In response to Carolina’s question, Julia tilted her head and picked up a madeleine. After slowly savoring the madeleine, she wiped her mouth with a silk handkerchick.
‘Yes, if it’s a disappearance, they might not have found the body yet. Right, since Empress Pamila came back to watch until the end, she must have handled everything perfectly, hehe.’
“It’s been a few days since I saw Her Majesty the Empress. I gave her a wedding gift. Her Majesty quite liked the fan I made myself.”
Carolina was puzzled that Julia wasn’t as severely injured as Lord Bern had reported. This is why no judgment can be made until the truth is confirmed. Moreover, Julia’s expression changed like putting on a mask in the few minutes they sat face to face.
“You came to give a fan as a wedding gift. Is that all?”
“What else should there be? Drink your tea, it’s getting cold.”
Carolina hadn’t drunk a sip of tea, neither the one brought by the maid in the study nor the one here now. She didn’t think it was poisoned. However, she wanted to show her attitude of no longer trusting Julia.
“Julia, what about the next day? Didn’t you meet Her Majesty?”
“Mmm, there was no reason to meet.”
“That day, the day of the carriage accident, where did you go?”
“I went to Aldish’s dress shop.”
“Julia.”
Carolina called her in a low voice, trying to keep emotion out of it as much as possible.
‘Don’t disappoint me anymore.’
“Didn’t you meet Her Majesty at the Secret Lady shop that day? There’s a sales record of you buying something there.”
The customer information management at Secret Lady is quite sloppy. Julia didn’t hide the slight trembling of her thin lips as she spoke coldly.
“I’m displeased, Carolina. Don’t jump to conclusions. It’s true I bought special underwear there. But I didn’t meet the Empress.”
“You, you hid the fact that you went there from the beginning.”
“Carolina, I didn’t hide it, I just didn’t mention it. What lady could proudly say she bought such underwear? Especially to you, the empire’s black curtain.”
The empire’s black curtain, people thought it was a nickname that shamed her as a woman. However, whenever Carolina heard that nickname, it had the effect of reminding her that she wasn’t an ordinary woman.
“I see, if it had been Isabella instead of me, you would have said it, I understand. Her Majesty the Empress also went there that day. Mother judges it as the Empress’s love affair, but I don’t think so.”
At Carolina’s firm words, Julia smirked.
“Perhaps the Empress Dowager’s reasoning is correct.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Eden Patterson, Sir Eden, Prince Patrick’s sword, must have been special to her since her princess days. He helped her escape from Pana Castle, didn’t he?”
Julia thought it sounded plausible after blurting it out thoughtlessly. Ah, if she had thought of Eden earlier, she could have set up the game in that direction with Pamila.
Died while going to enjoy a secret meeting after being attacked by assailants. Ah, what could be more interesting than that? Harchen would completely lose his affection too. Julia bit her nails in regret.
“Carolina, do you remember what I said about portraits 1, 2, and 3 from our academy days?”
“I remember.”
“The third one is Sir Eden. He was already in that kind of relationship with Princess Patricia, so he didn’t accept gifts or handkerchiefs no matter how good the family or how beautiful the young ladies were.”
Julia mentioned the incident where the daughter of the Tane Count family gave a handkerchief with Eden’s face embroidered on it as if painted with a brush, only to be rejected.
Carolina was confused. Sir Eden, who always guarded Patrick like a shadow, was a solid and steadfast knight. She had never thought of his relationship with Patricia in that way.
Above all, the look in the Empress’s eyes when she looked at the Emperor couldn’t have been a lie.
At the wedding and reception, the couple’s appearance rippled and swelled with love, like water droplets about to merge. They were full, like droplets that had just merged at a touch.
Even after returning from their honeymoon with lost memories, the imperial couple was brimming with undisguisable emotion.
The day after spending the night at Aster Palace, the head maid Anna came to report the Empress’s condition to the Empress Dowager. At the time, Carolina was in the reception room trying to persuade Isabella, who didn’t want to return to the Kingdom of Lubelin, along with the Empress Dowager.
Anna reported the events of that morning to the Empress Dowager in concise and factual language.
Late in the morning, the bedroom door suddenly flew open, and the Empress, wearing only a thin blanket, came out, saw the maids standing by, and surprised, went back into the bedroom. Soon after, she came out again wearing her nightgown messily and hung on the window, whistling at a large eagle. When the Tane maid pointed it out, she went into the reception room hugging the large eagle.
The Empress Dowager coldly said, not an idiot, but crazy? At that time, Isabella envied that coming out to the reception room with only a blanket meant she had been in Harchen’s arms until that time. Carolina had hoped that perhaps the eagle had brought a letter from Patrick.
While the Empress Dowager’s sharp gaze saw a crazy Empress, Carolina found it lovely. How would Harchen have seen it?
To think that Patricia would go out to meet another man as soon as the Emperor left the palace.
It was a plot and a trap. What was clear was that Julia must have been involved.
“Julia, I have to go.”
Although Carolina hadn’t outwardly discovered or revealed anything, she felt as if she had peered into Julia’s dark abyss.
“You didn’t drink a sip of tea.”
Julia looked up at Carolina while sitting in her chair.
“That’s right.”
Carolina replied briefly and turned around.
Jeina, the maid waiting in front of the imperial carriage at the bottom of the mansion steps, took Carolina’s parasol and folded it.
Carolina was about to get into the carriage when she suddenly turned back. After staring for a few seconds at a man hiding behind the stairs, she gave instructions to Jeina and then got into the carriage.
Jeina approached the man and relayed the princess’s words.
“You, do you want the whip, or do you want gold coins?”
Without hesitation, the man followed the maid and got into the imperial carriage. Carolina immediately had the carriage depart and then turned to look at the small man barely perched on the edge of the seat.
The man limped and had scratches on his face, neck, and hands, but didn’t appear to be severely injured.
“You’re the coachman who drove the carriage Julia was in when it had an accident, right?”
“Yes, Your Highness. That is correct.”
“It’s Her Highness the Princess. Bow your head.”
At the maid’s words, the man lowered his gaze from Carolina and bowed his head.
“It seems the carriage accident wasn’t too severe?”
“No, we rolled down a low slope.”
Coachman John had been driving carriages for the duke’s family since Julia was young. He especially drove the carriage Julia rode in, attending most of the noble family parties.
When the noble young ladies and gentlemen entered the party venue, the familiar coachmen gathered to pass the time. They smoked cheap water pipes together and spread out gambling games. Sometimes they got worked up over low-quality rumors about the young ladies and gentlemen.
John had heard many rumors about Carolina, the empire’s black curtain princess. Outwardly, the princess was said to flatly reject gentlemen’s proposals due to her misandry and stick to the walls at parties.
At the end of talks about her, they added words about her volunteer work at the poorhouse.
Other princesses and noble young ladies also did volunteer work at the poorhouse. Around the end of the year or special events, groups of three or four young ladies would flock to the poorhouse.
Carolina was the only one who consistently volunteered every week, dressed modestly. Above all, Princess Carolina was especially kind to young girls.
“Your Highness, I have something, something to say.”
Coachman John spoke incoherently about what he had experienced that day.
As the carriage rolled down the mountainside, he felt guilty for not alerting the imperial knights of the Empress’s danger and location, thinking God had punished him.
He spent that night sleepless and went to Kaosan G-5 early in the morning. He searched through the summer weeds in the field with his limping leg, examining every inch of the muddy ground, but there wasn’t even a trace of blood.
“There’s a possibility they moved to another location.”
Carolina lowered her head and brought both hands to the back of her neck to unfasten her necklace. She emptied all the gold coins from the wallet she carried for emergencies.
“Do you have a family? Or any blood relatives?”
“This lowly one dares not, I have none.”
Carolina gave the necklace and gold coins to Jeina.
“Take that and leave this place. Surely you don’t think Julia didn’t see you getting into this carriage?”
“Gasp!”
John hadn’t thought that far. He stood up from the seat and fell to his knees on the carriage floor.
“Your Highness the Princess…!”
John lacked the eloquence to express the overwhelming gratitude that heated his chest, and only shed thick tears.
“It might sound like nagging, but I’ll say it. That necklace is precious to me.”
Indeed it was. It was a necklace given by the late emperor as a coming-of-age gift, which Carolina was attached to and often wore. Among the densely woven black onyx, the large and splendid main diamond was star-shaped.
“It’s like a twinkling star in the dark night sky, Father, thank you.”
“It reminded me of my daughter Carolina’s bright eyes shining among her pitch-black hair, become a person who illuminates the night sky like starlight.”
“If you use it to establish a foundation for your life rather than selling it for momentary pleasure, I’ll be happy. Your life is precious. Always live with your utmost strength. If you have nowhere else to go, head to Pana Castle.”
“Yes, Your Highness. I will keep it in mind.”
Carolina stopped the carriage at the entrance of the imperial palace. She got out with maid Jeina and told the coachman to take John to a safe shared carriage.
John also got out of the carriage. Watching the princess walk under the fruit trees laden with red berries, John knelt and prostrated himself. He didn’t know how to properly express his gratitude, and it was fine if the princess didn’t look back.
No one could readily give a precious necklace from their beautiful neck for the sake of his lowly and dirty life. No one had ever told him, a coachman, that his life was precious.
Since Her Highness Princess Carolina said I’m precious, I will live with all my might.
He simply put both palms on the ground, pressed his forehead down, and bowed.
Jeina, who had opened her parasol to shield from the pouring autumn afternoon sunlight, asked.
“Your Highness, are you alright?”
“About what?”
“The necklace given by His late Majesty the Emperor. You don’t have many jewels and ornaments to begin with, and that one is especially cherished by Your Highness.”
Well. Should I ask Prince Patrick to have an identical necklace made?
Carolina blushed under the parasol as she imagined Patrick putting the necklace around her neck.
Your hair spreads across the pitch-black night sky. The sky is filled with you. Enchanted by the mystery of the night, Patrick.
As Carolina and Jeina passed by the fountain, people came down the stairs of the main palace. The imperial palace’s Claudine and her assistant got into a carriage, along with Lord Bern, the captain of the guard, and knights of the imperial guard. And.
‘Prince Patrick!’
He couldn’t be back already.
Carolina stepped out from the shade of the parasol and walked quickly under the blazing afternoon sun.
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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