Chapter 12: The Young Miss Lost Her Necklace
The next morning, April woke up to the sound of frantic footsteps slamming down the hallway outside her room.
She opened her eyes slowly, feeling completely refreshed. The deep, chronic fatigue that usually weighed down her limbs felt lighter today.
She reached up to touch her collarbone, and though she couldn’t see it, she could feel the faint, warm feeling of the spatial dimension directly connected to her soul.
A slow, satisfied smile touched her lips before she wiped it away, slipping back into her invisible, expressionless housemaid persona.
She didn’t have a dream, thankfully.
In her last life, she woke up with nightmares a lot. And while the majority was of zombies, there was one face that plagued her. Madam. Morgan’s sadistic grin when she whipped her.
Thankfully, even being back didn’t trigger such heinous nightmares and even her back didn’t throb either, as if the pain of the healed scars had disappeared. freeweɓnovel.cѳm
Once again, it felt so surreal.
April dressed in her usual faded uniform, tied her brown hair back securely in a rough bun, and stepped out into the corridor.
The entire estate was in a state of absolute chaos. Maids were running up and down the staircases with pale faces, and the distant sound of Madam Morgan’s shrill, furious voice was already echoing from the second floor.
April walked down to the main hall, picking up a duster to blend in. She spotted Sarah rushing past the banister, looking like she was about to burst into tears.
"Sarah," April called out, keeping her voice low, casual, and perfectly curious. "What’s going on? Why is everyone running around like the house is on fire?"
Sarah stopped, catching her breath, her eyes wide with panic. "Oh, April, it’s a nightmare downstairs! The young mistress, Miss Liora... she’s lost that green jade necklace she received last night! Madam is absolutely livid. She’s threatening to fire the entire morning shift if it isn’t found in the next hour!"
April tilted her head, playing dumb beautifully. "Lost it? But didn’t she have it on her before she went to sleep? Surely, she knows where she kept it."
"That’s the crazy part!" Sarah hissed, leaning in closer. "She claims she went straight to sleep with it locked around her neck. She swears she never took it off. The guards checked the window locks, and nothing was broken. Madam keeps screaming that it couldn’t have just grown legs and walked away, but honestly..." Sarah scoffed softly, shaking her head. "...who would even steal something so tacky? It looked like a cheap rock you’d buy at a street market. With all the diamonds and luxury gifts in that room, why would a thief only take a weathered piece of jade?"
"True," April murmured, a cold, hidden amusement dancing in her eyes as she lightly flicked her duster against the wooden railing. "It makes no sense. Who would want something so worthless?"
"Exactly! But Miss Liora is making a massive deal out of it, crying and saying it’s an irreplaceable family heirloom," Sarah sighed, checking over her shoulder anxiously to make sure Matilda wasn’t just going to magically appear behind her and hear her gossiping. "Anyway, I have to go check the laundry room again. If Matilda catches me standing around, she’ll skin me alive—well, if she’s even done crying about her own docked salary from yesterday."
"Go ahead," April said smoothly. "I’ll start checking the grand hall floors with the others."
As Sarah hurried away, April turned her back to the stairs, a silent, mocking chuckle vibrating in her throat. Let them tear the mansion apart. Let them flip every mattress and empty every drawer. They could search for a lifetime, but they would never find a necklace that was currently resting inside her very soul.
She patted her apron clean.
The Morgans were completely distracted by their precious daughter’s missing toy. It was the absolute perfect smokescreen for April to use to sneak out. But just so she is not accused of stealing and sneaking out to hide the necklace, she has to get formal permission to leave. freёwebnovel.com
April stepped back into her attic room, closing the door and locking it with a sharp twist. The chaos downstairs was growing louder by the minute, but she had a crucial experiment to run first.
She quickly dragged the drawer unit under the loose ceiling panel, climbed up, and pulled down the battered metal tin. Unwrapping the faded West African print fabric, she stared at the thick stack of hundred-dollar bills and Xavier’s ten-million-dollar check.
Carrying this around the mansion during a theft investigation was practically suicide. If she got caught with a ten-million-dollar check signed by the city’s richest tycoon, no amount of lying would save her.
Time to test the system, she thought, her pulse quickening.
She held the cash and the check firmly in her palms. Focusing her mind on the transparent grid slots of her boundless dimension, she thought a single word: Intake.
Flash.
With a sudden, seamless shimmer, the money vanished cleanly from her hands. April let out a beautiful gasp, her eyes wide as she stared at her completely empty palms.
She quickly closed her eyes, consciously peering into the white void of her soul. Sure enough, resting perfectly inside one of the massive floating grid slots was her hidden fortune, completely frozen in time.
"Incredible," she whispered. But she needed to know if she could pull it back out just as easily.
Focusing entirely on just the wad of cash Matilda had hoarded, she thought: Extract.
A second later, something materialized right back into her palm. She opened her eyes to see the crisp hundred-dollar bills sitting securely in her hand.
April cheered silently, a massive, victorious smile breaking across her face. It worked flawlessly. She quickly threw the cash back into the inventory, hopped down from the drawer, and pushed it back against the wall.
With her fortune safely locked away inside her soul where no human hand could ever reach it, she felt an overwhelming sense of absolute security. The world was finally on her side.
Now, she just needed formal permission.