Fortunate to Have You This Lifetime

While Alexander Summers worked, she intermittently ate three rice balls.

Fortunately, Atra Blanc’s rice balls were small and delicate, otherwise they really would have made her too full.

After Alexander filled the pit and piled a small mound of earth on top, he looked up and noticed there was only one sacrificial offering left.

He chuckled, “Didn’t that bowl of dumplings fill you up earlier?”

“I am full, I’m just eating snacks now,” Purple Summers retorted.

On the way back, Purple Summers walked slowly, probably because she had eaten too much, and she felt too lazy to move.

Alexander bent over to carry her, and Purple Summers leaned on his back, chatting with him intermittently, “… What are you really after by taking the family head’s position? Every day you must be on guard against assassination attempts, and you have to keep it a secret from mom, playing a double role. Isn’t it exhausting?”

“It’s only temporary,” Alexander assured her as he carried her through the forest, his steps still light.

“The family heads of the four great families never had good endings. Can’t you just leave the Howard Family?” Purple Summers asked.

“Why should I leave?” Alexander laughed, “The territory I hold now is something Damian Howard and I fought for with our lives, it’s rightfully mine. Why would I let go?”

“But after all, you’re not a Howard, and by continuing like this, you will still make enemies…”

“Purple, most of the Howard Family doesn’t care who sits as the family head,” Alexander stopped walking and spoke earnestly, “What they care about is how many benefits the family head can offer them. I have given them a taste of sweetness, so they let me sit in this position. As for the enemies you mentioned, every family has a few thorns more or less. I will bring them to heel one day.”

Purple Summers felt a suffocating frustration and after a moment began gloomily, “After all said and done, you just can’t give up the power and riches you hold.”

Alexander put her down, “Why do you seem unhappy now? Purple, everyone likes power and riches. I’m an ordinary person, of course I love them. Without power and riches, how could I take care of you and mom?”

Purple Summers clenched her fingers, her voice low but resolute, “But as long as you sit in that position, mom and I will have to live in fear every day. What if one day someone finds out…”

Alexander cut her off, “I won’t let anyone find out before the right time comes.”

“When will the right time be? Three years, five years? Or ten years?” Purple Summers bit her lip, her eyes shimmering as she looked into his, “You could leave the Howard Family, let them fight among themselves, and… also not worry about the Howard Family’s marriage contract…”

Alexander smiled softly, his finger gently brushing Purple Summers’ face, “You’re speaking like a child.”

Purple Summers pursed her lips, deflated, “Anyway, in your eyes, everything I say is childish!”

Alexander touched her puffed cheeks, carefully smoothed her bangs behind her ears, and pinched her plump earlobes, “Purple, I know you have a lot of concerns. You wish I would leave the Howard Family and live as a perfectly ordinary young master, don’t you? But we have to consider the reality. If I give up the position of the family head, what about my brothers? What about Zack Wallace? Could they continue to live as comfortably as they do now? A new family head wouldn’t trust them. They would most certainly be assigned the hardest, most tiring, and most dangerous jobs. Those they offended before, would they kick them when they’re down? Would they even survive?”

Purple Summers fell silent.

To get out with one’s whole skin, wasn’t that easy, was it?

Yet, she was not content…

Not content with being the unnamed woman behind the family head, and even less so, with enduring his engagement to another woman…