As the Emperor descended to the lobby and passed through the first-floor corridor, the palace servants of Hwanghugung bowed their bodies and stepped aside on one side of the corridor.
Carson moved through them as if spewing flames.
Then suddenly, his steps halted.
The ones following him also stopped their feet instantly. The silence settled again, as if another gunshot had echoed in the quiet.
The Emperor tilted his head with a smirk. After a moment of pause, he slowly turned his face as if creaking. With a squinted brow, he walked towards the bowed servants, then stood upright in front of a man with black hair.
“You…”
As the Emperor’s voice echoed from above, the man with black hair raised his gaze. When their eyes met, the man with beautiful dark hair straightened his waist, bowing to the Emperor. However, as the Emperor continued to gaze at him without saying anything, his face reddened.
“You dyed your hair.”
Simultaneously with those words, Carson reached out and viciously grabbed a handful of the man’s front hair. With the hair, the man’s body rose. In front of everyone, the red roots of the hair were exposed.
Carson laughed at him.
“I’ve never forgotten the face of someone I’ve seen once.”
The man gasped, making a sound.
“It’s you, Martin Blake.”
Carson, holding the man’s neck with the hand that didn’t grab his hair, lifted him. With a thud, the man hit the wall, and his feet lifted off the ground.
“Thud.”
“Tell me right now. Where is the Empress?”
At the Emperor’s action, the knights standing around drew their swords, pointing them at the necks of the servants who were just caught. It took less than a minute to arrest everyone and make them kneel.
Someone gently tapped Ines’s face with gloves, making her eyelashes tremble. She had been conscious since earlier, but her state of mind wasn’t clear. For some time, Ines hesitated between reality and the past.
Now, imprisoned in the Altrana prison, Jemerun, who always wore gloves, used to gently tap Ines’s face with them.
The chilly air on her back and the darkness without a single ray of sunlight coming in made her feel as if she were in Romfield.
‘No, it can’t be. Everything I’ve experienced so far can’t be a delusion created by my madness.’
Perhaps she didn’t even know that the current dream-like life might be a fake world she had created. Turning back time, meeting Carson, and all those moments when she became one with him.
In this spinning world, Ines had to bite down on her molars tightly to keep from losing her center.
“Why can’t you get up like this?”
It was the voice of a stranger Ines had never heard before.
“The drug is quite potent. It will probably take a few more hours.”
Ines could guess what they meant by the drug they were talking about.
On the night of her kidnapping in the office, Ines had drunk the cold tea. She had thought about calling a maid to warm it up, but she didn’t feel like it.
While drinking the tea, she made efforts in her mind to find the intersection of the ever-narrowing words like Martin Blake, the former Empress, and Duke Mansut.
Then suddenly, she heard a crackling sound, and the tea felt strangely irritating in her mouth.
Feeling nausea, she immediately spat out the tea onto the rug, but before she could even put down the teacup, her consciousness was already fading.
As they said, the drug was truly potent.
However, since Ines hadn’t drunk much of the tea, she had already regained consciousness in the swaying carriage. She tried to assess the situation but soon fell back into a daze, dragged into a pitch-black room with no sense of time.
The two men who had exchanged words while facing Ines soon left the room. Ines struggled to wake up in a dazed state. It was difficult to discern whether the person she had encountered after being brought into this room was real or part of a dream.
“Your Majesty.”
However, due to the appearance of the person who appeared shortly afterward, Ines realized that what she had experienced was indeed real.
“Marcus Kyeong.”
Marcus, who had hidden inside the room to find Ines, immediately crouched between the wardrobe and the window when he heard signs of people outside.
“Are you awake now?”
“Yeah.”
Ines nodded her head with effort, trying to open her eyes, which were persistently heavy with sleep. Marcus sighed with relief at her appearance.
The previous night, under Ines’s orders, Marcus had headed straight to the casino site. Since Ines didn’t want him to go alone, she had a Hwanghugung knight accompany him.
“How much time has passed?”
“It’s dawn now. The sunrise will be soon.”
That meant that once today passed, tomorrow would be Ines’s wedding day.
As if to represent his words, a faint light was seeping through the small gap behind the black curtain covering the window. It was unbelievable to think that such an event was unfolding just two days before the Emperor’s wedding.
“Do you know who the person that came into this room just now is?”
“No.”
“It’s Anthony Von Raymond.”
After Being Cheated On, She Picked Up a Treasure (Female-dominant)
One-line summary: The husband I married on a whim had been secretly in love with me for a long time.
On the day when Jun Shao finally obtained the imperial decree for her marriage, Lan Qu, the person she had admired for six years, defied the decree and ran away.
Her gentleness and devotion, her promise of a lifetime together, were all disregarded by him. Instead, he dreamed of entering the palace to serve the Emperor’s sister as a sixth-rank attendant.
News of this incident spread throughout the capital, and the alleys in front of and behind the Lan mansion were crowded with people who came to watch the commotion.
Jun Shao should have been embarrassed and angry.
But someone stepped in to protect her dignity.
The figure was in a miserable state, yet still possessed an undeniable elegance and handsomeness.
The young lord struggled to climb the wall of the Lan mansion and shouted to her, “If he won’t marry you, I will!”
So, Jun Shao took advantage of the situation and married the person.
She thought the young lord did it to save the Lan family from the crime of defying the imperial decree, but never imagined that from beginning to end, what he coveted was her.
*
After the wedding, Jun Shao felt like she was living in a dream.
Her Wife-master was as beautiful as a fairy in a painting, skilled in the six arts, well-versed in poetry and literature, capable of being gentle and attentive, and also grand and dignified. Most importantly, she was the only one in his heart and eyes.
Jun Shao didn’t know how Lan Shiwu, as a illegitimate son without a father and blessed with beauty, had managed to preserve his purity, recklessly escape, and use his last ounce of strength to ruin his own reputation, all because of his love for her, just to stand before her.
She could only see him gazing at her with eyes full of love, and when she bestowed a name upon him, his eyes shone like stars.
“You have come to me like a weary bird perching on a branch. I shall call you A Qi.”
