On the day when all schedules were completed and the morning of Tunsley Island arrived, brought by birds busily searching for food, the sky was clear without a single cloud.
However, Kasallin woke up with puffy eyes and a pallor that drained all color from her skin.
It was because she had spent the night almost sleepless, holding in her heart the many stories she heard from Olivia.
“I don’t know the details, but a few years ago, the previous emperor passed away suddenly. People call that day the Crescent Moon Palace Incident. It’s an absolute taboo, never to be spoken of.”
The memory remained vivid.
When she entered the Renel Imperial Family as the empress-to-be, Duchess Rudo had told her about it.
Only Parnes, Ludwig, and the bedridden dowager empress knew what happened in that palace that night.
“After that incident, ominous rumors circulated for a while. Some said that His Majesty Parnes, then the crown prince, might have ‘caused’ the previous emperor’s death to hasten his succession…”
“No way His Majesty would do such a thing.”
“Who knows? Anyway, the dowager empress lost her ability to speak after that day and went completely mad. As time passed, her aggression grew, and now she barely recognizes her own son, the emperor.”
As an empress and a wife, she hadn’t noticed at all that his heart was rotting away.
When he said he didn’t want to show her his nightmares, she thought he was just putting up walls, which upset her, but now she understood.
If the nightmares were so severe that even medicine couldn’t help, no one would want to show them to others.
Kasallin rose from her seat.
She hadn’t met Parnes even once since their parting yesterday.
Wanting to apologize for everything that had happened, Kasallin went outside.
But Parnes was surrounded by attendants and island officials, busy preparing for departure.
For a brief moment, when he glanced through the crowd, their eyes met, but that was all.
There was no chance for them to talk quietly alone.
“You’re really leaving. I wish I could ask you to stay longer, but… that won’t do, will it?”
At the dock, Olivia mumbled with her shoulders slumped.
“We’ll meet again someday. Until then, stay healthy, Miss Olivia.”
Kasallin gave Olivia a light hug, pushing aside the reluctance of parting.
Olivia, flustered like a broken doll with tangled strings, soon hugged Kasallin tightly, tears welling up.
Watching this, Parnes’s brow gradually furrowed, and he gently pulled Olivia away from Kasallin.
“That’s enough. Let’s go.”
Kasallin waved goodbye to Olivia, her family, and the islanders who came to see them off, then boarded the ship.
As the crew busily loaded cargo and someone rang the bell at the stern, the ship began to glide through calm waters.
Kasallin stood on the deck until the majestic waterfall cliffs of Tunsley Island disappeared from sight, then looked around for Parnes.
Amid the bustling crowd, Parnes was receiving a report from Ludwig and giving instructions for the remaining schedule.
Was yesterday’s incident something he didn’t care to dwell on, she wondered, turning to return to her cabin.
“Wait. We’ll discuss the rest tomorrow.”
“Yes, Your Majesty. I’ll take my leave.”
Parnes, taking his eyes off the report, removed his outer coat and approached her.
Ludwig signaled to the crew remaining on deck, leading them all below.
“The sea breeze is chilly.”
Crossing the now-quiet deck, Parnes draped his coat over Kasallin’s shoulders.
As the sun dipped below the horizon, the air felt cool, and it seemed he had a knack for seeing through her.
Kasallin looked up at him, feeling a strange sensation.
‘Something… feels different.’
It might just be her imagination, but the aura surrounding him felt distinctly different from before.
Like someone who had finally solved a long-standing puzzle and accepted the result.
The sharp edge he once carried seemed noticeably softened.
What had changed, she wondered, studying his face closely, when he let out a soft cough and averted his gaze.
The tips of his ears, visible through his silver hair, were slightly red.
“Your Majesty, I…”
“I’m sorry.”
At his unexpected apology, Kasallin looked at him with a puzzled expression.
“I unintentionally caused you unease. I should have been more mindful of the potential for misunderstanding. It’s all my fault.”
“No, I’m the one who should apologize. I wrongly misunderstood your relationship with Miss Olivia and raised my voice at you without knowing anything. So…”
Her next words faltered.
Parnes’s hand gently brushed through her dark hair, carefully cupping her cheek, and Kasallin’s startled eyes darted to his hand, then back to his face.
Her bewildered expression met his eyes, which curved more gently than ever, clear as glass marbles.
It wasn’t an illusion.
Parnes was somehow different from before.
“Did you hear what I said that day when the lightning struck?”
Recalling that stormy day when her vision blurred and her ears rang, Kasallin slowly shook her head.
“That’s a relief.”
“What did you say?”
Instead of answering, Parnes moved his hand, still cupping her cheek, as if caressing something precious.
His delicate touch, as if handling something sacred, brought an unfamiliar warmth to Kasallin’s skin, cooled by the sea breeze.
“My lady, no matter what happens, I will never take a mistress or look at anyone else but you. I’ve never even imagined it. Forever.”
“…”
“You look like you want to ask how I can be so sure.”
As Kasallin flinched, her thoughts exposed, a low chuckle escaped his lips.
It was a laugh she had never seen before, unfamiliar and new.
“I just know, looking at you like this.”
“Looking at me…?”
“Well, to be precise, I’ve known for quite a while. I was just ignoring it, blocked by the walls I built myself.”
“I don’t understand what you mean.”
“To put it simply, it’s this.”
Parnes added a slight pressure to the hand cupping her cheek, then leaned down and kissed her pale forehead.
His gesture was like a saint making a solemn vow to a revered deity, yet through his trembling eyelashes, his golden eyes flickered with an unquenched, suppressed longing.
It seemed calm, but like a spark that could ignite at any moment.
“By your side, I will always be, and we will continue together.”
“…”
“Of course, the feelings we hold in the end may not be the same.”
When his lips, leaving a warm trace, finally parted from her forehead, Kasallin felt she understood a little of what he meant.
Even as time passes, our feelings may never align.
But at the very least, our relationship of mutual respect and coexistence will never change.
In other words, Parnes would never come to love her.
After dinner, Parnes went to his aides to handle remaining matters.
Rubbing her flushed cheeks obsessively, Kasallin entered her room and sank into a tub filled with warm water.
Realizing too late that she had fallen for the man who was already her husband felt more unsettling than pleasant.
It was a feeling with no resolution.
‘Of course, I thought about confessing to him honestly.’
But she knew all too well the fate of those who boldly express their feelings and yearn for unchanging, eternal love.
If she confessed to Parnes, he would surely grow tired of her.
Not at first, of course.
But as time passed, everything would become familiar, and the comfort of knowing someone would do anything for you would dull the senses.
Just like it had with Shallen.
She didn’t want that.
Fearing their relationship might become worse than it was now, she thought it better to keep her feelings buried.
‘…It’s hot.’
Before dizziness set in, Kasallin stepped out of the tub, changed into a comfortable white dress, dried her wet hair with a towel, and returned to her room.
She had told Loren Logia she wanted to be alone tonight, and since Parnes would, as usual, return late, she planned to sleep early.
But when she entered the room, she saw Parnes, leaning back, flipping through a book.
He was dressed in a loosely tied night robe.
“Uh…”
“You bathed for quite a while.”
Closing the book with a snap, Parnes rose and approached with slow, long strides.
He took the towel from Kasallin’s hand and began carefully drying her wet, curly hair.
“It’s fine for others, but you tend to get dizzy easily, so it’s better to keep baths short.”
“I’ll do that next time. I had a lot on my mind today.”
“Same here.”
“What?”
His cryptic words pierced her ears, and his hands, drying her hair, slowed.
The silk ribbon, loosely tied because she dressed alone, slipped down with a faint rustle.
“Today… no, even now, my mind is quite tangled.”
His gaze lingered hungrily on the glimpse of her bare shoulder, then he began tying the ribbon slowly with two fingers.
As he did, he murmured.
“To be this calm feels almost miraculous.”
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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