TRCR 130

Yulian awkwardly scratched the back of his neck. His cheeks flushed faintly.

“I was… sunbathing.”

“Sunbathing? Why?”

Rebecca tilted her head in confusion.

Skin pale enough to seem white was the preferred complexion in the Rotandus Empire.

Deeply tanned skin symbolized the laboring class and was considered lowly.

Deliberately tanning was beyond common sense.

Thus, Rebecca had assumed Yulian’s chocolate-like tone was natural.

Come to think of it, in portraits from his childhood, he had snow-white skin.

Then he truly had been tanning……

At Rebecca’s questioning gaze, Yulian lowered his eyes to the ground.

“To look less holy.”

HeyHe lightly kicked a small pebble at his feet.

“Unlike my father, who groveled like an angel, I thought if I looked threatening, they wouldn’t accept me as Duke Johannes.”

Rebecca swallowed hard at the shadow cast by his long lashes.

“I thought if people started condemning me, even the temple would…