DLMSWSHH Chapter 42

TL: Hua

Chapter 42: Honey Trap

Zhong Ming’s brow furrowed.

The youth kneeling on the floor looked up, the dim yellow light of the hall spilling across his face, allowing Zhong Ming to see him clearly for the first time. Though his face was covered in dirt, the skin beneath was visibly fair. Because of his severe nearsightedness, his pupils lacked focus, giving him a naturally dazed and lost look. He had slight hooded eyelids, and his eyes curved into gentle crescents.

In short, he looked like someone very easy to bully, entirely lacking in aggression.

Not to mention he was currently black and blue, his cheekbones covered in bruises and his right cheek marred by bloody scratches from the gravel. No matter from what angles, he looked very pitiful.

Zhong Ming pursed his lips and held the tray further away to prevent him from bumping into it. The youth happened to be kneeling right between him and the stairs leading up; there was no way around him.

Seeming to realize he was blocking the way and that Zhong Ming had no intention of helping, the light in the youth’s eyes visibly dimmed. He gripped the railing, attempting once more to stand using his own strength.

This time, he managed to push himself up halfway, but as he rose, the hand gripping the railing suddenly slipped. With another thud, he crashed back onto the floor.

Zhong Ming hissed in a breath, his molars aching. He felt like even knees made of iron would break falling like that.

The marble tiles in the hall were exceptionally hard. Yet, the youth didn’t let out a single cry of pain. He gritted his teeth and endured it, his jaw turning pale from the strain. Cold sweat dripped from his forehead, hitting the tile with a soft patter.

Zhong Ming frowned, noticing the man’s fingernails digging deep into his palms, leaving bloody crescent marks.

Some men would rather die than show their pathetic side to the opposite sex, Zhong Ming thought.

Zhong Ming stared at him fixedly for a moment, then let out a long sigh. He lifted his dress with his right hand and crouched down in front of the youth.

The youth on the floor was startled, looking up with a sweat-drenched face.

Zhong Ming met his eyes and said softly, “Can you really not stand up?”

The youth seemed surprised that he had spoken. He froze, then nodded. Seemingly out of shame, he bit his lower lip, the pink flesh sinking slightly.

Zhong Ming nodded. “Alright.”

He slowly rose from the ground. The youth looked up blankly, wondering what this cold, aloof maid was planning to do. She didn’t seem like she wanted to help him, but then why speak to him?

In the next instant, he saw Zhong Ming turn around, set down the tray, and pick up the vase sitting on the pedestal next to the stairs—

Then, Zhong Ming slammed it hard against the back of the youth’s head.

The youth collapsed instantly, losing consciousness completely and falling into a deep faint.

Seeing this, Zhong Ming nudged the man’s head gently with his foot. Confirming there was no reaction, he looked up toward the darkness behind him.

“Young Master Albert, could I ask you for a favor?”

As soon as he finished speaking, the nursery door nearby was pushed open. Albert stepped out, looked at the vase in Zhong Ming’s hand, and then at the player lying on the floor. His expression was complicated.

“…What did you hit him with the vase for?”

Zhong Ming suspected Albert had been eavesdropping for quite some time. He turned and placed the vase back on the display stand, saying: “What choice did I have? I was afraid if I used my hand, he wouldn’t go under.”

Albert choked on his words. He truly couldn’t find a way to argue with that.

He watched Zhong Ming calmly wipe the vase clean with a handkerchief, his small face tensed in a wary expression. It was like seeing a pet cat that was usually docile suddenly swat a passing cockroach to death; only then did he realize that sharp claws grew beneath the cat’s soft paws.

Zhong Ming didn’t notice his gaze and continued to explain, “Young Master Albert, could I trouble you to take him upstairs? He doesn’t seem to be able to stand.”

After ensuring the vase was clean, Zhong Ming looked back. “I knocked him out to ensure he wouldn’t see your true form—”

He stopped mid-sentence when he saw Albert’s strange look, his brow furrowing in confusion. “…Young Master, what’s wrong?”

Albert snapped out of it and cleared his throat. “Oh, right. Fine. Just leave him there.”

He spoke as if the player were a mere object.

Zhong Ming felt his gaze was a bit odd but didn’t dwell on it. He nodded and said politely, “Then I’ll leave it to you.”

With that, he turned, stepped over the unconscious player, and began walking up the stairs.

Albert glanced at the player on the floor, shadows churning at his feet. However, a moment later, something clicked. He looked up sharply, finally realizing that Zhong Ming was heading up to deliver tea to that old thing while dressed in a maid’s uniform.

Albert: “…”

His heart suddenly felt stifled.

On the other side, Zhong Ming kept his eyes down, watching his feet with every step. It took him twice as long as usual, but he eventually made it to the study.

He had gone to great lengths just to navigate those stairs without tripping on his hem or spilling a drop of tea.

Zhong Ming exhaled softly, pushed open the wooden door, and entered the study.

The lighting inside was as dim as ever. The Duke sat sideways in the red velvet chair, one leg crossed over the other, looking down at a thick book in his hand.

Zhong Ming glanced at him and said in a low voice, “Good evening, Your Grace.”

“Mm, good evening.”

The Duke didn’t look up; his right hand turned a page. He seemed deeply absorbed in the contents.

Zhong Ming lowered his gaze, slowly approached with the tray, and gently placed the refreshments and tea on the desk.

A light, thin edge of a dress swept across the Duke’s field of vision.

The Duke’s hand paused mid-flip. He looked up and finally realized that Zhong Ming was wearing a long dress, eyes downcast as he placed the black tea by his hand.

“Please, enjoy.”

The teacup clicked softly as it touched the desk.

He released the cup, withdrew his hand, and stood by the desk, his long lashes half-veiling his eyes.

The Duke watched him. After a moment, he applied slight pressure and closed the book with a sharp snap.

His dark eyes lowered, his gaze landing on Zhong Ming, following the dress that perfectly hugged the youth’s waistline downward, stopping politely above the hips, before he looked up into Zhong Ming’s eyes. “I didn’t expect you to come wearing a dress,” he said candidly.

His black eyes curved slightly as he gave Zhong Ming a gentle smile: “This dress suits you very well.”

Zhong Ming looked up at him. He noticed that surprise had flashed across the man’s face for only a fleeting second before being replaced by his usual composure.

He looked down, pursing his lips subtly. The man’s reaction wasn’t entirely unexpected; after all, given his age and experience, it was logical that he wouldn’t turn beet-red like Matthew. Nevertheless, Zhong Ming still felt a faint, weak spark of frustration at his inability to make the other man lose his cool.

The Duke shifted his gaze away and gestured toward the cake on the table. “Eat.”

Zhong Ming quickly masked his expression. Lifting his dress, he sat on the low stool and used a fork to gently press down on a piece of cake.

Today’s cake was Earl Grey flavored; a fresh scent drifted through the air.

Zhong Ming put a small piece in his mouth, and the sweet, light flavor instantly spread across his tongue.

The study was very quiet. Zhong Ming ate a few bites in silence, but when only half the cake remained, he finally couldn’t help himself and softly set down the fork.

He tilted his head and looked at the Duke, who had been staring at him this whole time.

“…Could you please stop looking at me?”

The Duke had his elbow on the armrest and his long fingers resting against his temple. Hearing this, he raised his eyes as if waking from a dream.

“Hmm?”

Zhong Ming: “…”

He looked down and saw that the thick book was placed face-down on the Duke’s lap; the man had no intention of reading it at all. He wasn’t even pretending anymore.

Furthermore, the man’s gaze hadn’t been quite so “polite” just now. He had clearly looked below the waist earlier.

Zhong Ming took a shallow breath and repeated himself: “I said, could you please stop looking at me.”

The Duke finally understood. He looked up, clasping his hands in front of him: “Why?”

The man’s tone was perfectly serious. Zhong Ming choked on his words and glared at him. Seeing the man’s genuinely confused expression, he felt a surge of irritation.

However, at that moment, he suddenly noticed something. The Duke’s long, pale fingers were bare; there was nothing on them. The magnificent gemstone ring that the man always wore on his right hand had vanished.

Zhong Ming’s pulse jumped. His lip line tightened. After a moment, he spoke hesitantly: “…Your Grace, where is your ring?”

The Duke paused and turned his head slightly. “Oh, I don’t know where I threw it.”

Zhong Ming’s face went cold. “Do you think I’ll believe that?”

He reached up to touch the buttons on his chest. The hard surface of the green gemstones slid against his fingertips.

Hearing this, the Duke looked back and arched an eye toward him with a touch of helplessness, a form of silent admission.

Zhong Ming looked down at the three buttons sparkling under the light. At the thought of such a large, perfect emerald ring-face being cut into three pieces and set as buttons, his heart ached at the extravagance.

“…What is the point of this?”

Zhong Ming lowered his hand and looked at the Duke. He didn’t believe the man would turn a ring into buttons for no reason.

The Duke watched him, pausing briefly before saying: “They contain a portion of my power,” he said. “They can help you when I am not by your side.”

He was very direct. Zhong Ming felt that the Duke wasn’t lying.

He lowered his eyes slightly, his thick lashes casting a small shadow on his cheeks. He suddenly asked in a small voice: “Why are you so good to me?”

The Duke hadn’t expected the sudden question and was stunned for a moment.

Then, he heard Zhong Ming’s soft voice: “Is it because… you knew me from before?”

The hidden motive finally revealed itself. From the first half of the sentence, one might have thought Zhong Ming was moved, but in the end, he was still testing him. The Duke smiled and remained silent.

Zhong Ming shot him a look, then turned his body slightly to shift his sitting posture. Beneath the table, his long dress swept seemingly unintentionally across the Duke’s shoes.

“You can’t even tell me that?”

Zhong Ming looked up, his gaze landing on the Duke’s handsome face. He watched him fixedly for a while. Seeing that the man had no intention of answering, he suddenly stood up from the stool.

“Then never mind.”

Zhong Ming threw out the words coldly and began to walk away, his slightly flared dress brushing past the Duke’s hand.

The Duke couldn’t possibly let him go. He suddenly grabbed Zhong Ming’s wrist: “Wait.”

Zhong Ming stopped in his tracks and turned his head slightly. His heart tightened when he realized his position relative to the Duke, and he almost lost his composure, his expression turning cold. From this angle, if the Duke exerted force, he would fall squarely onto the Duke’s lap.

Fortunately, the Duke only held him for a moment before letting go. He looked up at Zhong Ming and let out a gentle sigh. “Alright, what do you want to know?”

Zhong Ming breathed a small sigh of relief. He turned around, lowered his eyes, and repeated his question: “Why are you so good to me?”

Zhong Ming looked into the man’s pitch-black eyes.

“Ever since I became a servant here, you have given me a lot of preferential treatment.”

The Duke looked up, the light catching his brown hair. He spoke without any evasion: “Because I want to protect you.”

His tone was sincere: “I want you to be happy here.”

Zhong Ming frowned and took a step closer, pressing further: “Why?”

As he approached, the Duke leaned back into his chair. However, his retreat carried no hint of weakness. Perhaps because his shoulders were broad and his posture relaxed, the Duke appeared incredibly composed, looking up at him while leaning back. Despite being the one interrogated, he appeared to be the one in control of the conversation.

He replied, “Because I want to.”

That was hardly an answer. Zhong Ming frowned and said in a heavy voice: “Did you know me before?”

He didn’t believe the Duke’s favor was groundless or born out of thin air.

Under any other circumstances, the Duke wouldn’t have answered. But given their current positions, his gaze naturally fell on Zhong Ming’s waist.

His estimation of the measurements had been perfect. The dress was very form-fitting.

The long maid’s dress enveloped the youth’s slender frame from top to bottom. Though his legs were hidden, the dress perfectly defined the sharp inward curve of his waist.

The Duke dazed for a moment and said, “Yes.”

Zhong Ming’s eyes lit up instantly.

The Duke snapped back to his senses, realizing he had let it slip, likely for the first time in centuries. But looking at Zhong Ming’s face, which radiated a faint excitement, he couldn’t bring himself to be angry, so he only smiled slightly.

Zhong Ming said, “You really do know me.” He continued to ask, “Where did we meet? What exactly happened—”

Before he could finish, the Duke interrupted him. The man smiled, suddenly took Zhong Ming’s right hand, bowed his head, and pressed a light kiss to the back of it.

His movement was too fast. Before Zhong Ming could react, the man looked up and curled his lips: “Save that question for the next time you wear a dress, alright?”

The Duke’s eyes curved. “I promise to answer you then.”

His actions were gentlemanly and his tone polite, but his words sounded like those of a rogue. Zhong Ming snatched his hand back. He reflexively wanted to touch the back of his hand in panic but stopped halfway and lowered it, feigning composure.

He forced a cold expression, shot the Duke a look, and turned to walk straight out.

This time, the Duke didn’t stop him. He sat in his chair and watched Zhong Ming’s figure disappear behind the door. The door slammed shut with a somewhat heavy thud. The Duke lowered his head thoughtfully and gently rubbed his index and middle fingers together.

He finally remembered the term to describe Zhong Ming’s series of actions just now. He sighed and whispered: “A honey trap.”

Zhong Ming remained sullen for several days.

Although his expression remained indifferent, he spoke noticeably less. Even Ye Qing could tell from his eyes and brows that Zhong Ming was in a bad mood.

“Mommy, who made you angry?” Ye Qing asked.

Zhong Ming’s hands paused. He glanced at Ye Qing, his expression somewhat cold. Ye Qing, however, wasn’t scared at all. She smiled, two small dimples appearing on her round face: “Tell me, who made you angry?”

Zhong Ming looked at her for a long moment. Having no way to deal with her, he lowered his gaze and said: “It’s nothing.”

It’s definitely something, Ye Qing thought. She had never seen Zhong Ming show such obvious emotional fluctuations. She lowered her head, mentally sorting through all the men in the mansion, wondering who had upset him again.

Actually, in the beginning, Ye Qing had thought Li Yizhi and Zhong Ming were a couple, but after spending more time with them, she realized they weren’t. Ye Qing’s eyes darted around as she looked at Zhong Ming’s cold, aloof profile. She felt like “Mommy” was about to fall in love.

She just didn’t know with whom.

Ye Qing didn’t like that smiling tiger Li Yizhi, nor did she like the mean-spirited Tao who loved to act cool. That guy named Matthew seemed relatively polite, but that day he kept staring at Zhong Ming’s legs. He wasn’t very decent.

It felt like there wasn’t a single good man around.

When the heavens want to rain, or a mother wants to remarry, there’s nothing one can do. Ye Qing felt a bit sentimental and let out a long, melancholy sigh.

Just then, Zhong Ming’s voice came from above: “What do you think of that person?”

Ye Qing snapped back to her senses. Following Zhong Ming’s gaze, she saw him looking toward a corner of the main hall.

A youth in white clothes was leaning against the wall, head down, talking to another player.

He was very tall, with a slightly hunched posture. His right hand appeared to be injured, wrapped in layers of bandages and slinged across his chest. However, he didn’t look like he was in pain; instead, he was smiling and chatting gently with another player.

The player looked worriedly at his feet, which couldn’t touch the ground: “This must be… Shen Weinian and his group’s doing.”

The youth’s expression dimmed slightly as he nodded: “Yeah.”

The player sighed, at a loss for how to comfort him: “Sigh… That prince has been acting high and mighty in the game for quite some time. You’d better stay away from him.”

“Okay,” the youth nodded submissively, saying in a slightly strange intonation: “Thank you.”

With his clean-cut, handsome features, his many injuries, and the fact that he was a foreigner struggling with a language barrier, he looked utterly pitiful. The player sighed again, thinking this handsome young man probably wouldn’t live much longer, and reached out to pat him on the shoulder.

“Alright, just watch your back. If you need help with anything, you can come find me.”

The youth froze for a moment upon hearing this, then gave a shy, faint smile: “Okay.”

He naturally had smiling eyes, and his grin was the type that easily won people over.

Upstairs, Ye Qing withdrew her gaze and said to Zhong Ming, “How pitiful. Was he bullied by someone?”

After saying that, she stole another glance at the youth’s face: “Is he Korean? He has a delicate, understated look, kind of like the visual of HG Entertainment’s new boy group.”

Zhong Ming had no idea what Ye Qing was talking about, but he roughly understood that she was praising his appearance, frowned, and glanced downstairs: “You think he’s good-looking?”

Ye Qing nodded: “Yeah, quite handsome. He looks very clean.”

As everyone knows, when a girl calls a guy “clean,” it’s roughly equivalent to Leon Lai¹ in his prime.

Zhong Ming’s frown deepened. He turned his head, his gaze landing on the youth’s half-averted face. This counts as good-looking?

Seeing him frown, Ye Qing immediately explained: “Ah! But Mommy is still prettier.”

Ye Qing meant it. While the Korean hottie was nice, his eyes were a bit small and he had monolids; how could he compare to Mommy with his long lashes and deep double eyelids?

Zhong Ming’s breath hitched. He turned back to look at her.

This kid… she’s really asking for it lately.

However, the very next moment he withdrew his gaze, Zhong Ming felt someone watching him. He turned his head and saw the youth leaning against the corner had, at some point, looked up. Seeing Zhong Ming looking over, the youth crinkled his eyes and smiled.

Zhong Ming frowned. Then, he watched as the youth parted his lips, his teeth lightly touching the tip of his tongue, as he mouthed.

‘Thank you.’

Immediately after, he lowered his head, not lingering on Zhong Ming. It was as if he had only noticed him standing there by chance and offered a polite thanks in passing.

Zhong Ming’s brow twitched slightly. He withdrew his gaze and said to Ye Qing behind him: “Let’s go.”

It had been several days since this batch of players entered the haunted house. The number of players had visibly decreased, but every day at breakfast, Zhong Ming would see that group of sports students appearing at the table perfectly fine, even finding the mood to crack dirty jokes.

Zhong Ming frowned, a sense of eeriness rising in his heart.

At night, he held a massive wooden brush half the length of his own arm and was currently brushing the teeth of the Spider Duchess, who was lying on the floor.

Like a dog acting spoiled with its owner, the Duchess had flipped onto her back, her long, spindly legs sticking up in the air in every direction.

Zhong Ming gripped the brush with both hands and frowned: “Mistress, please lie still. I can’t reach the back.”

The Spider Duchess let out a soft groan, her eight legs twitching slightly as she gave a perfunctory “Mmm-hmm~”

Zhong Ming, feeling like she hadn’t moved at all: “…”

He had no choice but to walk around to her other side. From the side of her head, he slowly inserted the wooden brush into the spider’s sharp mandibles, scrubbing hard at the dried blood and grime.

Beside him, the water in the iron bucket had turned a pale red, with bits of shredded meat floating on the surface.

Zhong Ming paused to rest, wiping the sweat from his forehead. He let out a slow breath and looked at the spider’s round, bulging abdomen.

“Mistress, it’s been a tiring few days, hasn’t it?”

Her belly is bloated from eating so much.

The tips of the Duchess’s legs quivered in the air as she nodded: “Yes. There are so many players this time.”

Zhong Ming nodded. He leaned in slightly closer to the Duchess and asked: “Have you been to those rooms on the far right of the third floor?”

He was referring to where the sports students led by Shen Weinian were staying. Hearing this, the Spider Duchess turned her head, letting out a confused “Hmm?”

“Now that you mention it, there’s always been a very nice scent coming from over there—” Her voice trailed off, as if she were trying to recall something she couldn’t quite grasp. “I think I wanted to go in… Strange, I can’t remember…”

Zhong Ming’s brow furrowed.

He had sprinkled fragrant powder in front of all their rooms. But it seemed it had only worked on the first day.

After finishing the job and getting the Spider Duchess’s teeth sparkling clean, he hummed a nursery rhyme to coax her to sleep. Zhong Ming then softly closed the door, picked up a candlestick from the table, and headed toward the third floor.

He wanted to see exactly what was going on.