Jessy pushed Patricia with all her might. Patricia, who was sitting with her knees bent, lost her balance and fell to the side with a thud.
“Aaagh!”
Seeing Julia raise the ice pick towards Patricia and shout for her to die, a young lady covered her mouth with both hands and screamed.
Bark, who was entering the study yard, heard the scream and quickly leaped through the open window.
Julia’s ice pick stabbed Jessy’s hand in mid-air, hit the edge of the round table, and fell to the floor.
At that moment, Julia, Patricia, Jessy, and everyone else in the study saw the silver pick soaked in blood on the floor.
The young ladies screamed again as they saw red blood gushing from Jessy’s small, delicate hand.
“Everyone, be quiet, don’t move.”
Julia spat out in a chillingly low voice.
“How dare a worm like you interfere with me? Do you know how I feel coming to this filthy mud pit?”
Julia glared at Jessy, who was pressing her bleeding hand against her stomach, and bent down to pick up the ice pick.
Julia had a tendency to mistreat those younger and weaker than her. She raised the silver pick towards Jessy, who was looking up at her in fear.
“Julia, that child is already hurt. Isn’t it me you want to kill?”
At Patricia’s words, Julia whirled around.
Patricia, who had been sprawled on the floor in an awkward position, got up. She stood straight, her chest out, willing to take Julia’s ice pick herself.
Even in this situation, Patricia’s characteristically calm tone and demeanor further irritated Julia.
She had wanted to see her begging and crying for her life.
She hadn’t screamed like the other young ladies, nor was she trembling.
“Alright, let’s see if you can remain so composed when this pick pierces your body.”
As Julia pulled her arm back with the ice pick, Patricia swiftly bent her waist and yanked Julia’s cape.
Julia lost her balance and staggered. At that moment, with a whistle, several white birds flew in through the window and circled around Julia’s face. Some birds defecated sticky excrement on her face.
“Aargh, what is this? It’s filthy.”
Julia sat down on the spot, still clutching the ice pick.
“Julia, you think this is filthy? You’re even filthier.”
Patricia went in front of Julia, grabbed her wrist, and took away the ice pick.
*
“It was graceful and beautiful.”
The delicate bones in Jessy’s hand were crushed. Claudine from the Imperial Palace said the bone in her middle finger was shattered and there was no way to treat it.
“I decided that when I grow up and become an adult, I want to be like the princess.”
He said he would treat the torn flesh as much as possible and compress the bone with gauze so it could harden on its own, and use medicine to minimize the pain as much as possible.
“I always carried a purse with me that had a pouch filled with strongly scented chocolate.”
Jessy mumbled softly about Julia without being asked.
“The princess gave us chocolates and candies. Oh, she even gave us gold coins once.”
Jessy was much more dependent on and obsessed with Julia than Patricia had imagined.
“But why did the princess’s eyes change as if they were rolled back? Could it be that a demon ate her soul, or maybe someone else is pretending to be the princess? Anyway, her eyes changed and she became like that overnight.”
Claudine said that due to mental shock, her cognitive abilities had decreased and she was repeating words she had said before.
He said it would be better for Jessy to stay in a quiet place where she could find emotional stability for a while, rather than sending her back to the poorhouse.
Patricia went to Boras Palace. Isabella’s belly was so round that she had to support it with both hands.
Patricia asked her to take care of Jessy until she returned from Tane’s wedding. Claudine agreed to come to Boras Palace every three days to treat the external wounds.
Isabella gladly agreed after hearing Patricia’s story.
*
Empress Dowager Diana went to the Emperor’s office after hearing the news that Julia had been imprisoned in Bihar.
She suggested letting her stay in a guest room in the main palace instead of Bihar prison, as a courtesy to an imperial princess.
“There was an unfortunate accident, but other than that, it’s not enough to warrant imprisonment, Your Majesty.”
Diana said to the Emperor, forcibly twisting the corners of her mouth. The Emperor nodded to his aide to explain.
Philip opened the report and explained while pointing with his hand.
Initially, Julia approached Bark under the pretense of pregnancy, requesting Panaho poison arrows, and after being rejected, she bribed another Heun hunter to proceed with the incident, conspired with Empress Pamila, confirmed that an assassin approached the Empress after dropping her off at the Kaosan gold mine, and left a handwritten memo to Bark offering to fulfill all demands in exchange.
The witnesses listed were Old Man Chen from Oro Alley, Bark’s subordinate, a waiter from the Etrangere Cafe on Ephe Street, and John the coachman from House Leak.
Coachman John went to Tane Luken to drive a stagecoach, thanks to Carolina’s consideration. They ran into each other in the square while Carolina’s party, invited by Patrick, was staying in Luken to take the train to Tane.
John ran to Carolina, knelt down to greet her, and she kindly asked about his circumstances.
John said that although it was emotionally difficult being in a foreign country as a fugitive, he was managing to make ends meet, and he took out a rolled-up cloth from his waist and unfolded it.
It was Carolina’s onyx necklace.
She was moved that he hadn’t sold the necklace despite barely making ends meet with his poor appearance.
Remembering the closed Heun hunter village, she wrote a letter to Bark explaining the situation. She gave him money to buy a sturdy horse and the letter, telling him to go to the Heun hunter village in the Roche Mountains.
Coachman John became a carpenter in the Heun hunter village.
*
Diana, who had left the Emperor’s office, took a palace carriage past Duse Palace and went to Bihar Prison in the northwest.
Diana told her two maids who tried to follow to wait in the carriage, and went down to the underground with the head servant, following the guards. It was her first time going to Bihar Prison.
The damp underground felt as frightening as entering the innards of a giant beast curled up. Even though she was stepping on packed dirt floor, it felt creepy like stepping on wet intestines.
Diana didn’t want to admit it, but she was shocked by Julia’s actions.
Disciplining oneself in body and mind for restrained behavior and elegant attitude. The result of painstaking efforts seeping into bones and flesh, naturally exuding dignity.
Diana thought that completing one’s dignity as a pure-blooded noble lady was the purpose of living as a woman.
How could she lie about being pregnant with a child of those barbarians, on top of ordering murders, attempting assassinations, and engaging in conspiracies and schemes?
She was disappointed that Julia had lowered her dignity.
Julia, who had been leaning against the wall with her eyes closed, her hands bound in iron chains, raised her head abruptly at the guard’s announcement of the Empress Dowager’s arrival.
She moved her body, trying to approach Diana with fiercely shining eyes. The clanking sound of iron chains made Diana step back instead.
“Your Majesty, please get me out of here.”
Her pink dress was stained with dried black blood and bird droppings, and her once glossy black hair was disheveled.
“You told me, Your Majesty. To bear Harchen’s child, to continue the pure bloodline.”
The breath she exhaled while hissing roughly smelled foul.
Diana’s heart pounded when her gaze met the glittering black eyes. Her stomach churned with fear.
She had stabbed a young girl’s hand with an ice pick, they said. She looked like a woman capable of such an act.
“Julia, calm down. Once we treat the poorhouse child and you’ve stabilized, we can come to an agreement…”
Clank, clank. Julia reached out her hand, trying to grab Diana even though she couldn’t get any closer.
“Your Majesty, I’ve been wronged. I was aiming for that woman, but that girl interfered.”
Ah, this child, really!
She was certain that if the young girl hadn’t interfered, she would have killed the Empress. She thought she had been caught because she failed to kill the Empress.
“Send a maid once a day to help her bathe. Provide her with high-quality food.”
Diana instructed the head servant and turned away without looking at Julia.
“Your Majesty, please get me out of here. It was what you ordered me to do.”
Diana’s legs trembled with fear that a black hand might suddenly reach out from under the dark wall and grab her ankle. Her spine tingled and the back of her neck stiffened.
She exhaled the breath she had been holding when she came out into the bright outside. She got into the carriage. She asked her maid:
“Do you have any water?”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t prepare any.”
She was thirsty. Deprivation and fatigue hit her all at once. She had an urgent desire to drink something clean and refreshing.
“Let’s go to Boras Palace.”
The maid who had gone to announce Diana’s arrival came back with a face that looked like she might cry. The maid with white fingertips clasped together bowed her upper body.
“The princess has declined to meet.”
“I came all this way to see her?”
“I’m sorry.”
“Well, what is she doing now?”
“She’s drawing water lilies by the pond.”
“I see.”
Diana returned to her quarters and drank water. After downing a full crystal glass, she received bath and bedroom services. She changed into her nightgown and dismissed the maid who was brushing her long, glossy black hair.
She entered the bedroom and stared blankly at her reflection in the mirror.
Her face without makeup had lost the smooth contours of her maiden days. Her sagging jawline made her look vicious. Diana covered the mirror with a black cloth.
Isabella’s face appeared over the black cloth.
She could easily imagine Isabella painting flowers with vivid paints on a canvas where sunlight sparkled and fell. It was a common sight, after all.
But she realized only now that it was impossible to watch that ordinary scene by her side.
The cautious Isabella would probably be drawing on a separate practice sheet she had prepared in advance. How round would her belly be now? The morning sickness must have passed, so the baby in her womb would be kicking by now.
She had uttered words doubting the seed in her womb in front of Isabella.
Diana wanted to cut out her own tongue.
Diana wanted to die. At the same time, she resolved more strongly to live.
Male lead is a Destined Young Husband (Female-dominant)
One-sentence summary: Wife-master, listen to my explanation!
Li Ruantang, a young lady from a prestigious family, stumbled and fell. When she woke up, she saw a noble and beautiful young man sitting by her bedside, wiping away tears.
The young master had slightly reddened eyes, and his every move exuded charm.
The sight made Li Ruantang’s eyes hot and her heart flutter. After all, she had made a bet with the young master Meng from the neighboring family. If she couldn’t marry a husband before the end of the year, she would have to admit defeat and give up the jade she had worked so hard to obtain.
Outside the window, the flowers were in full bloom.
Rather than losing the bet, the jade, and her face, Li Ruantang calculated that it would be better to seek marriage with the young master in front of her, killing three birds with one stone.
…
Meng Jun never thought that an accident during a spring outing would lead to them rolling down a cliff and into a river, yet still survive.
Now they were trapped in an unknown village, and Meng Jun had overheard that the family who had rescued them had their own intentions.
After all, it was Li Ruantang who had lost her mind and sought marriage first. He was only trying to protect himself!
Glancing at Li Ruantang, who was listing her own merits, the young husband’s voice softened, and he blushed as he lied, “W-wife-master, Wife-master, don’t you remember me?”
The young husband’s voice was clear and handsome, coaxing Li Ruantang’s heart to be soft and sweet, and she spared no effort to protect him.
It wasn’t until they returned to the capital that Li Ruantang suddenly remembered.
When they had fallen off the cliff, in order not to implicate Wei Yunruo, whom he secretly admired, the young husband had instead pulled her, who was slightly farther away, down the cliff with him…
Short summary by Yuushi L: Initially, the male lead (ML) liked another girl, while the female lead (FL) liked the ML. Both fell off a cliff. The FL temporarily lost her memory, and the ML, fearing others might take advantage of him, claimed FL was his wife while they were staying in a village. Later, when they returned home, the FL regained her memories and remembered that the ML liked someone else, so she kept her distance from him. However, during their time living together in the countryside, the ML’s view of the FL had completely changed. From this point, his pursuit of the FL begins.
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