“It’s said to be a place where the herb gatherer often goes to gather herbs. So, if it was investigated diligently, perhaps the bodies would have been found intact……”
“Ha. Enough.”
I didn’t want to hear more about the grim reality. I raised my hand to cut off Jerim’s words.
What if it had been me, if I had been Count Tenen?
I had given everything to the Imperial Palace, to the Emperor. Even my life. But all I got in return was the cold corpses of my family.
If I were Count Tenen, I would have holed up in my mansion, giving up everything, blaming my ignorant, incompetent self.
“Why on earth? The investigation was neither difficult nor were people scarce. They could have at least made a show of it.”
“They say someone at the Imperial Palace stopped the investigation.”
“Stopped the investigation?”
“Yes. They said it might just be that the Count’s daughter ran away with her mother, who was oppressed by Count Tenen all the time. That if it was such an issue, the Imperial Palace couldn’t step in every time, and the family itself had to resolve it. They persuaded the former Emperor.”
“Ha! That’s absurd…… Who said such a ridiculous thing?”
At my question, Jerim made a bitter smile. And the next words were shocking.
“It was the mother of Levanfell, the fourth consort of the former Emperor.”
It felt like someone had passed by and struck me hard on the head. My head was ringing.
Only then did I understand why Clint had a grudge against Levanfell. Why Levanfell always looked full of guilt whenever Clint’s story came up.
Everything made sense.
“Why, why?”
My voice trembled. Jerim, as if he had anticipated my reaction, slowly handed me a glass of liquor. My body was so cold that I needed the hot poison.
I gulped down the glass Jerim handed me.
“Levanfell’s mother did not want Levanfell to get close to anyone. But Count Tenen, who felt sorry for Levanfell, taught him swordsmanship secretly. ……Perhaps she thought that if there was no investigation, Count Tenen would let go and step down.”
A cruel person. Could there be anyone more cruel? To do that to the family of a kind teacher who looked after her child.
Did she even think about the wounds her child would receive?
“At that time, many people in the Imperial Palace followed Levanfell’s mother. There were many who strengthened her opinion, so others had no choice.”
“Why did so many people follow Levanfell’s mother? Levanfell wasn’t even a designated heir to the throne at the time……”
“I’m not sure about that, but they must have had the same goal in moving together. Those who followed her mother at the time were all symbols of corruption.”
I frowned.
“……So, now?”
“No. Now everything is settled afterward. As soon as Levanfell ascended the throne, all those people……”
Jerim’s bitter smile took the place of the remaining words.
Suddenly, a rumor about Levanfell came to mind.
A tyrant who killed half of his loyal subjects as soon as he ascended the throne.
“So the rumor about killing the loyal subjects was……”
“Yes.”
They weren’t loyal subjects after all.
“……So that’s why Clint became like that?”
“Yes. It was not easy to determine the cause as the body was already heavily mutilated, and the initial place of murder could not be found. There were no witnesses, and no other clues either.”
“……Levanfell?”
“No one approached Lord Levanfell since a precedent had been set. I also couldn’t get close after that because my mother’s surveillance became severe.”
Suddenly, I recalled my first meeting with Levanfell. He had seemed quite bitter when I spoke of my mother back then.
‘But to trust and side with your child in any situation is something not everyone can do. She’s really an extraordinary person.’
The words that Levanfell had said at that time resonated in my ears once again.
His mother was not on his side. She was his enemy, never on his side, no matter the situation, no matter what happened.
“Ha.”
“Haah.”
Jerim and I both sighed at the same time.
Our heads were reeling from the shocking past, but what was even more perplexing was
“……Clint will never go to the palace no matter what.”
“Yes. And no matter what, Lord Levanfell won’t leave the Count as he is either.”
It seemed that it wouldn’t be easy to unravel the deeply entwined emotions between the two.
‘……Levanfell.’
I turned my head and looked at the place where Levanfell would be left alone.
Back then, Clint had considerable power in the palace. He had been treated unfairly for the mere reason that he secretly taught Levanfell swordsmanship.
What about others after that?
If even Jerim had been distanced from Levanfell’s side, then what about Levanfell after that?
I must be a selfish person. Even in the midst of all this, I worry more about Levanfell’s lonely childhood than Clint’s sad emotions.
I closed my eyes and filled the glass I was tightly holding with liquor.
(This is a time separator.)
Levanfell, perched on the windowsill, aimlessly looked down at the darkening street. Clint’s managed territory resembled him, solid and unassuming.
Male lead is a Divorced Husband
She said to him: “Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change it!”
Liu Changning transmigrated into a female cannon fodder character in a female-dominant novel.
After reading the first half of the novel’s plot, the first thing she did upon transmigration was to divorce the Pan Jinlian-style male protagonist she had just married.
She indulged herself, pretending to be ugly and poor.
But as time passed, the way that man looked at her became more and more unusual…
Liu Changning was dumbfounded: Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change!
――
This lifetime, Pei Yuanshao was rejected by the same woman twice!
The first time, she drove him away. Forced by the situation, he endured the waves of anger in his heart, yielding and humbling himself.
That person lay slanted on a rocking chair, her sallow face emotionless: “If you don’t want a divorce, go cook!”
Pei Yuanshao’s face was dark and gloomy: “You!”
The second time, after the crisis in Jinling City was resolved, the new emperor sent someone to pick him up. He turned around, stammering: “I… I have to go. If you keep me…”
That person lay on the kang bed, her back to him, as if she had long anticipated this day, crisp and clear: “Goodbye!”
Pei Yuanshao was so angry his fingers trembled: “You… you!”
The mission of family and country made him restrain himself, averting his eyes and turning to leave this broken household.
Two years later, they met again. Seeing her ethereal face, his body shook like a sieve.
“She was originally a ‘she’!”
At the Qionglin Banquet, the top scholar of the imperial examination, a talented person with exceptional speech and conduct, all the unmarried young gentlemen from aristocratic families looked at her with shy and timid eyes.
The peerless imperial official Pei Yuanshao felt the anger in his heart erupt. He pointed at the woman surrounded by the crowd at the Qionglin Banquet, his thin lips slightly curled: “Little sister, I wants that person to be the wife-master of my Mingde Prince Manor.”
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