“So when you’re hungry and see a feast, wouldn’t you naturally crave that food? I’ve been stuck in this remote corner of the capital for so long, I haven’t had the chance to see a man, let alone such a handsome one.”
“So I’m delicious food now?”
“W-Well, that’s what I mean.”
I pressed my pounding heart and met his eyes straight on.
“So you’re saying you want to eat me?”
“Yes.”
Truth.
“You mean anyone would like a handsome man when they see one?”
“That’s right.”
This was also true.
At that moment, the high-quality carriage bumped and jolted once. It meant we had entered rough terrain.
“You’d want to eat anyone you come to like?”
“Of course.”
Though the question was strange, my answer to this was also truthful.
To enter Lesotia, one must pass a cliff so steep you have to completely crane your neck to see its top. At that time, the people of Lesotia carved hundreds of intricate temples, tombs, and faces of gods on the surface of that cliff.
Those figures were so beautiful that it is said the first Emperor Wesley Schneider was unable to move from beneath them for a while.
Though the content is unknown, the legend that he received a thousand-year oracle at that time is still believed.
The buildings were mainly carved in relief in the center of the cliff, and their functional perfection and architectural splendor still greatly influence the Dermayer architectural style to this day.
That’s why most Dermayer palaces have dazzling and splendid facades, delicately carved columns, and imposing lintels to match.
I pulled back the curtain covering half the carriage window and said,
“You see that over there?”
What my fingertip pointed to was Aiphnetes, the god famous for his beauty. He looked alternately at the beautiful male god and me, then smirked.
“So what? Are you saying you like that god now?”
“Yes, that’s right. If that god were human, I would have liked Aiphnetes just as much as you, sir.”
This too was undoubtedly true.
“Ha!”
He laughed as if in disbelief, then shook his head. Crossing his arms and sinking deep into his seat, he closed his eyes.
“Fine, do as you please. As I said yesterday, no matter what you do, you’re still mine anyway.”
“What a forceful thing to say…”
“It’s certain that you’re the facilitator of my manifestation.”
Having finished the conversation with words that strangely affected one’s mood, he didn’t open his closed eyes until nightfall, seemingly uninterested in further dialogue.
Ricardo with his eyes closed exuded a completely different atmosphere than when his eyes were open.
He was harmless. In many ways.
Though he didn’t seem to be sleeping, he looked unwilling to open his eyes, so I openly admired his face. He was a devastatingly beautiful human that would make even Aiphnetes, the god of male beauty, weep.
As he said, I like him. But it was a limited emotion felt only when our eyes met.
This vivid, intense feeling naturally arose from the moment I first met him. However, after Ricardo left, I realized. When he’s not in sight, I can bear it.
[This is the timeline separator]I couldn’t close my gaping mouth at the amazing sight I’d never seen before.
“Wow.”
They said Dermayer buildings were influenced by Lesotian architecture.
The carved buildings I saw on Lesotia’s cliffs now stood majestically before my eyes.
The elegance of the lines was Lesotian, but the scale was enormous.
The dazzling facade of the mansion was overall symmetrical due to the delicately carved white columns.
But none of the details were the same shape. It was massive yet sharp, seemingly curved yet keen. It felt just like Ricardo himself.
Walking through the colonnade, I thoroughly examined up to the ceiling, feeling like I was on a tour with my neck stretched out.
‘It really is amazing. This is what it means to be an imperial ducal house.’
Then my eyes met Ricardo’s, who was staring at me as if looking at some strange creature. I pretended to be distracted, stretching my neck this way and that.
Past the colonnade, a forest appeared again.
‘Ah, this isn’t a forest, it’s a garden.’
Though enormous like a forest, the way the trees and flowers blended well showed the touch of a skilled gardener. The path too stretched out as a walking trail. It was a large, straight road wide enough for carriages to pass.
“It’s not originally a path for walking.”
“Ah…”
“I thought you might be sick of carriages.”
During our journey to the empire together, Ricardo observed me knowingly or unknowingly. Except for the first day, he didn’t ride in the same carriage as me. I knew that was also his consideration.
It was hard to recall the sharp and sensitive Ricardo from before, as he had become a polite and courteous noble man.
Moreover, his words were not wrong. I was indeed sick of carriages. Though we stayed at lords’ castles in between, we had traveled by carriage for I don’t know how many days continuously.
“The weather is nice too.”
As Ricardo said, the sky was clear. Looking around, I saw beautiful flowers whose names I vaguely remembered blooming abundantly. I felt in my whole body the truth of the saying that it’s mild all year round. What was the name of that flower again…
At that moment, Ricardo raised both hands to brush back his hair.
With that single motion, the leisurely atmosphere completely changed to a sharp one.
“I’ve been thinking.”
My head turned involuntarily at the keen voice, different from just moments ago.
“About what I said, that I went to save you 7 years ago.”
“Ah…”
As I listened to his low voice and looked around the garden, I suddenly remembered. The name of the flower that now dyed all the fields white and red is cyclamen.
“I think I might have done that. Though I don’t remember, the emotion might have remained.”
I placed my gaze on the flowers blooming profusely beside me, putting his voice in a distant place.
Every flower has a legend. Cyclamen too had a sad legend as beautiful as the flower itself. From the flower grave that seemed noble yet somehow lonely, a faint scent that made one’s eyes close involuntarily dispersed.
“But how long can an emotion without memory last?”
Cyclamen was the most beautiful and kind among the spring fairies. The god especially loved such a cyclamen.
“So it’s nothing.”
But the world was cruel to her. Her young lover betrayed cyclamen and whispered love to the goddess of streams.
“Don’t attach meaning to that incident either.”
Letting Ricardo’s words to not attach meaning blow away in the wind, I recalled cyclamen’s feelings. Reflecting the feelings of her who lost her lover to the stream goddess, cyclamen’s flower language is jealousy, and love that has passed.
“But sir.”
Ricardo’s steps halted abruptly at my calm address. For the first time, I faced him of my own will and met his eyes fully.
Thump thump, I didn’t know from what reason this heart that beat senselessly whenever I met his eyes started, but I thought that harboring someone in one’s heart was never a shameful thing.
“Are you sure those words you just said were meant for me?”
“What… do you mean by that?”
“I wonder if they weren’t words you wanted to say to yourself.”
His lips pressed tightly shut. His ash-gray eyes, whose emotion I couldn’t read, seemed to ripple for a moment, then his manly Adam’s apple rose and fell once greatly.
“You’re right, sir. You have no need to remember that incident, nor reason to attach meaning to it.”
“…”
“As you said, what emotion could dwell in something you don’t even remember?”
Even if cyclamen’s flower language is love that has passed, the flower is still beautiful. Even if her young lover betrayed her, as long as she doesn’t allow herself to be hurt, no one can hurt her.
“It’s just my memory and my feelings. So you don’t need to worry about what meaning that incident gives me.”
Ricardo’s tightly closed lips moved slightly, but in the end no answer came out. I smiled even more cheerfully for no reason.
“Let’s go. People are waiting.”
A whole lot of them.
At the end of the garden path, without exaggeration, about a hundred people had come out to welcome him.
Only then did the fact that I was about to enter the greatest ducal house among the empire’s three great ducal houses hit me as reality.
For a moment, I felt my heart shrink, wondering if I had spoken too impertinently to this empire’s top predator.
Needlessly checking his reaction, I let out a big sigh and straightened my body.
I entered the Pennel family at age 5 and received no education until 12. After that, Pennel fell and I lived a life like a maid.
My very existence would be out of place in this house, so my position was clear.
I’ll fulfill what Ricardo wants and return to my home as soon as possible.
As my goal became clear, strength entered my steps.
[This is the timeline separator]It’s already been three days since I entered this huge ducal residence.
“Sigh…”
Feeling stifled, I went out alone for a walk in the rear garden. Ricardo hasn’t sought me out since putting me in a luxurious room, as if there was no urgent reason for me coming to the ducal house.
Fortunately, I could move around inside the mansion without escorts or attendants. That’s really fortunate, but…
I got lost while walking in this place that I can’t tell if it’s a house or a village.
I’m sure I heard the sound of blacksmiths hammering iron…
“Ah, whatever. If I keep walking, I’ll eventually see a familiar path.”
__________
“Tell me, what makes you like me? I’ll change!”
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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