[𝐵𝐿] 𝐼 𝑤𝑜𝑛'𝑡 𝑏𝑒 𝑎 𝑉𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑎𝑖𝑛 𝑖𝑛 𝑇ℎ𝑖𝑠 𝐿𝑖𝑓𝑒

Chapter 1: The Third Prince

In an enchanting garden, a beautiful youth with long black hair was sitting inside a stone gazebo while his cyan eyes were focused on the book in his hands. Since it was almost summer, the youth was wearing a light white shirt that greatly emphasized his slim figure, giving him a sense of youthful beauty and freshness. Though the youth's posture was lazy, he seemed in perfect harmony with his surroundings, giving the feeling to the observer that of a nymph in its natural habitat while basking under the gentle rays of the afternoon sun.

Having finished reading the last line of the page, the youth closed the book and turned his gaze to the maid standing outside the gazebo:"What did His Majesty say about my request?" the youth suddenly asked, his voice was soft and gentle, with a soothing quality that could melt even the hardest of hearts, but at the same time it was bewitching as the voice of the devil leading humans to sin.

The girl had long been shocked by her master's new fresh and clean appearance. Now that she had also heard the kind of voice that could win many women's hearts, she almost lost the strength to stand up and think straight.
But in the end, thanks to the strength of her will, she managed to keep her composure and humbly said, "This humble servant answers to Her Royal Highness. At the moment, His Majesty is engaged with officials from the neighboring country. If His Royal Highness could wait to meet His Majesty, later His Majesty will send someone to call His Royal Highness when he is freed".

When she finished reporting, the maid kept her head down and squeezed the fabric of her skirt, ready to suffer the anger of her master. But the youth’s aggressive reaction did not seem to come at all. Seconds passed until those seconds became minutes. The maid did not dare to look up and stood still and mute in the same spot waiting for an order from the youth. Only when she saw the youth coming out of the gazebo and saying he wanted to return to his rooms, she moved from her place and followed him from behind with a light step.
When they arrived, he dismissed the maid and entered his room without saying another word.

The maid's appearance remained unchanged throughout all the way, but her heart and mind had been thrown into turmoil as if an incredible shock had made her unable to fully digest what had just happened.

One of the colleagues with whom the maid had established a deep bond, seeing her return silently, could not help but drop some tears of pity for her friend. Believing that she had been mistreated by the Third Prince, she approached to comfort her, but the maid’s following words astonished her so much that she could not believe what she had been told. Not even the other maids believed it when they were told the same thing.
"I'm telling the truth! The Third Prince looks really like a completely different person! He didn't throw a tantrum from morning to afternoon and he didn't scold me even when I told him that he had to wait to meet His Majesty".
"But that’s hard to believe... After all, everyone here knows who we’re talking about".
"Right! No one can change overnight," echoed a waitress to the previous one's words.
"You think I don’t know, too? I wouldn’t believe it either if any of you told me, but what I saw is real, I’m not making up stories!"
"If I may have my say, I also believe that Rose is telling the truth...", a maid with her hair tied in two braids suddenly added: "A few days ago, Anne and I saw the Third Prince coming out of his rooms and asked us to throw away all his favorite clothes and instead bring him a set of comfortable and casual men’s clothes to wear... Also, when we went for his daily beauty treatment, he told us that there was no more need to do it in the future and things like makeup and beauty products were banned in his rooms...".
"Are you kidding? Isn't makeup and flashy women's clothes his favorite thing?"
"We also thought it was very strange!... At first, we thought he was having one of his usual tantrums because he wasn’t satisfied with our skills... But it’s been over two days since he hasn’t called anyone into his rooms to fix it, so the only thing we can think of now after Rose’s words is that the Third Prince was serious when he said it...", Anne concluded, supporting her friend’s claims.
"Are you sure it was the Third Prince?" asked the housekeeper, joining the conversation after hearing the explanation from another girl.
"Mrs. Jones, I swear it was him! If it wasn’t for accompanying him and seeing him enter his rooms more than once, I wouldn’t have believed it either!" said Rose, making the sign of the oath to the heart.
Mrs. Jones this year was over seventy years old and had worked as a housekeeper for the royal family since she was twenty. In her fifty years of activity, she had seen two generations of the royal family grow, from the sovereign of the kingdom to his three sons: The first, the second, and the third Prince.