....What?
Donovan was thrown completely off balance by the sudden appearance of the fourth daughter.
She watched him with a peculiar little smile.
And then—
"Oh, you're here?! I heard you two already know each other?"
Kingsley waved with that uselessly sunny grin of his.
Donovan couldn't believe what he was hearing.
"We know each other?"
"Yeah. Bella said so! Said you two have met before! Man, thanks to you I get to meet an actual angel like this?"
"······."
That alone was enough to paint the whole picture.
The fourth daughter had approached Kingsley specifically to get to Donovan — and Kingsley, fully aware of it, simply hadn't cared.
"······I told you not to meet just anyone, didn't I?"
"I don't meet just anyone. I only meet beautiful women."
They hadn't even been talking long and Donovan already had a headache.
"······Ha. Unbelievable."
He sat down at the table and looked at the fourth daughter.
She was smiling brightly, as if the entire situation delighted her to no end.
"What's your business?"
The moment Donovan tried to cut to the point, Kingsley jumped in urgently.
"Wait, wait! I called you here — shouldn't we handle my matter first?"
"······."
He wasn't wrong.
Donovan had come here in the first place because of Kingsley's once-a-month appraisal privilege.
Like it or not, Kingsley was a client.
Donovan let out a short sigh and studied the fourth daughter's face carefully through his sunglasses once more.
He already knew, but seeing it again was still astonishing.
Even Donovan, who had read countless faces, had never encountered this physiognomy in person.
It was the greatest of all physiognomies — something that existed only in the old texts, something he had assumed was pure legend.
The Formless physiognomy.
The ultimate configuration. With nothing more than the will to do so, its bearer could become a pure-hearted saintess, a villainess for the ages, or a cold-blooded ruler of the back alleys.
People usually slapped labels like "multitalented" or "all-rounder" on those who possessed a face like this.
It was a face that could become anything — and do anything.
"Well? She's an angel, right?"
Kingsley sparkled at him like an oversized dog vibrating with anticipation. Donovan answered evenly.
"Yeah. She could make a great wife. Or a perfect girlfriend."
"See?! What did I tell you!"
A radiant smile bloomed across Kingsley's face, as if he owned the entire world.
But Donovan's appraisal wasn't finished.
Those eyes — deep and black as an abyssal sea where light itself could not reach. Coiled at the bottom of them: possessiveness, obsession, and the hunger to control.
Someone with the staggering talent to become anything… who was also possessive, obsessive, and controlling?
"But I'd recommend running. No. Run."
"···What?"
"I said run."
Kingsley's eyes went wide.
In all the countless times Donovan had appraised women for him, he had never once dispensed advice this blunt — not a simple good or bad, but a flat-out order to flee.
There wasn't a single gram of humor in Donovan's lethal atmosphere. Kingsley didn't deliberate long.
"Ah···. Right, I had an appointment! Sorry, everyone!"
He bolted.
Watching him go, Donovan could only admire it.
His instincts really are ridiculous.
To cut bait and run without a shred of hesitation in a moment like that — impressive, in more ways than one.
The fourth daughter watched the spectacle with clear interest, then spoke in a low voice.
"Ah··· what a shame."
It was an ordinary enough remark.
But coming from someone with a physiognomy this absurd, delivered while she smacked her lips over it, the words carried a certain chill.
Wait. She's actually disappointed?
Reading her Color Reading, Donovan clicked his tongue inwardly.
She hadn't simply used Kingsley as a means to reach Donovan. She had genuinely been interested in him.
That was a development he had never seen coming.
······Or maybe it was inevitable.
Strange women had a peculiar habit of latching onto Kingsley.
And in that sense, Salvatore's youngest daughter was the genuine article — a strange woman who defied every category.
The talent to become anything.
To her, everything in this world must have felt far too easy, far too dull.
Even the heir's seat to the vast empire her father had built failed to hold her interest.
That had been a stroke of luck for the third son. Purely in terms of raw talent, her vessel would have crushed her brothers without breaking a sweat.
Well. You can't force someone who doesn't want it.
Someone with talent that overwhelming had deliberately chosen to stay quiet and out of sight.
She was never the type to obediently fall in line even if forced — which was exactly why Donovan had left her out of the succession discussion entirely, never even mentioning her name.
Fortunately, the interest she'd been directing at Kingsley had dropped off sharply.
Kingsley, I just saved your life.
With Kingsley successfully extracted, it was finally time for the real conversation.
"So. Shall we talk for real now? What's your business?"
She opened her mouth slowly.
"My oldest brother says he's going to grow grapes. He's even building a little winery. Wants to live quietly, apparently."
So Salvatore had taken Donovan's final piece of advice to heart. Good.
Why she was suddenly volunteering this information, though, he couldn't yet guess.
"My second brother went with him. Said he wanted to do it together. Well — he's only ever had eyes for our oldest, so that tracks."
"······."
"My third brother is preparing to be the heir. He sticks to Dad every single day, and they both look like they're having fun."
The unexpected peace that had settled over the Salvatore brothers after Donovan's intervention in the succession.
Listening quietly to these peaceful updates, Donovan finally understood the real reason she had gone to such lengths to meet him.
"You're the only one left out."
"Yes. Exactly. Everyone else got happy. Nothing changed for me."
Her brothers had each found what they wanted and either left or settled into place.
But she — despite possessing the perfect talent to become anything — still had no idea what she herself was supposed to do. She was adrift.
"So······."
Donovan let out a disbelieving little laugh.
The reason Salvatore's youngest daughter had used this convoluted method to arrange a meeting with him was genuinely the last thing he would have expected.
"This is career counseling?"
"Yes. That's exactly it."
For the first time, the peculiar smile vanished from her face, replaced by a blank expression.
She was taking this seriously.
"Why go through all this complicated nonsense just to ask? You could have gone through your father."
"I was a little embarrassed. And I wanted to show off my abilities a bit."
She gave a small shrug and added,
"Well. Looking at it now, that seems like it wasn't necessary."
Her skill at using Kingsley as bait and controlling the whole itinerary had been impressive, sure — but in front of Donovan's insight, it had been wasted effort.
She looked at him again and asked,
"So. What should I do?"
Under normal circumstances, no one would humor a stranger who dropped in out of nowhere demanding career advice.
But this was someone who bore the Formless physiognomy.
How am I supposed to pass this up?
A chance to examine in person a physiognomy he had only ever seen in books.
It was a temptation he simply could not refuse.
"Want to move somewhere else? This doesn't seem like the easiest place to explain."
"Sounds good."
The Grand Astoria Hotel.
The VIP reception room.
Donovan and Bella sat facing each other across an elegant table.
Looking at her face, Donovan spoke.
"You pick everything up easily, don't you?"
"Yes. Which means I get bored just as easily."
"Same thing every day doesn't work for you."
"Exactly. It's dull."
Neither bragging nor false modesty — just a dry recitation of fact.
"How old are you?"
"Nineteen. Just became an adult."
"College?"
"Didn't go. Why bother sitting in a classroom when I can just read the books? And nothing academic has ever really interested me anyway."
Donovan gave a small inward nod. Everything she said lined up perfectly with what the old texts said about the Formless physiognomy.
Of course. Because she has the Formless face.
A physiognomy that could become anything.
Put another way: no matter what she tried, she would learn it faster and more easily than anyone else.
But even that seemingly perfect gift appeared to come with a side effect.
The easier and faster she learned, the shorter the sense of accomplishment — and the quicker her interest burned out.
"Well. There is one line of work that might actually satisfy all those picky conditions of yours."
A faint flicker of interest crossed Bella's eyes.
"How about acting?"
"Acting?"
"Yeah. Depending on the role, you get to live a completely different person's life every time. Hard to get bored with that."
"Oh. That's actually pretty good."
Bella let out a small sound of appreciation.
Truthfully, "actor" wasn't some brilliantly original idea.
If she had ever seriously thought about her own future even once, it was the kind of career she would have landed on quickly enough.
She simply never had.
"Hmm······ the entertainment industry······."
She mulled it over, then suddenly fixed her gaze on Donovan.
"Um. Do you know K-POP?"
"······What?"
Donovan couldn't help but be startled.
Of all the things he might have expected to hear from the youngest daughter of a massive American conglomerate, "K-POP" had not been on the list.
"I know of it. How do you know about it?"
"I'm a huge fan."
Those pitch-black eyes of hers — always cool and submerged in boredom — sparkled for the first time in her life.
"If I'm going into entertainment anyway, what about starting as a K-POP idol?"
"An idol?"
"Yes! Dance and sing on dazzling stages, and once that starts to get old, do some acting, go on variety shows! Just… do everything!"
Donovan rested his chin on his hand and ran the numbers in his head at speed.
······Hearing it laid out like that, it's perfect.
Even looking at the Korean entertainment industry alone, the path from idol debut to natural expansion into acting was well-worn and everywhere.
And with the Formless physiognomy, picking up dance and vocals would be trivial.
Constantly shifting concepts, dazzling stages, performance in front of the camera —
If anything, this was a far better way to put that overwhelming, easily bored talent to full use without wasting a drop of it.
"······Not bad."
"Right?!"
An irrepressible vitality began to bloom across Bella's face.
"Me… an idol···."
The joy lasted only a moment. Wanting something and boarding a plane that same day were two very different things.
"But Dad would never allow it, would he? Becoming a K-POP idol means going to Korea. Even if he's given me freedom, if I say I'm crossing an ocean to another country to be an idol······."
"Don't worry about that."
Donovan jerked his chin toward her smartphone.
"Call him."
"······For real? Right now?"
Donovan nodded without so much as a blink.
Half skeptical, Bella dialed Salvatore's number.
The ringtone barely had time to stretch before a heavy voice came through on speakerphone.
"What is it."
Not the savage, oppressive tone of the great underworld boss.
This was the voice he used with his youngest daughter — softened, in its own way, almost gentle.
Donovan spoke toward the speaker without a second's hesitation.
"Your daughter. I think she needs to go to Korea and become a K-POP idol."
A suffocating silence dropped on the other end of the line. Then Salvatore's incredulous, gravelly voice came through.
"······What?"