Night had fallen thick and black, quiet as a held breath.

In the yard at the entrance of Vale Village, inside a small courtyard house—

The pretty widow, Cynthia Lawson, had pinned up her long dark hair into a neat bun at the back of her head. Bare as the day she was born, she stood in the wooden bath barrel, carefully washing every inch of her skin.

That soft, delicate skin of hers, wrapped in drifting steam, looked pale and tender, smooth like fresh lotus root.

Her graceful, curving figure was caught by the dim yellow lamplight and cast onto the paper window, outlining the shadow of a beauty fresh from her bath.

If any of the men in the village had seen this, they probably would not have slept a wink all night.

Too bad for them, outside Cynthia’s room there was only one fool—Calvin Mercer.

By the glow from inside, the courtyard could be seen clearly enough. Calvin was squatting there with a little wooden stick, poking at two toads and trying to make them fight.

Looking through the window, Cynthia watched his silly, blank look and could not help smiling, sweet and soft.

The man she had once missed day and night, the one who had stayed in her heart all this time, would tonight finally become her man in truth.

Even if that man had now become the village laughingstock, a fool everybody mocked, Cynthia still would not regret what she had decided.

"Godfather, godmother, don’t worry. I won’t give up on Calvin. I’ll do everything I can to cure him. And I’ll leave a child for the Mercer family too," she thought silently to herself.

When Cynthia had still been very young, her own parents had sold her off to be somebody’s child bride.

She had finally grown up, only for her husband to meet with an accident and die young.

After that, people pointed at her and called her unlucky, said she brought ruin to husbands and family alike.

Her mother-in-law threw her out without a shred of mercy.

Even her own flesh and blood shut the door in her face.

Back when she had nowhere left to go, it was Calvin’s parents who had taken her in and given her a place that felt like home.

That kind of kindness was not something you could repay lightly, not even in a lifetime.

And the truth was, Cynthia had already decided to spend her whole life repaying it.

At first, though, she still could not quite bring herself to take this step.

But life never goes the way people hope.

Calvin, who had once been the first young man in the village to get into college, the one everyone said had a bright future ahead of him—

Right when he had made up his mind to come back to the countryside, start a business, and help the villagers build a better life, he got into a car accident and suffered a head injury.

The driver ran.

Because of that, Calvin missed the best window for treatment.

From then on, he became a fool.

The doctor had said his mind now was only about the same as a seven- or eight-year-old child.

Over these past months, Cynthia had not only spent every bit of private money she had managed to save on his treatment, she had even borrowed from loan sharks.

But no matter what she did, Calvin’s condition never improved.

Plenty of people in the village had told Cynthia to pack up and leave while she still could, to let Calvin fend for himself.

With looks like hers, finding another decent man would not have been hard at all.

But that idea had never once crossed Cynthia’s mind.

Her godfather and godmother had passed away years ago.

Now, she was the one holding this family up.

More than that, she simply could not bear to leave Calvin.

Her long, shapely legs stepped out of the bath barrel. She had just reached for the towel, ready to dry herself—

when her body suddenly lost balance.

"Ah—"

A sharp pain shot through her ankle at once.

By instinct, she cried out.

The moment Calvin heard her voice from the yard, he tossed away the stick with a swish and sprang up, scrambling clumsily toward the room.

He shoved the door open in one push.

Inside, the tungsten bulb gave off a faint yellow glow.

By the side of the bath barrel, Cynthia had curled up on the floor, both hands clutching her right ankle.

Pain showed plainly on that lovely little face of hers, and from her cherry-red lips came soft, broken moans she could not hold back.

She was wearing nothing at all, every last bit of her exposed before Calvin’s eyes.

If it had been any other man, his blood would already have gone hot.

But fool Calvin did not react in the slightest.