My Husband Lives Inside a Painting – Chapter 18

Author: isuzuuy

For a moment, Gail’s eyes turned cold.

“When did I ask for your opinion?”

“Y-yes……?”

“How dare a mere piece of furniture forget its place and run its mouth.”

“I-I’m sorry, Young Mas— I mean, Young Count.”

“The choice is mine. Cross the line one more time, and I’ll sew your mouth shut.”

“Yes…….”

His own dignity was more important than anything else, so Gail only seemed to calm down after crushing the insolent servant who had dared to overstep his position.

Roughly sweeping back the hair that had fallen over his forehead, Gail gave the servant a curt gesture.

“Get out. And don’t bother me anymore.”

“Understood.”

After the servant left, only Gail and the painting remained in the room.

With his arms folded, he stood there and stared at it for a long time, his eyes filled with complicated emotions.

Sunflowers, huh.

Yes. He had heard something about them somewhere before.

Apparently, hanging a painting of sunflowers in your home was supposed to bring in money.

Is the artist not an established one? But even if the painting is a little clumsy, they certainly have a sense for it.

As that was exactly what he needed at the moment, a satisfied smile spread across his face.

Soon, Gail looked around the room, picked up the painting, and hung it in the most conspicuous spot.

“Hmm. Very good.”

It was exactly at his eye level, in a place he would see the moment he opened the door and entered the room.

Just then, a small line of text beneath the painting caught his eye.

Title: The Box That Brings Wealth and Prosperity

The crude and painfully straightforward title drew a snort of laughter from him.

“Interesting. The one who painted it doesn’t seem to be a noble.”

Nobles looked down on openly pursuing money.

But strangely, that was precisely what Gail liked about it.

“Well…… I hope it really does work.”

He said it lightly, almost as a joke.

***

Around noon, the merchant guild manager came rushing into the room with hurried footsteps.

“Young Count! A large fleet belonging to the Cashew Merchant Guild has gone down in the harbor!”

“……What?”

Gail tossed aside the documents he had been reading and instinctively rose from his desk.

It was that serious.

The fleet sank?

Goods brought by sea from foreign countries generally involved transactions on a massive scale.

And if the quantity was large enough to require an entire large fleet to transport it……

“What was the cargo?”

“S-salt, my lord.”

“……You’re certain that information is reliable?”

Gail deliberately lowered his voice as he asked again.

Salt stored in wooden crates and sacks would dissolve and disappear as soon as seawater seeped in.

If it was true, it was an enormous accident from which there would be no recovery.

And at the same time……

It was an opportunity for a merchant.

The servant swallowed hard and nodded with conviction.

“Yes. The information came from a reliable source.”

“If that’s true, food prices will skyrocket. Not just salt, but salted foods, livestock feed, even bread.”

“W-we’ve already received letters from quick-witted retailers asking whether we can supply them with our salt. They’re offering three times the usual price.”

“Three times?”

A rapid calculation began turning in Gail’s head.

It’ll take at least three months for salt prices to stabilize. If I can take as many of those contracts as possible in the meantime…….

Just then, another servant hurried into the room.

“Y-young C-Count!”

“What is it this time?”

The servants bursting into his office one after another, each with urgent news, felt like déjà vu.

Gail turned toward him with a sense of foreboding, only to receive even more shocking news.

“H-have you heard the rumor?”

“What rumor?”

“The rumor that’s been going around among the nobles lately. The one about black tea not tasting the way it used to.”

“So what about it?”

“Actually, there was a major fire at the tea plantations on the Southern Island. Apparently, the fire was caused by a mistake on the part of the Clodel Merchant Guild, and they’ve been caught up in disputes over compensation, which has caused problems securing their supply……”

“What?”

It might have sounded like a completely unrelated piece of news to an outsider, but from the perspective of a competitor, it was information worth a fortune.

Especially for the Pistachio Merchant Guild, which had been desperate to secure a new distribution route for black tea.

“The Clodel bastards must have emptied out whatever stock they had lying around in their warehouses. So that explains why the quality was so poor.”

“Yes. Judging from the circumstances, that seems certain.”

“Find someone who can interpret the language of the natives on the Southern Island. And check how much capital we can put into circulation immediately.”

“Are you saying we should cover the fire compensation ourselves?”

“Of course. What, should we wait until everything’s dead and gone before we act?”

“N-no, my lord!”

Having finished his calculations in his head, Gail directed his servants like a general commanding his troops on a battlefield.

With letters pouring in and the workload piling up, House Pistachio was filled with vitality for the first time in a long while.

A few days later.

After finally clearing away a mountain of work, Gail leaned deep into the sofa and lifted a glass of wine.

His expression was thoughtful as he savored the lingering aftertaste of the past few days, which had passed like a storm.

Now, if I can just persuade those natives properly…….

Truly, becoming the number-one merchant guild was no longer beyond his reach.

He didn’t even need to say it aloud. His eyes were already gleaming with exhilaration.

But how could I possibly be this lucky?

It was an unfamiliar sensation.

The past few days had been filled with such intoxicating satisfaction that his days of bowing his back just to secure a single deal felt like a distant dream.

It was at that very moment that his eyes fell upon the sunflower painting hanging on the wall.

“……No way.”

Because of that painting?

“No. That can’t be.”

All of this was entirely due to his own exceptional ability.

It was thanks to him, who had been born intelligent.

Even as Gail took pride in that thought, for some reason, he couldn’t take his eyes off the painting.

The sunflowers bathed in moonlight seemed to ripple as though they were alive, and following their movement, his own eyes trembled ever so slightly.

“…….”

As though they were following a coin dangling from a string, swaying at someone’s command.

***

Thanks to successfully closing several major contracts in succession, Gail was finally able to walk into the dining room with his shoulders held high for the first time in ages.

He discreetly watched his father, seated at the head of the table across from him.

“Cough, cough! ……Hmm.”

A little later, Count Pistachio, who had long suffered from chronic lung disease, finally parted his lips.

And the voice Gail had been waiting so eagerly to hear finally emerged.

“You seem to have been very busy with the merchant guild lately.”

Gail deliberately kept the corners of his mouth from lifting and answered in a composed tone.

“I merely worked hard as I always have, Father.”

“These are not results that can be achieved through effort alone. It seems you were fortunate as well.”

“It was only possible because of your guidance, Father.”

“Hmm. Continue to work hard in the future.”

The count, who had always been dissatisfied with his jealous and impulsive son, seemed pleased with him this time.

Gail was quite satisfied with today’s conversation.

That was, until his younger brother, Noah Pistachio, who was seated beside him, suddenly interrupted.

“By the way, Brother, have you hidden something in your room?”

“What?”

“I heard that lately you’ve been staying holed up in your bedroom without even going to your office…… And you’ve even forbidden the servants from entering. I find it rather strange.”

In an instant, a chilly atmosphere settled around the table.

“……What exactly do you find so strange?”

“You never know. Perhaps you’ve hidden some incredible ‘secret weapon’ in there.”

Noah had only been sneering because he found his brother’s behavior unbearably arrogant.

But when the gaze fixed on him from the side became unmistakably intense, he unconsciously raised his head.

Then he met those unlit, triple-lidded eyes staring straight through him, and he swallowed involuntarily.

“You’re saying something strange.”

His voice was eerily calm, completely devoid of inflection.

“That I’m hiding something. Is that it? Hmm? Tell me.”

“……Pardon?”

“Did you perhaps enter my room while I was away and see something?”

“No, I—I didn’t mean that.”