New World, New Life: I Became A Bigshot In The Ancient World
Chapter 204: A BIT OF A HARD TIME

Chapter 204: A BIT OF A HARD TIME

The members of the Viscount’s House only woke up in the afternoon.

Aristia yawned and stretched her arms. The sunlight streamed in through the window and did the major part of illuminating the room.

In the middle of summer, the snowing-all-round north was bright, but during winter, there would be lots of dark, gloomy skies.

Since it was summertime, it wasn’t snowing. Everywhere was just covered with already fallen snow.

The fireplaces were lit and the mansion was warm, but cold air still blew in from the window.

Snuggling under warm blankets in the cold weather was a very comfortable feeling. Aristia sighed contentedly.

When her stomach grumbled, she remembered that she had to get off the bed and have breakfast... or lunch.

She left the room after washing her face and putting on a shawl. Taking a bath in the North wasn’t frequent.

Nobles could afford heating stones and could bath hot water, but it wasn’t the same for the average commoners.

Even so, the nobles mostly only took baths once a day. There wasn’t much sweating in the North, after all.

She bumped into Adeline on the way to the dining room. Adeline was probably on the way to her room to wake her up.

"Princess, you’re awake." Adeline bowed with a small smile. "I was just about to wake you for lunch."

"Is everyone awake?"

"Almost everyone. The old master instructed to let everyone sleep. Breakf— lunch can be eaten separately. Prince Alaric, master Liam, miss Lauren and miss Lily have arrived at the dining room. Would you like to have lunch with them?"

"Okay," Aristia nodded.

She entered the dining room and just as Adeline had said, her cousins and brother seemed to have also just arrived.

"Tia’s awake, " her aspiring-to-be number one fan, Lauren, noticed her immediately.

Aristia smiled and took her seat.

Lauren was sitting opposite her. She leaned forward a bit against the table. Her eyes were sparkling brightly and her mouth kept moving excitedly. "It was amazing what you did in the morning. Valen cried a lot. Even great grandma, grandma and grandaunt didn’t know what to do."

"Mm-hm," Alaric nodded.

Liam paused his action of spreading butter on bread for Lilith to agree with his sister, before returning her plate and proceeding to spread butter on Alaric’s slice of bread.

"Thank you, Liam."

"Thank you, Liam."

Alaric and Lauren turned to thank him and he accepted with a nod.

"It wasn’t that hard," Aristia chuckled easily. "I just... read it in a book once and I remembered it."

"Uh-huh, Tia knows everything." Alaric nodded his head thrice with a wide smile.

"Almost everything," Aristia chuckled, taking a bite of her bread and following it with a sip of tea.

"I see you’ve already begun lunch. Good afternoon, children." Vasily entered the dining room with a small smile.

"Good afternoon, Aunt Vasily." The children greeted back.

Vasily took a seat at the table and picked up a slice of bread from the middle of the table and started spreading butter on it. A servant poured tea for her.

"Is Valen asleep?" Lauren asked curiously.

"Yes," Vasily sighed wearily. Valen had really given her a hard time. He was asleep now and his nanny was watching over him.

She looked at Aristia gratefully before going back to her food.

Ross entered the dining room a minute later, followed by Maxim and Alistair.

They passed a smile around the table before taking their seats.

"Good morning, family." They said.

"Good morning, aunt and uncles,"

Ross kissed his wife’s forehead before moving past her to sit beside her.

"Bah!" Lilith said. Liam had his hand over her eyes.

The adults laughed.

"Valen gave everyone a bit of a hard time," Alistair said with a small smile.

"A bit?" Liam asked in a low voice,. slowly removing his hands from his sister’s eyes.

It was either the adults didn’t hear him or they chose to ignore it.

Instead, Alistair turned to Maxim.

"The physician said there was nothing wrong with Valen. Of course there wasn’t. Who would have thought he just needed to burp. He must have felt so uncomfortable."

The physician they had sent for had come earlier in the morning and examined Valen.

After Aristia ate breakfast at lunchtime, she left the dining room.

Her parents had not yet left their room and so had her great grandparents, grandparents and grand uncle and aunt.

Aristia entered the kitchen.

"Your Highness," the cooks and kitchen help bowed.

The head chef politely approached her and bowed respectfully. "Princess, what are you doing here? Is there anything I can help you with?"

"I need just a small bowl of rice, some fish and milk." Aristia said with a nod.

The cooks exchanged confused glances? Hadn’t the princess just had her meal just a few minutes ago?

Nevertheless, they still gave her what she requested. They wouldn’t dare question her or defy her orders.

Even though the Princess seemed different from before and wasn’t a brat anymore, they still had to be careful in case her old behavior resurfaced.

Besides, she was royalty and higher in status. Even if she was nice or kind, it wouldn’t do them good if they defied or questioned her orders.

A kitchen maid carried a bowl of rice in a tray and stood before her, waiting for her to move.

She stared in confusion for a moment when Aristia stretched out her hand to her.

Aristia stared at the confused maid and explained, "Give me the tray."

"Eh?" The maid was so stunned, she froze. Thinking she had heard wrongly, she asked again. "Pardon, your highness?"

Aristia sighed, "I asked you to give me the tray."

The maid hesitated for a second before handing her the tray with reluctance.

"Thank you," Aristia said as she turned around with the tray in her hands. "No need to come with me. I will return the tray or send someone to return it."

The kitchen staff behind her were left staring at her back.

Aristia ignored them and left the kitchen.

Back in the kitchen, a kitchen maid scratched her head.

"Oh, right. The princess brought a pet, didn’t she?"

"That’s true. The food should be for her."

Aristia entered her room. Millie had barely left her room since arriving at the Hemsworth Estate. She had appeared in front of the family in fox form, her first form when she first manifested.

The family were not aware that she could change forms and Aristia wanted to keep it that way.

Aristia spotted her from her position in the door. Millie was lying on the window sill, gazing outside. She only changed forms in the privacy of Aristia’s room.

She seemed to sense Aristia because she turned around as soon as Aristia walked into the room.

’You’re done eating?’ Millie asked.

"Uh-huh," Aristia nodded. "What are you looking at?" She placed the bowl of boiled rice on the floor and walked to the window.

’Outside,’ Millie replied simply.

Aristia looked out too, seeing the blanket of snow in the surroundings.

"I got you some food. You must be hungry." Aristia said.

Millie turned her attention to the tray and hopped down nimbly from the window.

While Millie started eating, Aristia took out an envelope. 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

She removed the seal and took out the letter inside.

Your Highness,

I am deeply sorry to inform you of this, but the owner of the painting has refused to sell it. I obeyed your orders by not letting him know your identity. Rather, I told him that it was a request from a person of influence. Even so, he refused to sell it. He also stated he has no intention of selling it.

However, I informed him that if he changes his mind and decides to sell it, he would be free to contact me.

Signed,

Randall.

Aristia sighed. She hadn’t expected this.

The art exhibition allowed artists to display their work of art. If clients found a particular work to their liking, they could purchase the work after contacting its owner and knowing if he had any intention to sell it or not.

If the painting was successfully purchased, the money would then be split between the artist and the art store, giving the artist a percentage of seventy and the store thirty for providing them with a place to market their work.

If only one person demonstrated interest in a particular painting, the person and the individual would discuss the payment, with the art store acting as a middleman.

But if multiple people showed interest in a particular painting, it would be sold on a bidding basis.

Quite a lot of paintings had been sold since the day after the official opening of the exhibition.

A week before when she went to the art exhibition and found the painting, she had asked Randall to contact the artist the painting belonged to and offer to buy the painting.

She had stated a more than reasonable price, but who knew that the artist would actually reject it?

The painting was still fresh in her mind as if she had seen it yesterday. She could picture every detail in the woman’s face and expression.

There was just something about that painting that she had to know. She put the letter aside. For now though, the painting would have to wait.

Since its artist had no intention of selling it, there was no rush. He could contact Randall if he wanted to later on.

By now, Millie was done with eating the rice and fish and was now drinking the milk.

After Millie was done, Aristia collected the now empty bowl from Millie, picked up a wrapped parcel, stood up and left the room.

She stopped a maid on the way. "Please, take this bowl to the kitchen." She asked with an adorable smile.

The maid was stunned for a moment, before snapping out of her daze. "Yes, princess."

Just then, a male servant passed by. He bowed in greeting, but Aristia stopped him.

"How can this servant be of assistance to you, princess Aristia?"

"Please make sure this gets delivered to the correct address," Aristia said, handing the wrapped parcel to the servant.

The servant bowed and collected the parcel. "Yes, princess." Then he left to carry out her orders.