I Decided to Let You Go (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 15
Zieghart would clearly not welcome the child. Would someone who didn’t love her suddenly change their attitude just because there was a child? Natasha didn’t hold much hope for him either.
Yet she still had to remain in the ducal household.
Being known as the child of the great House of Aschardt would be far more beneficial for the child than being known as the offspring of a fallen princess. It was unfortunate, but he possessed important things that Natasha lacked—things like money, status, honor, and power.
Upon returning to the estate, Natasha immediately sought out Zieghart’s study. Seeing her enter without even knocking, he appeared to realize something belatedly.
Just as he was about to speak, exhaling a sigh as if weary—
“I have something to say.”
Natasha seized the moment skillfully and took the lead in the conversation. She knew that if she let him take control, not only would the discussion fail, but even this arranged meeting would likely be dismissed outright.
“Today, I received confirmation of a blessing bestowed by the gods. It means a child has been conceived between us.”
She continued speaking in a slightly tense voice.
There was no romantic notion in her heart—no hope that he would cherish her sincerity. At the very least, she only wished for him, as a father, to safeguard the child’s safety and dignity.
With this sole intention, she presented the physician’s letter confirming her pregnancy and the test flowerpot.
The reply she awaited kept being delayed. Fortunately, this didn’t make her more anxious—partly because she understood how bewildering this must be for him.
“It’s not our child.”
But his response defied common sense.
From his lips at last came words that denied the blessing they had created together.
“It may be the princess’s child, but it’s not mine.”
“…Zieghart.”
Natasha cried out his name in disbelief.
“What do you mean? It’s our child!”
Frustrated by his persistent denial, she voiced her exasperation. She’d even brought the physician’s letter and the flowerpot, yet he completely ignored the evidence laid before him.
“Since it’s not our child, I’ll say it plainly—get rid of it.”
And he kept repeating the same thing over and over.
“It is our child, so I have the right to speak as well. I won’t get rid of it.”
“If your intention is to brazenly register a child conceived elsewhere into the ducal lineage, don’t expect me to look the other way.”
“…Are you seriously suggesting I’m carrying someone else’s child?”
“The evidence you’ve gone out of your way to show me is far too abundant to chalk this up to the princess’s mere delusion.”
Having glanced at the physician’s letter, Zieghart irritably flung the paper away. It flew back and brushed against Natasha’s cheek.
The stinging pain seemed to jolt her mind awake, finally making everything clear. This was his way of rejection—accusing her of infidelity simply because he refused to acknowledge the precious life she carried as part of the Aschardt bloodline.
“If you dislike the child so much, just tell me the truth outright! I won’t demand a father’s love! But how… how can you deny our child and accuse me of sleeping with another man?”
Each word she spoke widened the wound. Blood slowly trickled down, its metallic bitterness inside her mouth mirroring the bitterness of the moment.
“Princess, you claim to be pregnant despite us never having been intimate.”
It was cruel.
It was horrifying.
She felt so utterly miserable she wanted to bite her tongue and die right then and there.
“Or perhaps you possess a blessed body capable of conceiving without any special relations? How convenient that would be—you could carry on your lineage without mingling your noble blood with some lowly flesh.”
“…That’s a lie! You know better than anyone, Zieghart, that I’m innocent! If you’re slandering me just to abandon the child, it’s pointless. No matter what happens, I’ll raise this child and carry on this so-called ‘lowly’ bloodline!”
“That’s precisely what I should be saying. Deny me all you wish—the one who truly knows the truth of this injustice is the one who committed it. Don’t even think about raising a child born of mingled lowly blood in this ducal house, Princess.”
It hurt. It was agony.
Her situation was so unbearable she could confidently say even death wouldn’t be this painful.
Zieghart’s rejection and harsh words. The utter shattering of trust between them.
Though she’d endured such things before, they now pierced her heart like sharper, larger blades.
[This is the timeline separator]In the cold, empty room, she sat as if lifeless. The potion Zieghart had given her glittered faintly on the table across from her.
‘Drink it, and I’ll treat this as if it never happened. Consider it my final mercy.’
He’d said that offering this abortifacient was his last act of grace—his final chance to accept a dishonored body into the ducal house.
‘I’ll give birth to the child. I’ll prove to everyone that it’s truly his.’
If she took the medicine, her long-held sincerity would be denied. All those sleepless nights spent thrilled over this tiny life would be utterly erased.
Now, more than ever, she absolutely had to protect the child—for her own sake as well.
After all, the child was her only means of proving the duchess’s innocence.
[This is the timeline separator]
She woke abruptly from sleep and turned her body sideways. At that moment, a damp liquid soaked her legs.
Sensing something eerily familiar, Natasha sprang up. She lit a match and rushed to inspect the sheets.
“Oh…”
The pristine white sheets were stained with blood.
‘Menstruation can’t happen during pregnancy.’
Having studied everything an expectant mother should know, Natasha understood exactly how a pregnant woman’s body changed.
Pregnant women certainly do not menstruate.
Yet blood was spreading across the white sheets—bright crimson, as if she’d had her period.
More than suspicious, she was deeply alarmed. Crumpling the sheets, she gathered them together and frantically yanked the bell cord.
Shaken with fear, she kept tugging at the cord until someone came. The long, dangling clapper swung violently back and forth. The bell seemed to weep sorrowfully under its mistress’s frantic abuse.
Though the signal must have rung throughout the entire estate, not a single person came to Natasha’s room. In this vast house, not one person besides Kayena worried for the duchess’s well-being.
“Milady, are you alright? What’s happened? Why are you so upset…!”
Kayena rushed in breathlessly, asking what was wrong.
Natasha, who had been clutching the sheets tightly, suddenly stood up and ran toward her.
“Ka—Kayena! Listen, pregnant women don’t have periods, right? But I’m bleeding. There must be something wrong with my body.”
“Bleeding?”
“Yes, blood. And it looks just like my period… I—I don’t understand. Why is this happening? Am I okay? What about the baby? Is the baby alright?”
She pressed forward relentlessly, desperate to hear the reassurance she craved. Her frail voice urged an answer. Natasha, who had always been careful about touching others, now gripped Kayena’s collar without hesitation.
“Ka—Kayena, please answer me! Are the baby and I alright? Can we—can we protect it? Huh?”
Kayena’s words weren’t always right, but Natasha trusted her completely—because Kayena Ten was the only one who consistently stayed by her side and truly listened.
“…I—I think I overheard something yesterday, Milady.”
“What? What did you hear?”
One person.
That was the number of people who arrived during ten minutes of desperate pleas. Was there any act more justified than trusting Kayena Ten, who had come running like a savior?
It didn’t matter how absurd her words might sound.
“It was the duke’s maids… They were whispering among themselves, wondering whether they should secretly give you medicine while you slept. I thought it was just a ridiculous joke at the time…”
After finishing, Kayena subtly turned her head, fixing her gaze on something. Natasha quickly followed her glance.
Both their eyes locked onto the small bottle.
“Oh… oh no…”
That couldn’t be!
Natasha collapsed right where she stood, writhing in anguish. Her nails dug furiously into the floor, clawing at it repeatedly.
“Ahh… ahh… ahh!”
This child was meant to protect her—and she was meant to protect this child.
She never could have imagined that her last, dearest sincerity would end so abruptly, in such a brutal fashion.
Even the physician she visited, desperate to disbelieve the truth, gave the same answer.
The once cheerful expectant mother had returned with a haggard face—so much so that the physician, already wearing a grim expression from the start, seemed to suspect what had happened before even beginning the examination. Only after a long silence did he finally confirm the truth.
It was exactly as Kayena had said—the child was dead.
Natasha’s final hope crumbled miserably. All the puzzle pieces she’d gathered for a beautiful future scattered. When she painstakingly rearranged them, the completed picture was the exact opposite of what she’d dreamed.
「You may feel mild cramping in your lower abdomen. The bleeding will likely continue for five to seven days.」
Because it had been such a small child, they said it wouldn’t greatly affect the mother physically. True to the physician’s words, expelling what remained of the child wasn’t painful—it felt exactly like a regular period, in both duration and discomfort.
I’m sorry, Mama is so sorry.
I was selfish, asking for something I couldn’t give you—but I never expected this to happen. I should’ve just run away. Even if we’d lived a bit unhappily, at least I wouldn’t have lost you…
Natasha clutched her stomach and whispered again and again. She apologized endlessly to a star too distant to hear. The blood staining her sheets felt like a bitter reproach.
Six days after the bleeding stopped, Natasha finally emerged from her secluded room.
Descending to the first floor, a delicious aroma tickled her nose just as the clock struck lunchtime.
She naturally headed to the dining room—and met Zieghart there. Sitting opposite the duchess’s designated seat, she fixed him with a sharp glare.
“It was your child.”
For a fleeting moment, his eyes seemed to tremble. It must have been a foolish illusion—Natasha knew her own eyes were unsteady, but he would never be so affected.
“Zieghart, it was your child.”
“…Perhaps you should take your grievances to the real father, Princess, not me.”
“I am speaking to the real father. You killed me and our child, Zieghart. You crushed all my dreams and hopes…”
The miscarriage had led to the loss of a hope she’d cherished for so long. That made it all the more devastating.
The wound Zieghart had inflicted would never heal—not even after eternity—unlike the scar left on her cheek.
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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Chapter Comments (4)
Inline Comments (83)
His anguished questions finally creased the other’s expression. With a quiet sig
I guess there is a typo? It should be ‘Her’ instead of ‘His’
Her ears felt muffled, as if filled with water. Could it be the aftermath of dro
I kinda hope the ml is someone else. Even better if it’s like a demon or something
As if he’d expected her to come looking for him.
Is he a Regressor now or just still naturally stoic?
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Limited return by death? I guess nice story mechanism
He broke her trust, and now want her to believe that he is in love. I thing he also have his memories of the past.
It’s a little lot too late ass why no do this earlier if you regressed before