After days of preparing her heart for the separation from Pa-Pi-Pu, Anje finally thought she was ready.
However, when she opened her eyes one morning and saw Aiden’s room empty, she couldn’t help but feel numb.
‘Today is the day… I see.’
Aiden had said he was selling Pa-Pi-Pu to someone. She didn’t ask for details, but probably it was someone who butchered pigs.
Anje walked towards the pigpen with heavy steps. As expected, the pen was empty.
She stroked the fence and scanned the area with her glassy eyes.
The hay on the floor had traces of the pigs rolling around, and the feed trough had the porridge Anje had poured in last night dried up.
“Pa, Pi, Pu…”
She had promised herself several times that she wouldn’t cry, but against her will, lukewarm tears streamed down her cheeks.
The scene of the pink pigs recognizing her and oinking loudly, their tails curled happily, was still vivid in her mind.
She remembered the day she slipped while helping Aiden clean the pen and fell onto Pu’s back, having to give up all her scones to make up for it.
“Sniff.”
Even when she tried not to think about the past, the memories came back vividly.
How hypocritical it was to cry when she ate the chickens Aiden caught without hesitation. She cursed herself for being stupid for crying, but she couldn’t help it.
‘I wish I hadn’t named them if I knew this would happen.’
I wish I hadn’t treated them as friends and given them affection.
I wish I had told Sir Aiden that I would do something other than take care of the pigs.
In the first place, she shouldn’t have come here to Leslie, to Dilton Farm.
Just a while ago, Anje had thought it was a good thing to come to Dilton Farm to learn about plants from Aiden.
But now that she had lost Pa-Pi-Pu, who she had cherished, the pain was equal to the joy she had felt.
‘If we were going to part anyway…’
It would have been better not to meet them at all, so she wouldn’t have grown attached.
She crouched on the floor and buried her face in her knees.
“Sob…”
After crying until her handkerchief was soaked, she suddenly regained her senses.
‘It’s not too late yet, is it?’
It was too early to give up. It must still be early morning since Hurricane had roared just thirty minutes ago.
‘Maybe I can still save Pa-Pi-Pu if I do it now.’
She ran upstairs and frantically searched the handbag where she kept her valuables.
Clink-clack―
She emptied the bills and coins she had onto the floor and counted them again with trembling hands. It was still not enough to buy back the three pigs.
Biting her lower lip, she gathered the things she had that could be considered money, such as cheap pearl earrings, a fake ruby brooch that had adorned her wedding dress, and perfume, and threw them into the bag along with the money.
And then she started running in the opposite direction of the path Aiden had taken, the direction she had wandered in when she wanted to go to town before.
‘I’ll give Sir Aiden everything in this bag and ask him to save Pa-Pi-Pu.’
She would lose her fare to return to the capital, but that was okay. She’ll find a way somehow.
The important thing now was to save the life she cherished.
Money can be earned again, but Pa-Pi-Pu couldn’t be saved no matter how much money she gave.
‘Just wait a little longer for me.’
She ignored the stinging in her eyes and clenched her teeth.
* * *
Clip-clop, Clip-clop―
Not long after Anje had been running down the dirt road, a faint sound began to be heard from far away. The sound of horse hooves and wheels rolling.
The sound of the wagon getting closer and closer to this remote house meant, without a doubt, that Aiden was returning in the wagon.
Anje stopped and caught her ragged breath.
‘Could it be that he already sold Pa-Pi-Pu and came back?’
The image of someone’s axe blade descending towards Pa-Pi-Pu’s necks flashed through her mind.
The sweat that had been forming on Anje’s forehead cooled quickly, and she felt a chill all over her body. Her lips trembled, and the tears that she had barely held back threatened to come back out.
‘No, not yet… it’s still okay.’
She clasped her hands together to calm herself. If he had just sold them, he could go back and get them back now.
‘I’ll apologize for the trouble and ask him nicely.’
She would seem like a strange woman who kept changing her mind, but that was fine. Sir Aiden never thought highly of her to begin with. She could work hard to regain any lost reputation.
Clip-clop, Clip-clop―
The figures of man and horse, once mere dots in the distance, became clearer in the morning sunlight as they approached.
“……Princess?”
Aiden, who was returning with the reins loosely held, was surprised to find that the figure standing in the middle of the road was not a deer or rabbit, but someone he knew.
He parked the wagon on the side of the road and hurried over to Anje.
“Princess, what are you doing here? Is something wrong at home?”
“Hurry back and bring Pa-Pi-Pu back!”
Anje thrust her bag at Aiden without a word.
“If the money isn’t enough, I’ll give you more. Hurry!”
Aiden looked at the bag and Anje alternately, dumbfounded.
“Please, I beg you.”
“Well……”
“I should have told you sooner. I’m sorry for all the back and forth.”
What if Pa-Pi-Pu’s life ends while we’re doing this? She was anxious, and her words were incoherent.
“I’m so sorry for all the trouble I’ve caused you going back and forth……. I’ll do whatever you tell me from now on. I know I must seem capricious and strange, but I feel so bad when I see that we don’t have Pa-Pi-Pu inside……”
Aiden’s face changed rapidly as he listened to her.
From an expression of embarrassment and surprise, to an expression of understanding.
“For now, please stop crying, My Lady.”
After he slightly bent his waist and wiped away the tears that had flowed down under her eyes with his thumb, she realized that she had been crying.
“B-But now, w-we don’t have time for this…”
“And I would like you to please look at the wagon with clear eyes.”
He stepped back from her line of sight and politely pointed towards the wagon.
Anje’s eyes, which she rubbed and examined the wagon closely, widened like lanterns. Could she be seeing an illusion right now?
“Pa, Pi, Pu!”
Three pigs visible in the semicircular space between the awning covering the wagon.
In response to Anje’s voice, they were trying desperately to poke their heads through the gaps in the fence that had been temporarily placed around the wagon entrance.
Anje, who ran like the wind, scrambled to climb onto the wagon seat. Aiden quickly approached her side and helped her into the wagon.
“Hahaha!”
Ignoring the smell of mud coming from the pigs, she repeated their names several times and hugged each one in turn.
Aiden, sitting on the driver’s seat, watched the scene of the three pigs and the princess huddled together with a deep sense of satisfaction.
‘I’m glad I changed my mind.’
Originally, he had set out for the pigsty early before dawn to sell Pa-Pi-Pu to the butcher. The butcher, Tom, was satisfied with the three well-grown pigs and immediately accepted the price he had asked.
However, at the last moment when he was about to hand over Pa-Pi-Pu to the other person after finishing the negotiation, Aiden changed his mind.
‘I’m sorry, but I’d like to cancel this deal.’
The more he imagined what kind of expression Anje would make when she saw the empty pen, the more his heart ached.
She would probably have a hard time every time she passed it by, thinking about it again. Maybe the shock would be so great that she wouldn’t be able to eat meat again.
He was used to facing sadness and resentment.
‘But at least the princess…’
He wanted her to be spared from the pain of loss, unlike him.
Tom treated him like a crazy person for coming to sell the pigs early in the morning and then changing his mind at the last minute.
He even tried to haggle with him, saying that he didn’t want to miss the chance to get high-quality pork, and that he would pay more if Aiden sold it to him.
In order to detach him, who was clinging to Pa-Pi-Pu, who had been placed on the floor, Aiden had no choice but to explain why he was trying to cancel the deal.
As he talked, he felt like it was a ridiculous story, and it was embarrassing to have to describe his ‘wife’ since there was no other word to describe the princess.
However, thanks to telling this story even at the cost of such shame, Tom quickly calmed down. No, more than calming down, he patted his back while laughing loudly.
‘This guy, now that I look at you, you’re quite a simp for your wife, huh?’
Aiden wanted to leave this place right away because of his manly expression.
Thanks to Tom giving him some meat “for his lovely wife,” he was a little comforted, but he didn’t feel good thinking that this story would eventually spread throughout Leslie.
What nonsense, calling him a simp. He just…… he just pitied her, who had no place to put her heart other than the pigs.
‘She must be so happy to see that Pa-Pi-Pu are safe.’
His mood improved as he imagined the princess giggling. But at the same time.
‘To keep her alive on the farm, I need to get her used to this kind of thing.’
His mood dipped again, weighed down by the ‘principles’ that resurfaced. Having been a soldier for so long, such whimsical decisions were unfamiliar to him.
The speed of the wagon, which slowed down and then sped up repeatedly, reflected his mood, which went from good to bad and back again.
It was around the time Anje showed up that he was muttering, “Am I crazy? To refuse that money,” thinking about the amount Tom had offered.
But now, there was no trace of such agony in his memory.
“Hahaha, that tickles. Don’t lick, Pu.”
He smiled secretly at the sound coming from the back seat of the wagon.
* * * *
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