“Then I will assume there are no favors to ask.”
“…You’ll stand trial?”
A crack seemed to form in Rascal’s expression.
It wasn’t an inaccurate portrayal. Rascal was genuinely shocked.
“You don’t want to kiss me…?”
“No, it’s not that.”
Rasilia unwrapped her clasped fingers. He didn’t let go, so she had to struggle for a while.
“Because it wouldn’t be honorable if the royal family pressured to dismiss the trial.”
“…You lost your memory but you’ll accept a trial that didn’t start honorably for the sake of royal honor?”
Even if he were the Emperor, he wouldn’t likely believe such a flimsy excuse.
“And this way, the suspicion about the mark will continue.”
“It’s irrelevant. More people now deny even the existence of magic. It’s an old matter and not every Emperor changes with every Bluemoon. It’s none of your concern.”
“Wasn’t I made Empress because I was born with the mark?”
“As I said, a mark is just a mark.”
“Others can only distinguish their mate by sight. If we must continue to have an empress who has killed seventeen people, we’ll need solid evidence.”
“Again, there is no evidence that you killed seventeen people.”
“Then it will be clarified in the trial.”
“…”
“For not only royal honor but mine as well, a trial is necessary. So I will accept whatever comes of it.”
Saying this made her feel as though she had become an incredibly noble person.
‘Actually, I’m just trying to run away.’
Rascal lightly furrowed his brow and swept his forehead.
“It’s pointless. The temple is chasing trifles. It’s not for noble reasons as you think.”
“But I still followed legal procedures. The royal family should do no less, Your Majesty.”
“I can’t understand why you’re complicating matters.”
So that I can run away.
Before I fall in love with you. Before you kill me.
“If so, think I don’t want to kiss. I do not wish to kiss you, Your Majesty.”
Rascal seemed to freeze for a moment.
“…Why?”
After staring hard at Rasilia for a while, Rascal forced his lips open to ask.
“Because I’ve lost my memory. It seems that includes any affection I had for you, Your Majesty. I can’t lessen the distance I feel from you.”
“…”
Now Rascal had become something frozen, not even breathing.
Strangely, her heart ached seeing him.
‘No, not these feelings.’
Feelings were dangerous. She should sever them before they began.
Trying to stay cold, Rasilia spoke.
“Your Majesty, you said you can recognize a mate without eyes, but I apparently can’t. I don’t know why I could be a mate.”
“…”
His eyes seemed to distort.
I wish it were a Bluemoon night. Then I could touch those eyes under the excuse of your pain.
“I’m sorry I can’t keep my vow to do my best to return as your mate.”
“…”
Leaving Rascal, who couldn’t say a word, Rasilia rose.
“Our conversation is over, so I’ll take my leave.”
“…Wait,”
Rascal reached out, but it was too late.
Rasilia was already leaving the parlor.
(This is a time separator.)
“What? Does that make sense?”
“No, it doesn’t.”
“…Really strange.”
After Rasilia’s bombshell announcement to Rascal that she didn’t want to kiss him and would instead stand trial, the palace felt like a massive tomb.
It was eerily quiet.
Rascal had since closed his mouth, and so had Rasilia.
Everyone was too busy watching the couple to even breathe properly.
In the midst of this, three shadow knights who were burning up inside met at the midpoint between the Emperor’s and Empress’s palaces. Though they all had duties, now was not the time.
Rascal didn’t even ask what was happening when Liyan openly said he would be back after seeing something.
“Your Majesty has become like that clock in the last chamber of the western palace. You know, the wall clock that stopped because something in its mechanism broke.”
“The Empress has become like a painting. She sits by the window and says nothing.”
Both remarks meant the same thing.
Riyan suddenly lost his temper.
“Why? Even if His Majesty is like that, why is the Empress? Shouldn’t you be celebrating since things went your way?”
“Who knows.”
There was no way to figure out what the Empress was thinking by merely putting their heads together.
“Perhaps she has another plan.”
Dekan quietly opened his mouth.
“Huh? Who?”
“The Empress.”
“What plan?”
“Once the trial begins, evidence will naturally emerge. What they were after wasn’t the lives of the palace residents, but the mark.”
Riyan shifted his eyes back and forth.
“Ah, true. Even if there is no evidence linking them to the state that the royal foundation ended up in, it’s certain they’re the ones behind it.”
“So isn’t she trying to bring them down through the trial?”
“Huh?”
Riyan’s eyes sparkled for a moment, followed by Serben letting out a sigh.
“So you’re saying the Empress herself became the bait to capture those snakes because the Imperial Guard, you two are messing up? You’re wrong.”
“There’s a possibility. The Empress is clever and quick to assess situations. She knows the trial wouldn’t be fatal.”
Riyan interjected.
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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