“Ha, but… I can’t sacrifice any more innocent children…!”
Melissa stuttered in protest, her face pale. However, Nigel’s smile only grew more crooked.
“Why, are you feeling guilty now? For sacrificing children to prolong the life of your mother who lies there like a corpse?”
Melissa trembled her lips without a word. Nigel tapped her head with his folding fan.
“Hey, Melissa. You knew from the beginning. You were the one who informed me about that magic stone in the first place.
And now you’re trying to pretend to be righteous? Ah, my foolish sister Melissa. The world usually calls that ‘hypocrisy’.”
Melissa dropped her head with a pained expression.
“But, but I can’t do it anymore. I… I can’t just stand by and watch anymore.”
“What do you mean?”
“I know everything! What you do every day at the Crown Prince’s palace, why the Crown Princess is getting thinner by the day, and that you plan to sacrifice countless more people in the future!”
As Melissa cried out in agony, Nigel’s smile looking down at her finally slowly faded.
“…You’re noisy, excessively so.”
Blue veins could be seen squirming on Nigel’s forehead. Nigel spoke irritably.
“Remember this clearly, Melissa. Everything that happens from now on is all your responsibility.”
“What… do you mean?”
Melissa questioned in a frightened voice. That’s when it happened.
“Hey. Did you take care of it?”
As Nigel raised his voice, the palace knight who appeared as the door flung open dragged something in and threw it in front of everyone.
It was someone’s corpse, crumpled like a piece of luggage.
Nigel slowly approached the corpse and threw his folding fan.
Then he personally grabbed and turned someone’s blood-soaked face so Melissa could see for herself. In that moment, the princess’s eyes widened in disbelief.
“Do, Dolores…?! How… how?”
Nigel grinned wickedly at her as she repeated the same words over and over like a fool, unable to believe it.
“Take a good look. At the face of the first victim of your recklessness.”
“How… how could this happen!! Dolores, who raised us since we were babies, how could you!!”
The princess screamed like a madwoman. She crawled towards Dolores sprawled on the floor, hugged her, and burst into tears blankly.
“Dolores, no… no!”
There was not even a hint of pity in Nigel’s eyes as he watched his sister’s screams.
“Well… why did you act up? Do you know how much trouble you’ve caused me for no reason?”
When Kasha finally tried to step forward, unable to bear the cruel sight, there was a sudden commotion outside and someone knocked on the door urgently.
“Your Highness the Crown Prince!”
“Ah, yes. Come in.”
The crown prince welcomed the visitors with composure, as if he had been waiting. As he spread his arms wide, the robe barely tied with a string fluttered precariously.
The people who entered the room were palace attendants and escort knights. They all had gloomy expressions.
“Your Highness! His Majesty the Emperor… has passed away!”
As the knight kneeling before Nigel shouted those words, the atmosphere in the room instantly froze. Kasha, Leon, Margaret, and the princess looked at each other’s faces with shocked expressions.
As Nigel observed their faces one by one, he muttered to Melissa. Kasha, who was standing beside Melissa, could also read his lips.
‘The second sacrifice.’
“Oh no… no!”
The princess collapsed, swallowing a scream. Regardless, Nigel ordered the knights with a solemn expression.
“We will hold a grand funeral befitting His Majesty’s dignity. Immediately declare a national mourning period, and order the nobles, regardless of rank, to remain in seclusion in their residences until the funeral.”
“Yes, Your Highness!”
The crown prince showed no tears despite just hearing the news of his father’s passing. The knights obeyed him in perfect unison. Even though he was in the shabby appearance of a rogue wearing only a robe.
The power of the magic stone wielded such a strong charisma.
And even if there were doubts, what could they do? Now that the Emperor had passed away, it was already inevitable for Nigel to take the position of the empire’s number one.
Some of the knights left the room to convey the orders, but even more palace servants and imperial knights gathered afterward.
With them behind him, Nigel turned to the five people frozen like statues with a very relaxed gesture.
Melissa, still holding Dolores in her arms, was now glaring at Nigel with a calm face, her excitement having subsided.
Kasha carefully observed Melissa’s behavior. Unless in special cases like Kasha or Leon, it was never easy to resist the charm of Nigel, who was borrowing the power of the second magic stone.
Yet Melissa was holding her head high and glaring at Nigel in the midst of all this. It meant that Melissa’s insight and will to see through the situation were extraordinary.
“Did you… really have to do this?”
“Ah. Of course, my sister. Don’t even say it.”
Nigel went to the chair by the Empress’s bed, flapping his robe, and plopped down. As the robe opened, revealing his bare flesh, Kasha turned her head, unable to bear the nausea.
“Well. Our father found out about the magic stone, didn’t he? Perhaps Jasmine babbled something unnecessary.”
“…What? Don’t tell me, that’s why… His Majesty?”
“What else could I do? He was annoyingly demanding to bring all the magic stones, including the one our mother is using. Our mother, well, it doesn’t really bother me if she wastes the magic stone like that for the time being, but father is different, isn’t he? So there was no choice. I had no choice but to help him go to his destination a little faster.”
Melissa’s face turned pale. In other words, Nigel was brazenly babbling that when the Emperor ordered him to dedicate all three magic stones to him, he murdered him because he was displeased.
There were still some servants left in the room, but Nigel didn’t care that they were listening to the conversation.
It was arrogance stemming from the conviction that he could exert absolute influence over the other person.
“Brother… what are you going to do? Aren’t you afraid of karma?”
At Melissa’s words, Nigel frowned as if hearing something not very funny.
“Karma? Who dares to ask me about karma? I am now above all people. No one can dare to oppose me.”
“God will never…”
“God? Ha! Does God really exist? The one who gives me what I earnestly desire is God. In that sense, at this very moment, your God is none other than me.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Do you know? There’s only half a day left. Until the one-month cycle of offering a sacrifice to the third magic stone is complete.”
Melissa’s gaze wavered wildly upon hearing those words.
“That means… then.”
“Yes. That damn pure soul. If we don’t slit a child’s throat and offer it within half a day, our Empress Mother will immediately pass away.”
“That, that’s… that can’t be.”
Melissa’s face turned pale.
“Well, are you going to pretend to be hypocritical again? It won’t change anything, my poor Melissa. Never forget that you started this whole situation with your own hands.”
Even while pressuring Melissa to the point of suffocation, Nigel occasionally glanced at Kasha and Leon. As if checking to see if they were watching what he could do.
Kasha embraced the shoulders of Eve, who was hiding behind her, barely able to breathe.
Nigel intended to take Eve away from this place, right in front of Leon’s eyes. He probably wanted to create a situation where Leon had no choice but to draw his sword against him.
Kasha had noticed that Leon’s hand gripping the sword handle had been firmly tensed for a while. It was clear that Nigel was also aware of that fact but pretending not to notice.
Nigel was waiting for the moment when Leon would fully draw his sword on his own. And the moment he drew his sword, he would accuse him of treason and finish him off properly on the spot.
No matter how outstanding a knight Leon was, one of the best in the entire empire, it would be impossible for him to survive against the entire imperial guard.
If he drew his sword now, Leon would face a futile death in the same situation as before the regression.
Kasha stared intently at Leon’s violet eyes, burning like flames.
The fierce conflict within him was clearly readable. Given his personality, he probably wasn’t afraid of death. He was solely worried about Kasha and Eve, who would be left behind after his death.
Kasha took in his elegant forehead, the shining hair flowing over it, and the beautiful features she loved, one by one.
The best thing about this life, where she had regressed for an unbelievable reason, was not revenge, fame, or the newly discovered secret of her birth.
‘You, you were the best thing.’
The person who made her feel what it was like to be wholly loved. The amazing sense of elation that made her feel like she could do anything if he was by her side.
There was nothing to fear if it meant protecting that. Even if it meant holding the hand of the most terribly repulsive human being.
Kasha painfully took her eyes off Leon. Then, as if she had been waiting, she met Nigel’s gaze head-on as he followed her.
Kasha’s eyes, with an intense color like crushed flower petals. Nigel couldn’t take his eyes off them. Kasha, who had captured him like a predator immobilizing a small animal, finally slowly opened her mouth.
“Your Highness. I will go with Your Highness the Crown Prince.”
“Kasha…?!”
Margaret’s scream echoed through the room.
Shing.
At the same time, the sound of a sword being drawn from Leon’s scabbard rang out. Kasha immediately shot a cold glance at Leon.
Leon’s eyes met hers before he could fully draw his sword, clouded by incomprehensible confusion. Kasha glared at his beautiful eyes coldly, as if he were a stranger.
“Sir Leon. How dare you interrupt while His Highness the Crown Prince is speaking? Don’t act rashly and step back, right now.”
Kuk kuk, ku ku kuk….
The sound of Nigel’s laughter, as if he couldn’t bear the amusement, filled the golden room.
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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