The women were blocked mid-sentence, stunned into silence."But..." someone protested, "she is Sir Joseph's wife. She should set an example. How can she behave so carelessly?""I say," another added, "she's just a country girl. Never seen luxury. The moment she saw good food she forgot all manners!"
The speaker was Second Aunt, Mrs. Isabelle Anderson, who, today, had come with a very specific purpose.
She had people in the kitchen, and they reported that these past few days, Vecna's maid had turned the place upside down:
Vegetable baskets must be aligned in straight rows. Cucumbers arranged from shortest to longest. Knives must cut in the same direction. Anyone caught sneaking food had to squat with pots and pans on their head as punishment.
Good heavens, this was the Anderson kitchen, not a martial arts training hall!
And not only that Vecna had even established something she called the "Three-Person Mutual Oversight System."
The so-called system meant: groups of three must supervise one another.If one person sneaked food or tampered with the accounts, the other two would share the punishment.
So now everyone watched everyone else, and no one dared make a single wrong move.
If this kept up, what would become of the kitchen?
And so, today, using the "roast goose" incident as an excuse, these women all came together intending to pressure Lady Lauren into kicking Vecna out of the kitchen.
Lady Lauren Anderson felt a headache coming on, but she still had to defend her daughter-in-law:
"She may eat whatever she wishes and do whatever she wishes, she has her own judgment. If she truly does something wrong, Joseph and I will correct her. There is no need for others to wag fingers and flap tongues. If even eating roast goose is forbidden, then why don't you clear every good dish off Vecna's table for me to see?"
The women were struck speechless, tongues tied.
In truth, Vecna was quite wronged. On the first day, yes, she really did order a roast goose for herself. But on the following days, it was others who presented the food to her voluntarily.
She could control her heart. But control her mouth?
What a waste not to eat so she ate. Three days straight.
Seeing Mrs. Vecna's "style" of behavior, the servants assumed she was easygoing, and so they began offering her gifts: delicious foods, rare treats, curious toys. Some even noticed she lacked real jewelry and secretly tucked silver ingots into her hands.
And Vecna accepted everything.
…
Vecna's POV:
Three days wrestling in the kitchen was enough for me to see everything clearly.
A small kitchen, yet it was a perfect miniature of the entire Anderson domain:rooted connections everywhere, hidden power struggles, and people who seemed insignificant but fought each other with invisible claw and fang.
There were four major supervisors.
One was close to the deputy housekeeper, her scent and behavior made it obvious she belonged to Lady Lauren's faction.
Another strutted around arrogantly, like an immature wolf convinced it was an alpha; rumor said she was younger sister to the personal maid of Second Uncle's wife, Mrs. Isabelle Anderson.
The third was silent, never revealing anything like a wolf crouched in the bushes, waiting for the right moment.
The fourth was the most slippery, a fox spirit in human skin, undoubtedly someone from Lady William's side.
Lady William… was not a simple figure.
From bits of gossip scattered around the kitchen, I pieced together the entire history of the Anderson family's third branch.
The third uncle, Ronen Anderson, had originally been arranged to marry a young lady of the William family, one of the most prestigious lineages, known for generations of scholarship and virtue.
But afterward, the Williams were implicated in an ideological purge, people were condemned simply for what they had written.The entire household was sentenced, the family destroyed, and the survivors marked with a permanent stain on their status.
Ronen cared for that William girl so much he racked his brain for ways to save her until exhaustion, until shame meant nothing, until he nearly lost the dignity expected of a man of the Anderson clan. His devotion was so obvious that anyone could see it just from how his eyes changed when her name was mentioned.
But once she became a criminal servant, she could never be a legal wife.That status was like a sealed verdict stamped onto her life, no amount of effort could erase it.
Joseph's grandmother was still alive then, and she devised a solution:Ronen would marry a noble lady from the family of the Deputy Director-General.
That woman became today's Mrs. Rita Anderson.
Because Rita had been married so high, she was forced to accept an absurd arrangement: a second woman in the household.
As though returning to the old feudal days sharing a husband openly, forbidden to be jealous, forbidden to resent, forbidden to fight; all natural human emotions swallowed like bitter water.
Rita was quiet, gentle, and nowhere near as clever as Lady William, how could Ronen ever favor her?
His heart had never belonged to her, not once. And so her presence, though legitimate, was always fragile, lonely.
Over the years, financial control of the third branch fell entirely into Lady William's hands. Her status within that branch was even higher than Rita's.
Servants treated Lady William as the true mistress, one could see it in how they bowed to her, how they avoided meeting Rita's gaze.Reality was harsher than any rumor.
Meanwhile, the estate's entire inner courtyard was overseen by Lady Lauren Anderson, Joseph's mother. Joseph, though the young master, seldom interfered in domestic matters of the extended branches unless they were of clan significance.
Thus, Lady Lauren held authority, but she could not interfere in the marital affairs of her husband's brothers. Most of the time, she simply turned a blind eye.
I stood in the kitchen stirring soup with a ladle, but my ears caught every stray story drifting like bone fragments in the corners, and my nose tasted the invisible scents of power threading through the steam.
This place was a forest beautiful, luxurious, gilded, disciplined but still a forest. Every breath carried the threat of a hidden trap. One misstep, and you're caught.
And I, a wolf far too experienced with the dirty alleyways of the underworld, could sense clearly that I had stepped into a territory more dangerous than any moonlit night I'd survived.
Here, claws were hidden, but once they struck, the bite was lethal. I understood that, and even the heat of the boiling pot couldn't loosen the tension in my chest.
This was not just my husband's home. It was a battlefield where every inhalation could become a fatal weakness if I slipped.
Lady William of the third branch and Mrs. Isabelle Anderson of the second branch had extended their influence into the kitchen for years, not causing major trouble on the surface, but quietly siphoning profit.
Standing in the kitchen for just one hour, I could smell the greasy sweetness of corruption.
For example: If a master of the estate wanted an extra dish beyond the allotted menu, they had to pay from their own pocket. But most of that money never reached the kitchen, it was intercepted by the supervisors.
Ask for two crabs? The ledger would say four, to balance the accounts. Everything looked legitimate on paper, but the extra money vanished directly into their pockets.
These supervisors lived off loopholes in power and the carelessness of their masters.
At first, I only caught hints from the deputy housekeeper, but after three days of quiet observation, everything became as clear as moonlight reflecting off cold steel.
Mother-in-law entrusted the kitchen to me not because she believed I knew how to cook but because she wanted me to purge the ones who refused to obey.
If I let them run wild, I'd be the first to offend the matriarch.But if I disciplined them, I'd be directly provoking Second Aunt and Lady William.
Both sides had wolf-fangs ready, neither easy to approach.
Yet after weighing the options, I still chose to stand with Lady Lauren.At least she was someone I could look in the eye, her intentions were transparent. The other two… one only needed to observe how their people breathed to know they could never be trusted.
It seems that wherever there are people, there is a underworld. Even a kitchen reeks faintly of blades and shadows.
Surviving here by "lying low until spring"? Dreaming would be easier.
If a newcomer like me didn't dare face danger myself, then who would?
I am a wolf. I do not fear biting. I only need to choose the right throat.