“Yes. Please enjoy your meal… both of you.”
Hwa Young’s eyes sparkled with intrigue, accentuating her words. Even as she walked towards the kiosk, her gaze lingered on the two.
“What are you doing here?”
As soon as Hwa Young left, Da Jeong spoke with a reproachful tone.
“I came to eat.”
“You know this is the staff cafeteria, right?”
“I’m a staff member too.”
Tae Sang finished speaking calmly and then casually picked up a serving spoon. He heaped a mountain of rice onto Da Jeong’s tray.
Da Jeong, faced with an amount of food that could be mistaken for an athlete’s meal at Taereung Training Center, grimaced and protested.
“I can’t eat this much.”
“Eating a lot doesn’t mean paying more.”
“I know that. Wait, let me do it!”
As Tae Sang reached to scoop some soup after the rice, Da Jeong, startled, quickly grabbed the ladle from his hand.
A light skim on the surface. She scooped a modest amount, feeling a rather piercing gaze on her. Glancing sneakily, she saw Tae Sang looking sternly at the tray.
Da Jeong carefully put down the ladle far away and quickly added an explanation.
“I don’t eat much soup… Oh, no!”
Before she could finish, Tae Sang plunged the ladle deep into the pot. A thud echoed as it hit the bottom, soon revealing a ladle brimming with soup and ingredients.
He quietly extended the heavy ladle towards her.
“I really can’t eat all this…”
She muttered softly to herself, but all she got in return was an intense look that seemed to say, “Just serve it and stop talking.”
Da Jeong sighed lightly and quietly took the ladle. It seemed impossible to stand up to such a gaze even if she were reborn a hundred times.
Walking across the hall with her tray full, she felt hundreds of eyes on her.
Da Jeong, trying to keep her composure, headed towards an empty seat. Seeing her sit down, other people at the same table suddenly made a U-turn to sit elsewhere.
Sitting alone at the spacious table, Da Jeong looked at Tae Sang with a tense expression. Sure enough, he confidently took a seat in front of her.
“There are plenty of other seats available.”
“I like it here.”
Saying so, Tae Sang looked alternately between Da Jeong and her tray, urging her to start eating.
Gulp.
Da Jeong faced a challenge like no other in her life. The tray was overflowing with rice and soup, topped with a mountain of stir-fried pork belly.
Accidentally becoming the villain of the employee cafeteria, Da Jeong shoved three pieces of pork belly into her mouth at once.
“Is it good?”
Tae Sang watched her closely and asked with a faint smile.
“Yes. I always liked stir-fried pork belly.”
“Would you like it if stir-fried pork belly was served every day?”
“Yes? Yes, that would be ni….”
Da Jeong, who had been responding carelessly, suddenly clamped her mouth shut.
He was the man who bought an entire redevelopment area just to preserve the orphanage land. If she wasn’t careful, the employees might be haunted by stir-fried pork belly 365 days a year.
“No! I don’t like it that much.”
“Really?”
“Yes. It’s just an occasional treat.”
Da Jeong quickly added a lie as Tae Sang raised an eyebrow. Then, without giving him a chance to respond, she continued.
“But why are you really here?”
“I came because Han Da Jeong asked me to.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?”
While she had invited him to the cafeteria in the new office building, that was a different situation with no other employees around.
Tae Sang knew this too. Da Jeong became curious about the intentions behind his playful fabrication.
“Surely, you’re not doing this for show, are you?”
“Is that not allowed?”
“Of course not! Please restrain yourself at the company. You have no idea how fast rumors spread…”
Da Jeong pleaded with clasped hands when a friendly-faced male flight attendant approached with a bright smile.
“Oh? Da Jeong! Long time no see.”
“Ah… Min Jun oppa.”
With the surroundings emptily echoing the reason for it. Clueless and inexperienced, their colleague Min Jun fearlessly attempted to join them.
“Is this seat taken?”
“Yes, it’s free.”
“It’s not available.”
Two contrasting responses came simultaneously. Da Jeong, with an awkward smile, glanced at Tae Sang.
Furiously blinking her large eyes and putting as much force into her eyebrows as possible, she was giving signals akin to Morse code. But it seemed to have no effect on him.
“We are having a private conversation and would prefer not to be disturbed.”
“Private… conversation?”
Confused, Min Jun moved to a spot where he could get a better view of the man’s face. Surprise and bewilderment alternated on his face after a moment.
“Wait… Are you…?”
“Yes.”
“But, why here…? Hey, Da Jeong, do you know him?”
Min Jun tapped Da Jeong’s shoulder as he spoke.
Tae Sang’s brows furrowed instantly at this. He had been growing increasingly irritated with Min Jun’s casual ‘Da Jeong, Da Jeong.’ Now, he could no longer hold back.
“We’re not just acquaintances; we’re dating. Could you remove your hand, please?”
“…!”
A ripple of surprise echoed throughout the cafeteria.
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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