“Huh?”
“Shasha says she loves you, Sister!”
This must be how love happens. How could one not fall for such pure affection?
“Tell me again. I like to hear it.”
“Yes! I like you! I love you, Sister.”
Where is unconditional love to be found? Where is love without reason? But such things seemed to exist.
How could I not love her, simply for loving me and just liking me as her sister?
‘Perhaps the reason I love you so much is that you resemble that child.’
I smiled, following Shasha. I came to love Shasha so much, even though Isabella, the owner of this body, did not love her.
‘You look just like my deceased sister.’
I clenched my fist, suppressing the sadness that kept welling up.
‘I’ll protect you.’
I resolved my will, making a promise I couldn’t keep.
(This is a time separator.)
A week passed from then.
The normally annoying count’s house was quiet. Even the count and countess, who had acted as though they would sell me off at any moment, were silent, and the emperor who had proposed was also quiet.
A few days ago, I had even contacted the emperor behind the count and countess’s back, but still no word.
Waiting for Shasha, who had gone to the temple, I sighed deeply in my room.
“Sigh…”
“So, Miss. Why are you like this?”
“Huh?”
Startled by the sudden words, I looked at the maid who was stroking my head.
“Marriage, to that old man?”
“Uh…?”
The maids were aflutter, thinking that the cause of my sigh was elsewhere.
“Though the position of a duchess is good, he will cast you off soon. Not just casting you off, but driving you out cruelly… No one has come out unscathed…”
“That’s why you should have listened well, even now…”
Seizing the moment, the maids each added a word as I questioned them.
“I’m getting married? When?”
“They’re already preparing. Probably within a fortnight…”
It’s too quick. A fortnight, indeed. Even roasting beans over an open flame would take longer than this.
“Yes. Actually, they wanted to proceed faster, but they need time to prepare on their end…”
“So admit your mistake even now. The madam won’t cast you out, will she? She loved you so much?”
I know very well that they are not saying this because they are worried about me. As I expected, they expressed their greed.
“If you leave, we might all be fired.”
“Or sent elsewhere.”
There were no concerns about me getting married or my wellbeing.
“So please beg the madam for forgiveness.”
Their motives were too obvious.
One reason might be that, under the countess’s order, they were trying to change my mind, and the other is that they are afraid of losing their jobs if I get married.
“Really. A mistake? What mistake did I make? Is loving my sister a mistake? What stupid words and noises you make.”
“Ugh… What’s so pretty about that monster.”
“That’s right. You hated her from the beginning.”
“She’s crossing the line. Praising her, saying she’s pretty, now she’s acting like my equal? Or is she just blabbering because I’m being sold?”
Only after saying that did the maids hastily shut their mouths.
People say birds of a feather flock together. For Isabella, these rude maids were her kind. People who made her feel comfortable just by being around, people who were not in their right minds, like her.
They had been no problem until now, so I had let them be, but I am not her.
“If you people make any more nonsense…”
Just then.
The door flung open in that breathtaking timing.
At the same time, a maid rushed in with a pale face, sweating all over.
“It’s a disaster!”
“A disaster? What’s a disaster?”
“That, that… That…”
Then she frantically waved her hands and stamped her feet.
“What’s this? What’s the big deal!”
She got up from her seat and frantically grabbed the hand of the maid who was staring blankly.
“Speak properly!”
“That…! We might die!”
“Die? Ha. Don’t talk nonsense. Tell me what’s going on. Is Mother causing trouble again?”
The maid who had been shaking her head back and forth was trembling.
“What happened?”
Did someone in the family have an accident? Is there a reason to be worried? It must be a serious matter. Her panic made the situation even more intriguing.
I wrapped my arms around her shoulders. Finally, a few of the other maids got up from their seats and approached her. The maid, now slightly more composed, finally opened her mouth, which had been quivering.
“Speak up. It’s okay to tell me.”
“That, that person has arrived.”
“Who?”
“Yes. His Majesty the Emperor. In a furious state…”
“His Majesty… has arrived?”
Thinking there had been no contact, and the plan had failed, or that he would not come at all, the Emperor’s arrival took me by surprise. Without hesitation, I rushed out in a single stride towards the main gate of the mansion.
“No, no, Miss! You shouldn’t be so excited to go out. You have to run away! His Majesty the Emperor has never visited a specific family before! We’re in real trouble!”
“He only comes to execute a family when he does…”
I didn’t hear the maids’ words behind me. My heart kept pounding. I ignored them and reached the main gate.
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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