The Villain Who Invests in a Witch to Survive

Chapter 132: Birds of a Feather

Seeing that Ryan was not speaking, Allen did not grow awkward. He simply kept talking.

He turned sideways and jerked his chin toward the dance floor, lowering his voice.

“Brother, do you know why I came looking for you?”

Ryan lifted a brow.

Allen crooked a finger at him, motioning for him to lean closer. Ryan did not move, and Allen did not mind. Instead, he leaned in himself and spoke in the tone of someone sharing a secret.

“Look around.”

Ryan followed his gaze.

On the dance floor, skirts whirled, and high heels tapped out fine, crisp rhythms against the floorboards. A girl in a champagne-gold gown was being held by the waist by a young man in a deep blue formal suit. The two moved together smoothly, and when the hem of her skirt flared, it looked like a flower in full bloom.

Several other pairs danced well too. Some were turning in circles, some were laughing together, and some occasionally stepped on their partner’s foot, only to flush and hastily apologize.

At the edge of the dance floor, small groups of noble young men and women gathered together. Some held wine glasses and spoke quietly, though their eyes swept over the hall in search of something. Some leaned against the pillars with faint smiles, lazily turning their glasses in their hands.

There were even a few standing with their backs to the crowd, shoulder pressed to shoulder, saying something private to one another and letting out low bursts of laughter now and then.

“See that?” Allen said. “The ones huddled together all grew up knowing each other. Dukes’ houses, Marquises’ houses, all that. They’ve already got their own circles. People like us—”

He pointed at himself, then at Ryan.

“—small fry from little families, we can’t squeeze our way in.”

Ryan said nothing.

Allen sighed. It was a very light sigh, not especially disappointed, more like someone finally speaking aloud a fact he had held inside for a very long time.

“I only got to come this time because I got lucky.” He scratched the back of his head. “The strongest young person under our Marquis—that would be my cousin, you get me?—just happened to turn twenty. He aged out. So the slot got pushed down, layer by layer, and in the end it landed on me.”

He spread his hands and shrugged, lifting his shoulders high, as if trying to shake off some invisible burden.

“Even now, it still feels like a dream. You know? Back where I’m from, I’m considered decent enough. But if you throw me in here—”

He looked around, his eyes passing one by one over the gorgeously dressed young people in the hall, then lowered his voice.

“—I reckon I couldn’t even beat some of these people’s bodyguards.”

Ryan watched him.

Allen’s eyes really were that clean. Even when he said these things, he still had a smile on his face, and his tone stayed light, as though he were talking about something that had very little to do with him.

“So,” Allen said, slapping his thigh, “I’ve been watching you for ages.”

Ryan’s brow twitched faintly.

“You’re alone too,” Allen said, gesturing in the air as he spoke. “You’ve been sitting here eating for nearly half an hour, and nobody’s come over to talk to you either. Aren’t we basically a perfect match?”

Ryan: “…”

“Don’t get the wrong idea, don’t get the wrong idea!” Allen hurriedly waved both hands, flapping them in the air like a panicked moth. “What I mean is, we’re both that sort of person—the kind that can’t fit into their circles. You’re sitting here alone, I’m sitting here alone, so instead of being lonely separately, why not be lonely together? At least then there’d be someone to talk to, right?”

He grinned, showing a row of white teeth. The smile was so sincere it was almost excessive, the sort that made it hard to reject him.

“Don’t worry, I don’t have any bad intentions. I just wanted someone to chat with. Otherwise this banquet’s too boring. Look over there—”

He jerked his chin toward the dance floor.

“I can’t dance, I’m no good with wine, and when those noble young ladies gather together chatting, I wouldn’t even know what to say if I walked up to them. So all I can do is sit here and watch you eat.”

He pointed at the plate in front of Ryan, which was nearly empty now, and swallowed audibly. The movement was obvious. His throat bobbed once with a soft gulp.

Ryan glanced at him, then at the crab leg still untouched on his own plate. He reached out, picked up the crab leg, and held it toward him.

“Try this.”

Allen froze.

He looked at the crab leg, then looked up at Ryan, his eyes round as though he were a dog receiving an unexpected kindness.

“You’re letting me eat that?”

Ryan pushed it a little closer.

Allen swallowed. This time the sound was even louder.

He reached out and took it. The motion was strangely careful, as if what he had accepted were not a crab leg, but something fragile and precious.

“How did you know I wanted this?”

“You looked over here eight times just now,” Ryan said. “And every time, you swallowed.”

Allen’s face turned red all at once.

The redness spread from his cheeks all the way to his ears, and even the side of his neck reddened with it. He opened his mouth as though he meant to protest, but nothing came out. In the end, he simply lowered his head and bit savagely into the crab leg.

“Mm—!”

His eyes lit up instantly, bright as though someone had struck fire inside them.

“This is good! What kind of crab is this? The legs are huge! We don’t have anything like this where I’m from!”

He chewed until his cheeks bulged, bits of crab meat clinging to the corner of his mouth. He looked as graceless as possible, and as genuine as possible.

“No idea.” Ryan picked up another piece of crisp roast pig skin and handed it over. “This one’s good too.”

Allen took it and shoved the whole thing into his mouth.

The skin crackled loudly between his teeth. As he chewed, his eyes widened more and more. At last he swallowed with a heavy gulp and let out a long breath.

“Mm, mm, mm—! This one’s even better!”

He immediately reached for the remaining crab leg on the plate.

Ryan did not stop him.

He merely leaned back in his chair and watched the blue-haired young man devour the food like a storm through dry leaves.

Allen swept through everything in his hands, then licked his fingers. He did it very thoroughly, one finger after another, not even sparing the spaces between them. When he finished, he smacked his lips with lingering regret.

Then he suddenly stopped and looked at Ryan.

“…Brother, you’re really a good person.”

Ryan did not answer.

He picked up another strawberry for himself.

Allen scratched the back of his head, as if something had suddenly occurred to him.

“Oh right, what did you say your name was again? Ryan? Ryan Velt?”

“Mm.”

“Velt… Velt…” Allen muttered the name a few times, his brow bunching into a knot as he stared up at the ceiling, clearly forcing himself to remember something. “Northern Border, House Velt… I feel like I’ve heard of that before.”

Ryan’s movement paused. The strawberry he had been about to put into his mouth stopped halfway there.

“I think my cousin-uncle mentioned it once,” Allen said, scratching his head harder as his brow tightened further. “Said there was some Viscount’s house up in the Northern Border that had gotten pretty lively lately… Something like… the Emperor granted them more land?”

He looked at Ryan, eyes full of simple curiosity.

Ryan said nothing.

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