Ines closed the Bible she had been calmly reading and faced him.
“Ah, welcome, Joseph.”
I had been waiting for this moment today. You probably can’t even imagine how long I’ve waited for this to come.
“You look beautiful today. Really, it’s infuriating.”
“Really? I’m sorry to hear that.”
Considering that I intentionally weakened the guards in the courtyard, our encounter was rather late.
Ines scrutinized Joseph thoroughly. The always radiant face of the young man had turned pitch black. His light blue eyes, once full of goodwill, now seemed as dark as despair and obsession.
Between her and him were hardly twenty steps. Ines glanced behind her. If she wasn’t caught until she reached the road leading to the mountain, there would be no catching her once she climbed it.
“Don’t we have something to talk about?”
“What is there to say? I’ve already sent you everything I wanted to say in writing.”
“How could you!”
He clenched his teeth, unable to shout fully.
“How could you do this to me!”
Ines let out a strange sound, laughing in a manner that was neither crying nor laughing, making Joseph’s face increasingly twisted.
To what extent can a person be hypocritical, assuming that others don’t know his darkest secrets?
He now wore the face of a man truly betrayed in love.
“Ines, why are you doing this? We were good. Even if the royal family lured you, how could you… how could you leave me like this!”
Perhaps the man who had lost everything had hoped to make their marriage his last fortress. Although his dream of inheriting the title through the death of Earl Grey was shattered, he may have wanted to remain as a son-in-law to the Swelden family.
As a commoner, he had done enough. This time, he may not have had to consider death. Perhaps he had truly dreamed of a happy future with her.
“Did I… leave you?”
“If this isn’t leaving, what is it? You said you loved me, you said we would get married!”
“You’re spouting nonsense… Joseph Branoa. There’s a limit even to nonsense.”
Ines stared at him with bloodshot eyes. As their eyes met, Joseph’s body flinched.
“Good? Every time I saw your smiling face, I felt like throwing up. Every time I heard your voice, I felt so disgusted, I thought I would die.”
“Ines…”
“I wanted to gouge out your eyes that are looking at me right now, rip apart your mouth, and pull out your tongue. Understand?”
Ines, who had experienced it all and come back through long years, had endured him with that mindset every day.
The belief that I could only live by killing you carried me to this day.
“You’ve really gone mad.”
“Isn’t it the same for you?”
His eyes blazed with anger. If she showed any hesitation here, he would suddenly rush at her. Ines held her head even higher.
“Ines, what happened to you? Did I do something wrong? We were in love. Now that I’ve even received a title, there were no barriers between us.”
“…”
“Why then…”
He unclenched his fist as if resigning himself and took a few steps back. He raised his hands to grip his hair. Even from a distance, his trembling hands were visible.
‘No, it can’t be this way. Poor Joseph Branoa. You can’t give up so easily.’
To provoke his fading anger, she bit her lip.
“Love, you say. Even a passing dog would laugh. No matter how much you held your knightly posture, it was pointless.”
“Ines, stop it.”
“Do you know how laughable your poor imitation of nobility was?”
“Stop it, please!”
“Do you have any idea how grotesque your twitching body was whenever you tried to be courteous?”
“…”
“Regardless of your efforts, the smell of horse dung never really left your body.”
Ines simultaneously covered her nose and mouth as if she still felt nauseous. At that moment, Joseph’s eyes completely rolled back.
“Ines!”
The moment he yelled, she swiftly turned her body and began to run towards the mountain. Unable to understand what had happened, he momentarily froze, but then instinctively started chasing her.
I’d rather catch her and kill her if I can’t have her. That was the only thought filling his mind.
Ines didn’t look back. She couldn’t outrun a man on flat ground. As she reached the beginning of the mountain, Ines leapt over a spot she had marked earlier. Immediately, Joseph’s foot got trapped in the hole she had dug.
Ugh, he grunted and toppled forward. Ines ran about ten more steps upward, then looked down at him.
Their eyes met, and Ines gave a small laugh. She then grabbed her skirt and continued to run up the mountain. Joseph scrambled out of the hole and sprinted like a madman.
But no matter how hard he ran, he couldn’t close the distance between them in the mountain.
She didn’t completely disappear from his sight. Every now and then, she would look back and taunt him, as if she wanted him to follow.
However, Joseph, blinded by rage, couldn’t understand her intentions.
After a long run, a fork-shaped land finally appeared.
Ines tilted her head toward the sky. A white mist came out of her mouth as she sighed. The chilly wind had already started blowing halfway up the mountain.
“Perfect.”
Turns Out He’s Been Secretly in Love with Me
One-line summary: He acts like he doesn’t like her but is actually playing hard to get.
Synopsis:
Xu Muzhou like her. He has liked her for a very long time, and through repeated schemes, he finally closed the distance with her.
But this is still far from enough.
He wants to be the one who stands out among her many suitors, to fight for her attention, and to make her take the initiative to pursue him.
_____
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