I Ended Up Living Next Door to My Ex-Husband (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 14
Cedric started the conversation by mentioning my preferences first.
Though disliking lilies was indeed Rebecca’s old taste, still…
‘Does this mean I can hope Cedric’s resentment toward me has lessened a bit?’
Slightly cheered, I inched a little closer to Cedric.
“It’s alright. My tastes have changed quite a lot since then.”
“…Your tastes changed?”
Just as Cedric’s gaze was turning toward Adrian’s golden hair,
in the distance, a carriage carrying Bianca came racing toward the Mansion of Light.
“Oh! The carriage is arriving!”
I couldn’t help but grab Cedric’s arm and exclaim.
At that, Cedric’s eyes—previously fixed on Adrian—suddenly followed my hand downward.
For a fleeting moment, it even seemed as if he was staring blankly at my face, but I had no time then to pay attention to his gaze.
‘She’s really here! Our Bianca has come!’
My heart pounded and inner cheers filled me with exhilaration.
By then, the carriage had already come to a halt before the main gate.
Just as the coachman slowly opened the door of the now-stationary carriage,
something popped out from inside.
Short legs clad in opaque white tights and tiny red Mary Jane shoes snugly fitted to her feet.
‘Those short, plump legs are unmistakably hers!’
Soon after, a little lady leapt down from the carriage’s low step with a cute sound.
“Hup!”
She was Princess Bianca—the girl whose irresistible charm had kept me waiting all day.
Just as I instinctively clutched my chest, Bianca spotted Cedric immediately and her mouth flew open wide.
“Oh? Your Grace, the Grand Duke!”
Bianca waved her small, delicate hand high into the air.
In her other hand, she clutched an adorable rabbit plush, and a blue ribbon was tied neatly into her sleek black hair.
Her cheerful smile made her plump, fair cheeks puff out even more.
At the same time, her large, blue eyes sparkled with even greater brilliance.
Seeing that angelic smile, I couldn’t help but cover my mouth.
‘Oh no… even her voice is adorable… She’s just too cute!’
There wasn’t a single detail about Bianca that wasn’t utterly endearing.
Just as I was marveling at her, the child began running toward Cedric.
But as she drew closer, Bianca’s expression gradually turned pale.
It started the moment she noticed me standing beside Cedric.
“Y-Your Highness Bi…?”
When Bianca hesitated and stopped advancing, Cedric let out a quiet sigh and stepped toward her first.
“You’ve worked hard coming all this way, Bianca.”
He gently patted her small head and gave a faint smile.
“I heard beforehand that Her Highness Bi would also come to greet you today.”
This tender side of Cedric was completely new to me.
Yet Bianca seemed more familiar with it—she grasped his hand tightly.
“Even so, I really didn’t think you’d actually come…”
While answering Cedric, Bianca kept glancing nervously toward me.
‘Oh dear… just as I expected, she’s afraid of me.’
I forced a smile and took a step forward, trying hard to ease the mood.
“Our lovely Princess Bianca, was your journey here peaceful?”
At once, surprised murmurs burst out from all around.
“Lovely…?”
“…Our?”
Bianca and Cedric looked just as stunned.
“M-me…?”
Bianca’s already-large eyes widened further, and her shoulders trembled.
“Yes, Princess Bianca. Were you hungry on your way here?”
When I asked more sweetly, another round of stifled gasps erupted from the onlookers.
Fed up, I rolled my eyes toward them with a sharp glare as a warning.
‘Honestly! You’re not an audience—could you please tone it down a bit? Ugh!’
Only then did the servants quickly avert their eyes and shut their mouths in haste.
I turned back to Bianca and smiled even more gently.
Though it was obvious just by watching the maids’ faces go pale every time I smiled, Rebecca was not someone who gave off a kind impression.
‘But I absolutely never want to instill that fear in Bianca!’
I mustered all my effort to lift the corners of my mouth.
Yet for some reason, tears began welling up in Bianca’s big eyes instead.
“Your Highness Bi… is… smiling…”
Her tiny hand, clutching the hem of her nanny’s dress, trembled slightly.
“N-nanny… I’m so s-scared…”
Just then—
Pop, pop.
Two small horns, about the size of strawberries, sprouted from Bianca’s little head.
‘Huh? Those are the same horns that grew on Mina’s head…’
Perhaps because it was my second encounter with such horns,
Bianca’s tiny horns didn’t surprise me much.
In fact, I felt delighted.
‘Horns on that little head… how utterly adorable!’
But the servants began murmuring uneasily, their expressions grim.
Sensing something was wrong, Bianca instinctively paled and touched her own head.
The moment she confirmed the horns had grown, her delicate chin began trembling violently.
“H-horns! I’ve grown horns… right in front of Her Highness the Grand Duchess… ugh… waaah!”
At that moment, I could only stand frozen like stone.
‘S-she’s crying…? Have I really made our princess cry?’
Panicked, I looked toward the nanny, who, terrified, desperately tried to hide Bianca behind her back.
“Your Highness Bi suddenly smiled, so Princess Bianca got goosebumps… ah, no! She was just a little startled, that’s all! Please, please don’t misunderstand, Your Highness!”
All the servants wore faces brimming with fear, as if something dreadful might happen at any second.
Soon, they surrounded me from a distance and started circling me slowly,
like a tribe of natives cautiously approaching an agitated wild lion.
“Um… it’s normal for young children to show signs of their demon heritage when their emotions shift!”
“Yes, exactly! They simply lack the power to control their magic when they’re young!”
“She’ll grow out of it, Your Highness! S-so please, calm your mind a little…!”
All their gazes suddenly turned toward Mina—
as if she were their only savior.
Understanding their desperate plea, Mina spread her arms wide like a skilled animal trainer and slowly approached me.
“Your Highness Bi, come now. Let’s not get excited—take a slow, deep breath together, okay?”
“…”
“Alright, inhale… exhale… inhale… exhale…”
“…What exactly are you doing right now?”
Whoosh!
Mina retreated ten paces in the blink of an eye.
She even let out a sigh of relief, as if she’d narrowly avoided stepping on a landmine.
With Mina’s departure, I was left utterly alone.
Whoooosh—
A chilly gust of wind swept through my hair, now disheveled and abandoned.
Inside the Grand Duke’s reception room at the Mansion of Light.
Though the whole family had gathered after a long while, the atmosphere was unnervingly quiet.
Beside Cedric, who calmly sipped his tea, Bianca kept glancing toward me while fidgeting with her rabbit plush’s ears.
‘Poor thing… she keeps watching me anxiously.’
Afraid that speaking might trigger another flood of tears from Bianca,
I couldn’t bring myself to say anything and kept silently drinking tea—when suddenly,
“Um… Your Highness Bi…?”
Bianca called out to me, her small shoulders still hunched tightly.
“Yes, Bianca. What is it?”
I asked as gently as I could, yet Bianca still flinched reflexively.
“I’m… I’m really sorry about earlier…”
Worried tears might spill out without her noticing, Bianca squeezed her eyes shut and reopened them. The moisture in her large eyes doubled her cuteness.
“You smiled at me with such kindness, yet I cried like a silly fool again…”
“…”
“I-I was wrong, Your Highness! I promise I won’t cry so foolishly and often like before! So… if you could just not hate me… I’d be very, very grateful…”
For an eight-year-old, she seemed far too subdued.
‘This child was always desperate not to be hated, even when she first met the female lead, Lobelia.’
There wasn’t a single easy moment in that little girl’s short life.
Bianca lost her parents before she’d even turned one.
After enduring harsh abuse from her elder sister Rebecca, she fled to the capital—but even among the capital’s nobility, Bianca, as a half-demon, remained an outsider.
She was unwelcome both in the land of her birth and in her refuge.
‘I’m just like an island—drifting alone, never belonging anywhere…’
Remembering Bianca’s words from the original story, I gazed at the child before me with deep pity.
‘…She’s such a kind and beautiful child.’
Then, watching her fidget with her rabbit plush, I slowly shook my head.
“You’re wrong, Princess Bianca.”
“Huh? D-did I do something else wrong…?”
“About you acting foolishly.”
Bianca blinked at me, bewildered.
“Given everything I’ve done until now, your reaction was perfectly natural. So please never say that again.”
For a brief moment, she stared at me in shock, dumbfounded.
Then, as if suddenly realizing she’d held eye contact with me for too long, Bianca quickly lowered her head.
I quietly watched her before speaking once more.
“And it’s also wrong to say that Princess Bianca was the one at fault. All the wrongs committed until now weren’t yours…”
“…?”
“…but mine.”
Bianca’s blue eyes slowly widened in astonishment.
Cedric beside her looked just as stunned as he fixed his gaze on me.
At their predictable reactions, I lifted the corner of my lips slightly and stood from my seat.
Then, I slowly bowed toward Bianca.
“Princess Bianca… I’m truly sorry for everything I’ve done until now.”
The reception room froze in stunned silence.
Of course, Rebecca’s past actions weren’t my personal sins.
Yet this was a knot only I—the one who had possessed Rebecca—could untie.
Besides, if my sincere apology could ease even a little of that child’s inner pain, I’d be more than satisfied.
How long did the silence last?
Suddenly coming to her senses, Princess Bianca hurriedly tried to stop me.
“Y-Your Highness Bi! Please don’t do this! How could you bow your head to someone as foolish as me…!”
“…Foolish? Nonsense.”
I lifted my head again and gently shook it as I looked at Bianca.
“Princess Bianca, you’re the kind soul who tried to welcome someone as lacking—as an adult and as a person—into your family.”
“…”
“It was I who was lacking, never you.”
“B-but…”
“You, Princess Bianca, are more than worthy of love—in fact, you absolutely deserve to be loved.”
“…Huh?”
Waves of emotion began stirring within her slowly blinking, round eyes.
After a moment, Bianca quickly lowered her head again and bit her lip,
straining with all her might to hold back the tears, just as she’d promised herself earlier.
My heart ached, but I carefully composed my expression to continue.
“I promise you—I’ll never wrong you again as I once did. And from now on, I’ll be living at the Mansion of Darkness.”
“…”
“So, Princess Bianca.”
At my call, Bianca slowly lifted her head once more to look at me.
Her round eyes were already glistening with fresh tears.
Seeing her like this, I finally said the words I’d long wanted to speak ever since I’d learned of Bianca’s sorrowful heart from the original story.
“Please don’t feel lonely like an island drifting alone anymore. From now on, take firm root in your family’s embrace… and grow up happy.”
Male lead is a Love-Obsessed Merman
When he discovers she has gone, he risks everything to pursue her on land, enduring agonizing pain to transform his tail into human legs…
One-line summary: Male lead chases female lead. The male lead’s love is a bit sick, an invincible love brain.
Synopsis
During a voyage at sea, Jiang Yang accidentally captures a merman.
Servant: I heard that mermen are fierce and brutal.
Jiang Yang looks at the merman obediently rubbing her palm like a puppy: “You call this fierce and brutal?”
Servant: I heard that mermen have no human nature.
Jiang Yang looks at the merman with wet puppy eyes, obsessively calling her ‘A Yang’ like a childish infant: “You call this having no human nature?”
With great difficulty, she releases the merman back into the sea and returns to shore.
Who would have thought that in less than half a month, the merman, who should have been freely wandering in the South China Sea, would shed his scales, endure the pain of losing his tail, transform into human legs, and come ashore to find her?
He kneels at her feet, rubbing her palm, with merman tears rolling down: “A Yang, don’t abandon me.”
_____
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It had to be something like this, Original Rebecca sounds pittiful
He’s going to be soooo surprised when the new Rebecca comes back
LOL I KNEW IT. LOVE IT. I’M IN LOVE WITH THIS NOVEL!!!