“Your Majesty, how could you not know about sugar-coated peanuts? They’re currently gaining immense popularity as a dessert among the young nobles of the empire.”
Harang seemed frustrated, as if teaching a student who struggled to study.
“Since Your Majesty seems unaware, haven’t you yet met your fated companion? Nowadays, young nobles gift desserts with sugar-coated peanuts to their beloved, or they put a ring inside the sugar-coated peanut shell for a present. Your Majesty, there are many beautiful ladies within the imperial palace. Why are you buried in documents on such a fine day? If this old man could enter and lie down in the coffin before, I could witness Your Majesty’s wedding without any reservation.”
Hearing Harang’s unexpected nagging, Kai was bewildered and burst into a dry laughter.
“Only a few peanuts on a tray, and you’re giving me a hard time?”
Harang sighed deeply, seemingly frustrated again.
“This is not just peanuts, Your Majesty. It’s a symbol of youth. A symbol.”
“Seeing something I don’t know makes me look not so young.”
Kai said dismissively and closed the lid with a noticeable snap.
“Your Majesty, do you know how long you’ve been sitting like this? It’s been seven hours.”
“I don’t know about that, but I hope you don’t bother me. I’d appreciate it.”
“If I continue to disturb you, will you execute me?”
“What would an old man do by offering his neck? Annoying.”
Kai slightly frowned and pushed the silver tray aside. However, perhaps due to the force, the silverware that Harang had placed rolled to the floor with a clatter.
The sugar-coated peanuts inside also tumbled on the ground.
Kai, who didn’t intend to go this far, stood up inadvertently at Harang’s shocked expression.
Harang, looking at the rolling silverware and peanuts with a despairing expression as if his world had collapsed, started picking up the fallen peanuts.
“I didn’t want it to be like this. Why bother.”
Kai said with a hint of apology. Harang, looking despondent, sat on the floor and began picking up the fallen peanuts as if he had lost everything.
Kai felt an overwhelming sense of desolation, and even non-existent guilt seemed to be squeezed out.
“Okay. Bring it. Let’s try eating it.”
“Really?”
As soon as Kai agreed to eat, Harang, as if saying, “When has it ever been like this?” brightened up with a smile and stood up from his seat.
Then, he went outside and received another silver dish with a round lid from the servant waiting there.
Did he prepare two from the beginning?
Kai marveled at Harang’s cunning. It seemed a bit excessive to use his brilliant mind for the simple task of feeding a few peanuts.
Looking at Harang approaching with a sunny expression, holding the plate like a child, Kai couldn’t help but smile as if he had surrendered.
He thought about whether the day would come when he could beat Harang until his dying day.
“So, do I need to know this to date?”
“Yes! That’s right. Hold this sweet peanut with both hands, snap it nicely! After prettily breaking it, you eat one, and I eat one, like this.”
Watching Harang passionately demonstrate as if he wanted to show even his body as if the lover were actually present, Kai couldn’t help but furrow his brow.
“Well, go ahead and try it.”
Harang, behaving as if he had become a lover, personally peeled the peanut in front of Kai. Kai, feeling an inexplicable discomfort, put the peanut that Harang had peeled into his mouth and chewed.
The peanut had a much richer flavor than expected. Sweet, nutty, and with a smooth taste, it harmonized astonishingly well, making it excellent even without any cooking.
“Mm!”
Whenever Kai tried not to eat, Harang diligently put the peeled peanuts into his mouth. Suddenly, Harang, unable to keep up with Kai’s eating speed, experienced a shell identification crisis.
Watching Kai eat deliciously, Harang suddenly groaned, gripping his wrist.
“Oh, my wrist. Why does the joint hurt like this?”
“You can’t even act properly.”
Kai, with a thoroughly unimpressed expression, snatched the peanut bag from Harang and chased him away.
“Go out. Let me eat and work alone.”
“It’s a symbol of youth.”
“It might as well be a symbol of death.”
“Oh, my leg. Lately, my legs ache like this. It seems I’m getting old.”
Harang stood up with a thump, patting his knees while leaving the study. He tapped his right knee while complaining about his sore left leg.
As Kai blandly chuckled while looking at the documents, suddenly a small, white face came to mind.
Royce, thank you. Thanks to you, I don’t feel lonely.
Thinking that the peanut was so precious that even the emperor could dedicate it, he felt like offering some.
Should I bring it?
With this sudden thought, Kai stood up from his seat, holding the bag of peanuts.
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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