Chapter 139
Watching such blatant misery p*rn unfold before her eyes was truly uncomfortable.
Setting the children out like monkeys in a zoo, while those people congratulated each other among themselves.
‘Was she ever like that in the past?’
Honestly, ‘Nina’ never had any interest in charity, volunteering, sponsorships, or any kind of social responsibility or duty.
So, even if she acted selfishly and abused her status, she never stooped to this kind of hypocrisy.
Abusing one’s power or being a hypocrite… Neither was something to be proud of.
But the kind of hypocrisy that’s just for showing off moral superiority always shows itself, whether the people doing it realize or not.
And there’s nothing quite as distasteful as that.
Having to keep watching such pathetic and revolting behavior, she found it impossible to keep her expression neutral.
“Honey, I’m going to go fix my makeup for a bit.”
Using her makeup as an excuse, Nina headed to the cloakroom.
The gallery’s cloakroom had private booths, like restroom stalls, where one could redo their appearance in peace.
‘They must’ve spent a fortune building all this.’
Yet, for all the money they’d splashed around on the exhibition hall, they couldn’t even buy the kids a decent set of clothes.
With evidence of their mishandling of the funds so obvious, how has this foundation survived ten years without issue?
Nina shook her head and stepped inside a booth.
“Wow, my face…”
It was a good call to move away.
‘With this expression, it’s better not to be there at all.’
Her feelings were so obvious, she might as well have had them written across her forehead.
As she reapplied her lipstick, Nina thought to herself,
‘If Marquis Crewe is the enemy of my family, I need to completely destroy Marquis Dunklin as well.’
There was a high chance Dunklin was the money source for Marquis Crewe.
If that’s the case, could she really be sure that their family would survive even if Grandfather didn’t lose his position?
‘My original goal was to live quietly and leave when the time came, but I can’t let my family be ruined like in my previous life…’
It seemed she would have to trigger the Delphinium Foundation scandal, which was set to happen two years later, much earlier.
‘…But how did the scandal even break out in the first place?’
No matter how she searched her memories from her previous life, it was completely blank.
She only learned Dunklin went bankrupt by reading a discarded newspaper.
‘Anyway, both the orphanage and the gallery have plenty of shady business going on, so if she investigates here, she should be able to find out.’
After applying her lipstick, she pressed her lips together to even it out.
It was then—
Click.
At the same time as she heard the sound of the door opening…
“I heard Duke Bayern recently bought out an entire atelier and moved it to their house.”
…she heard people talking about her.
Nina, who was about to step out, paused, her eyes turning cold as she listened to the conversation continue.
***
Rebecca was chatting amicably with the other guests.
“…Really, with so many perfectly healthy children around, what made you decide to sponsor one with a disability?”
“I just couldn’t help but want to sponsor him. It’s so admirable to see someone working so hard despite his circumstances.”
Rebecca smiled as if genuinely moved and patted Emil on the shoulder.
This child was a stroke of luck for her.
She had no idea the reaction would be this good. The praise pouring in was truly sweet.
“What a shame. If only he’d been able to paint with his right hand, he could’ve produced even more beautiful works…”
“That’s what pains me too. Such outstanding talent, and yet fate is so cruel…”
At that, a man who had been quietly listening to the conversation spoke up.
“Madam, do you have any intention of selling this child’s painting?”
A man in his mid-forties with red hair and green eyes—the famous art collector, Count Conwell—looked at the painting with greed in his eyes.
The hunger for the work of an artist who, having lost his right hand, still completed a masterpiece with his left.
Clearly, he was thinking he might as well get his hands on the painting.
‘Marquis Dunklin said he’d be valuable…’
Even though she’d doubted the value of the child, it was already paying off.
‘So breaking his arm really was the right answer after all.’
It wasn’t about money.
She already had more money than she knew what to do with.
But a person who attracted money became a means to raise her own value, so of course, he was worth keeping.
