“What are you looking at so intently?”
Helena’s neck hairs prickled for a moment, but she replied calmly, “I was just helping a bluebird that seemed to have lost its way.”
“……?”
Ian’s eyebrow arched in puzzlement at her cryptic response.
This unusual expression from him led Helena to gaze at his face longer than usual.
“……Is there something on my face?”
“No, just… I wanted to look at you.”
Her honest, instinctive reason caused Ian’s ears to turn slightly red. He rubbed his eyebrow with the knuckle of his thumb, seemingly to ease his embarrassment.
The paper bags in his hand rustled as they bumped against each other. Helena’s gaze, which had been fixed on Ian, scattered.
‘He said he would stop by the general store… Did he need so many things?’
Curiously peering into the paper bags, Helena noticed a rolled-up parchment. It seemed like a map, mixed with other sundries to avoid suspicion. Since she had just given her map of Putua to the man she had met earlier, this was likely a map of a different region.
She also remembered hearing Ian telling the innkeeper this morning that he would only pay for one more night.
‘Is he finally leaving?’
Her fingers twitched as she gripped the bag’s handle.
She should feel happy, but she wasn’t.
‘He wouldn’t be thinking of taking me with him if he leaves here, would he?’
This time, she should feel upset, but she didn’t.
Without either initiating conversation, the two started walking towards the darkening clouds beyond the sunset, where their inn was located.
Breathing in the increasingly rich scent of grass and earth, Helena glanced at Ian. His hand was full of paper bags containing today’s purchases. Even if she had insisted on carrying some, it would still have been a lot.
Misinterpreting her fleeting glances, Ian extended his hand.
“Is it really too heavy? I can take it back now.”
“Don’t treat me like a delicate doll.”
“If you really were, I’d fold you up and keep you in my pocket.”
“What a creepy thing to say.”
Instead of responding, he simply smiled softly. The paper bags eventually returned to his hands.
Helena realized she had absorbed traces of his presence everywhere: the clothes she wore, the food she ate, the space she lived in, Basil’s painting, her stabilizing hallucinations…
Even his pace, adjusted to hers, was all a part of his dedication and care.
Undeniably, he was the giver, and she was the receiver.
With Eugene, she at least gave love in return, but now, even that was impossible.
‘This is… this is wrong.’
He had spoken of mutual support when one falls, but digging deeper, it was just a facade to prevent her from harboring thoughts of death.
‘I can’t even see my own path ahead, how can I help him?’
Helena bit the inside of her cheek. The anxiety that had occasionally bothered her since meeting him solidified.
No matter how much he comforted and embraced her, this was her problem. Peeling away the clouded emotions of recent events, her situation became starkly clear.
This meager peace and monotony weren’t hers. Her life always required gritting her teeth to avoid being swept away.
To live as Eugene’s wife, she constantly endured the pain of cutting away parts of herself.
So, Helena couldn’t bear this situation where she was only receiving without any clear exchange.
‘No. Be more honest.’
Precisely, she couldn’t let herself just accept his intrusion, even momentarily.
She had to do something before being completely overwhelmed. Helena did not want to create another Eugene, Basil, or Walter in any form.
‘I can’t get used to it. He’s someone who will leave someday.’
And frustratingly, the only way she knew to fix a relationship was to cut it off completely.
If she had stepped onto an irreversible path, then she should sever it.
To prevent it from going any further.
Dusk had fallen. Eugene stood motionless in front of the darkening sea.
With each successive layer of waves crashing, the afterimage of someone deepened in his mind.
⌜I don’t remember exactly because I was drunk at the time, but about ten days ago, as if enchanted by something, she walked into the sea.⌟
The image of a woman slowly walking into the black ocean kept haunting him.
It felt so real that when he reached out, she disappeared. Not even her scent remained.
Then he realized it was just an illusion.
‘Helena. Did you know a day like this would come?’
Like the ebb and flow, Eugene was constantly confronting the memories within him.
‘Or… did you hope for such a day?’
Eugene habitually bit on a cigar, something he seldom touched before. Lighting it, a small flame flickered in the darkness and then faded.
His mind was unusually cluttered. Even blowing smoke into the sea breeze didn’t clear his thoughts.
He neither wanted to believe nor understand this situation.
He had never imagined he would be chasing after Helena. The thought that she had left his side because she hated it was even more unbelievable.
Ex-husband Wants Reconciliation
One-line summary: Chasing the wife to the crematorium (making an effort to attract someone who has become indifferent), the female lead doesn’t look back, the second male lead takes the position.
Intro:
To repay the kindness of the older generation, Su Mu crossed into a female-dominated world and became a live-in daughter-in-law of the Yan family, single-handedly saving the Yan family from fire and water.
But her husband, Yan Jiyue, the eldest son of the Yan family, treated her with sarcasm and never showed her a good face.
It wasn’t until after Su Mu’s death that this pampered and arrogant young master shed a few fake tears and pretended to want to die for love.
This life’s kindness was enough. If there was a next life, she would definitely kick Yan Jiyue away.
Who knew that the heavens would be so kind as to allow her to be reborn, returning to the time when she had just married into the Yan family.
Su Mu glanced at the Yan eldest son, who still spoke coldly to her, and threw a divorce letter in front of him.
“Let’s divorce!”
***
Yan Jiyue never imagined that he would be reborn. He happily went to find Su Mu, wanting to make up for the mistakes he had made in his ignorant youth.
Wasn’t the reason the heavens allowed him to be reborn to let him reconcile with Su Mu?
But when he pushed open the door to Su Mu’s room, the person lying on the bed was another man.
Su Mu’s personal attendant, Xie Yi.
Yan Jiyue hated him so much that his teeth itched. In front of Su Mu, Xie Yi was a gentle and considerate whisperer of sweet nothings, but in reality, he was vicious-hearted and deliberately sabotaged their husband and wife relationship.
In the previous life, it was he who secretly hid in Su Mu’s coffin and committed suicide, stealing a step ahead of him to be buried with Su Mu.
Yan Jiyue’s eyes were filled with hatred as he cursed, “What kind of thing are you? Your background is lowly, what right do you have to occupy Su Mu?”
Xie Yi looked at the sleeping Su Mu and no longer pretended to be a whisperer of sweet nothings.
He proudly stuck out his belly, “I have the right because my belly is capable of giving the Wife-master a daughter.”
***
Yan Jiyue was consumed with jealousy. He spread rumors that Xie Yi had once been branded with the mark of a “harlot” on his chest.
But on the night Xie Yi cut off the flesh bearing that mark, Su Mu suddenly realized something was amiss.
“How did you know the exact moment I was poisoned? And why did you show up a month early?”
Xie Yi remained silent, blood from his wound soaking through his robes. His sapphire eyes brimmed with anguish – or was it just a flawless act?
Between a once-arrogant husband now seeking redemption, and a gentle soul willing to die for her – who truly held the darkest secrets? And could it be that Su Mu and Yan Jiyue weren’t the only ones given a second chance at life…?
[Reading Guide]
1. True divorce, chasing the wife to the crematorium, the female lead doesn’t look back, the male lead is Xie Yi.
2. The ex-husband did not cheat, he just realized too late and didn’t realize that he liked the female lead.
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