“We should just leave her alone. I’m sure she’ll run out of her room in less than two hours and tell us everything.”

The countess assured herself by saying so and told the other family members to leave Gabriel alone as well.

A day passed like that, and another came, but Gabriel didn’t change. She even went into her room every evening, locked the door, and let no one come in.

“What if… what if she has made a mistake in front of the duchess?”

“Maybe she is going there again next week to apologize, not because she has been granted another audience,” another maid replied, and it made the countess anxiously jump up and down.

Her lady-in-waiting advised that it would be better to wait for Gabriel to talk first as she was a teenager in puberty, but it was in vain. Fickle people tend to lack patience.

In the end, the countess couldn’t hold it anymore and knocked on Gabriel’s door that night.

“Gabriel! Gabriel!”

“What is it, mother?”

Gabriel asked, still not opening the door. The countess was now about to faint with stress and worries.

“My child, what kind of mistake have you made? Just tell me honestly.”

“Mistake?”

“Don’t worry, Gabriel. Your mother will take care of it.”

Gabriel realized why the countess was making such a fuss and sighed. She was grateful that her mother loved her and cared for her, but she hated it whenever she acted like that.

“Nothing happened.”

“Nothing happened? But then you wouldn’t be this quiet. Please, open this door and tell me what this is about.”

“I am not obliged to always be talkative. If you are so curious and worried, ask the duchess, not me. Of course, she would be surprised as nothing really happened.”

“Really? Nothing happened?”

“Yes.”

The countess couldn’t press on Gabriel further. The door was still shut, and she didn’t like it, but she had already raised many children and she knew that insisting couldn’t be good.

“Gabriel, please come to me at any time if you feel like talking. You know I love you.”

“Yes.”

Gabriel had to try really hard to not say, ‘I know it too well, and that’s the problem.’ After she heard the countess leaving, she sat down on a chair next to her bed and looked at the mirror.

“Oh, I’m the one who’s about to pass out in stress.”

She had made a promise with the duchess to look into the mirror every night before she went to bed and say, ‘I am beautiful’ ten times.

At first, she thought it would be easy. She couldn’t see why the duchess wanted her to do something so foolish and childish. However, when she actually stood in front of a mirror, her mouth was shut tightly and couldn’t say anything.

‘It had to be before I go to bed.’

As it was time to go to bed, her eyebrows hadn’t been painted dark and she was wearing no makeup to cover the freckles on her face. As it was time to go to bed, she couldn’t roll her hair or use any hair accessories. Her waist, that wasn’t tightened by a corset, and the loose underwear were the worst combination ever.

Looking at herself in the mirror, she just couldn’t bring herself to say, ‘I am beautiful.’

If it had been in the morning, she could have gotten ready for the day, make her maids leave, and try it, but it was nighttime.

She wished she could send a messenger bird to ask the duchess if this was what she had been aiming for.

-If you come back here next week without fulfilling your promise, I cannot let you meet her.

-But how are you going to know whether I’ve said that while looking at the mirror every night? You won’t be there.

-I will be able to tell.

Oh, her eyes had been so confident as she said that. Gabriel sighed and looked at the mirror again. She had stayed up almost all night yesterday. She felt like the lack of sleep could kill her. It was just one sentence, so she couldn’t understand why she was hesitating so much.

-Well, I’ll be the ugly Gabriel as usual.

She didn’t have any problems at saying that to the others and even to her mother who had given birth to her, but she could not say ‘I am beautiful’ all alone in her room? Was she that timid? She got angry.

“Wake up, Gabriel. You cannot miss this chance.”

Gabriel talked to herself on the other side of the mirror.

“Are you going to be called ugly and ignored for the rest of your life and die as a virgin without ever getting proposed?”

But thinking about it again, that didn’t sound so bad. Her father and brother were not going to let her be in any financial difficulty. Moreover, the profit she was getting from The Little Bird’s News, which she was publishing with Tatiana, was enough to support herself.

“But not doing it and not being able to do it are two very different things.”

However, why did it matter if they both led to the same end?

“Please stop coming up with excuses. Just cooperate!”

She closed her eyes and beat the mirror with her head. She hated herself so much for hesitating about such a little thing.

“Oh!”

She kept banging her head for some time, but then she realized something.

“I can close my eyes!”

Why did she realize this only now? She had been having a hard time saying it to herself in the mirror, but then she could close her eyes. The duchess didn’t say that she had to keep her eyes open.

“Hehe, I am really the clever one.”

Was it because she had been complaining while looking at the mirror for the last two days? Gabriel complimented herself in the mirror quite naturally. Then, she closed her eyes and started to carry out the promise she made with the duchess.

“I am… beautiful.”

It was harder to say than she expected even with her eyes closed. Still, she could do it when she didn’t see the mirror that had her real, undecorated self.

“I am beautiful.”

When she said it for the second time, she didn’t hesitate. The first time is always the hardest. After she said it about nine times, she started to wonder, ‘As I haven’t done this for two days, should I say it about thirty times instead of ten times?’

Since she already said it nine times, thirty times sounded easy. She wanted to be done with this cleanly, so she decided to say as much as she had delayed. And then, she repeatedly said ‘I am beautiful’ really quickly.

After she said it twenty times, she started to feel thirsty. After the twenty-fifth time, her closed eyes felt strangely tingly and she wanted to wash her face.

Around the twenty-eighth time, she started to wonder, ‘Oh, why am I making such a fuss over something so small, enduring the thirst and itchy eyes?’

When she said it for the twenty-ninth time, she eventually opened her eyes to get rid of the itchy feeling. Now that she had only one more to go, she didn’t want to close her eyes again. She had gotten enough confidence after saying the line twenty-nine times.

“I’m…”

She gulped hard and challengingly stared at herself in the mirror. She was still neither beautiful nor pretty.

She was small and overweight, her red hair was way too thick and her eyebrows were too thin. And, why were there so many freckles on her face?

She moaned, thinking she was an ugly nobody. But now, she was even angrier at herself for carrying out Rubica’s terms with her eyes closed when she was just a nobody.

‘It’s just an image reflected in the mirror.’

It was nothing but an ordinary, no, ugly image. She couldn’t be hesitating so much about it.

Gabriel took a deep breath and held her hands together. They said the hardest fight of all was the fight against oneself. She couldn’t even beat her appearance that was only a small part of who she was.

‘I’m the smartest of the Tangts. I read better than my siblings and I’m also great at math.’

However, she was afraid of her own face reflected in the mirror? Really, that hurt her pride. She took another deep breath, held her hands together, and looked into the mirror.

After making a lot of effort including reminding herself of her strong points, again and again, she spoke.

“Beautiful.”

Then, she breathed heavily. She lacked oxygen more than when she rode on a running horse. She felt happy that she finally did it, then she felt so hollow at learning that she had been hesitating so much about something so easy. Then she realized something.

‘It’s… the first time.’

It was the first time she ever called herself beautiful. She had always called herself ‘so ugly’ when she looked into the mirror. She used to wish she was tall and thin like Tatiana and had soared-up eyes like a baron’s daughter. Instead, she knew her eyes made her look a bit like a fool.

So, she always thought about the women she wanted to be like each time she stood in front of a mirror and wondered what she should do to be at least a little more like them. She looked into the mirror every morning and every night, but she wasn’t looking at herself. She was trying to find them in the mirror.