liu thought to himself.
However, he determined it would be prudent not to mention the injury.
Gloves may be a fashion statement, but to wear them in the middle of a desert was…questionable. Definitely not a subject to approach while as a guest in another’s home.
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‘How the fuck did this little brat know I injured my hand?,’ Telana quietly asked herself as she noticed Zhen Liu subtly rubbing his thumb over the bandage.
When the unexpected ghost(?) of her deceased mother suddenly appeared in her private sink, Telana did the most logical thing anyone would do in her situation: she attempted to punch it.
Unfortunately, she was so freaked out by the sudden appearance of the ghost that she forgot to coat her hand in aether as she threw the punch.
The spirit had disappeared as the fist went right through it, but she also ended up punching and breaking her mirror, leading to her hand getting lacerated by shards of glass and bits of silver.
Being a medical “professional”, she just used a bit of gauze to wrap her hand and stem the bleeding. That said, aside from the bleeding, the level of pain she was dealing with was rather minimal, so she couldn’t figure out why her hand was shaking so badly.
‘Get it together Telana, you have a meeting to attend to. No times for…hallucinations,’ she told herself.
It would be unseemly to appear to this meeting injured, so Telana decided to modify her original outfit plans to include gloves as a means to hide her injuries.
She had expected people not to notice such an unsightly injury…she did not expect one of the guests she was receiving to suddenly notice it immediately.
‘I know for certain I never properly interacted with the Fourth Zhen Clan young master before…so why do I feel uneasy around him?,’ Telana thought to herself as she and her daughter took up their seats in the parlor.
For all intents and purposes, she should have been more wary of Zhen Hai, since he was the one who wanted to propose to her daughter. But for some reason, she couldn’t help but shake this feeling of danger and dread coming off of Zhen Liu.
Telana could count exactly three times she had spoken to or interacted with the young master, including now.
The first time was when Zhen Liu was born.
The Zhen Clan had invited all the notable families in the city around the time Zhen Liu was born, as they had during the birthdays of the other young masters, so of course Telana was in attendance.
It was…fine.
It’s a baby’s first week in existence, they don’t do much other than be balls of squirming flesh, cry, eat and poop.
The second time…huh. She couldn’t remember, like at all.
‘Why can’t I remember any of it?,’she asked herself.
When she tried to recall the second time she had ever formally met Zhen Liu, all she got in her head was static noise, a weird sounding laugh, and a flickering smile.
‘Wait…why do I know the word “static”? Bah! I can’t think about this right now, I have to deal with the more important of the Zhen Clan heirs…’
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‘Alright, Zhen Hai, like we practiced with Gianna…,’ Zhen Hai mentally told himself as he took a deep breath to recite a strategy he had only rehearsed once or twice before.
“Matriarch Telana Corrada, I thank you for having this meeting with me today. I have come before you to make a request that I know may be difficult to fulfill, but…I wish to take your daughter’s, Gianna Corrada’s, hand in marriage, and I would like to humbly request your blessings on this arrangement.”
Of the two people not directly involved in this conversation, two sets of looks could be seen.
On the face of Zhen Liu, one would see a look of surprise. Not necessarily due to his cousin proposing, but the manner of eloquence he used to convey this feeling.
Whilst on the face of Gianna Corrada, was a look of pride and love. Granted, the look of pride on her face was less “proud for an act of bravery before insanity” and more “proud that the lines they spent a week practicing was delivered perfectly.”
Zhen Hai kept a careful look on Telana’s face as he delivered these lines, gauging to see how accepting she was to his proposal.
So far, it didn’t look great.
‘Shit…alright, Gianna told you Telana was a realist who wanted results and benefits not flights of fancy attraction…alright, abuse the fact that we’re suddenly wealthy!’
“Now, I won’t go into extreme details about how much your daughter means to me, but I do know that you care about her future happiness and progress. With that mind, I can promise that…”
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=Unsure…although, it appears our fiddling with her memory left behind small bits of knowledge that we have attained…future calculations indicate that this won’t have any foreseeable adverse effects, but caution is advised.=
=Probably not…although she might become erratic soon. Look at her pupils. I think she’s about to get a visit from dear mother.=
=Handling mad in-laws is a skil.=
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‘Fucking brute, it won’t matter how many pretty practiced words you use. I already planned Gianna’s future including a fiancee…well I did, then you hooligans ran them out of town! So keep talking young man, it will make it hurt that much more when I-huh?’
{Telana…why…?}
As Zhen Hai kept rattling on about how he was a good match for Gianna, Telana detected movement coming from behind his chair.
{Telana…}
A set of long rotted fingers suddenly poked out from behind Zhen Hai’s chair before gripping on tight.
In response to the sight, Telana Corrada gripped her chair’s armrest with a tad more intensity.
‘No no no no no no no…,’ she mentally mumbled.
She was a lady of high standing, terror was unbecoming…
