“Don’t you know even though you wrote the prophecy?”
“I didn’t specify the settings to that extent. This is the first time I’m hearing this.”
“Oder lives for a long time. Moreover, youth is maintained for a long time.”
Indeed, he almost didn’t age until he died. Even when the Emperor took his last breath at the age of nearly ninety, he only appeared to be in his late forties.
“If humans who form pairs age and die early, wouldn’t the remaining lifetime be lonely? Oder can make the chosen partner a companion. It means sharing the power Oder possesses.”
Lev added that they would also share the power of rapid regeneration and healing, long lifespan, and the ability to maintain youth for a long time.
At this revelation, Mariela, who had barely regained her composure in the hope of saving her daughter, cautiously asked, “But, I heard that Duke Dezar passed away.”
If, according to Lev’s words, the former Duke, Dezar, who should have stayed by her side, maintaining youth and health, had succumbed to illness and left the world. That too at the early age of forty.
“He was my pair, but he didn’t become my companion.”
“What? Why?”
Surprised by Mariela’s unexpected question, Lev spoke with a subdued voice.
“He said he didn’t want to become like Oder. He wanted to live as a human, born as one, and naturally face death when the time came.”
It was a wise decision on his part.
To become a different existence from what he had been until now.
Instead of pursuing desirable power, he rejected it.
But he could continue to live with a human heart, just like before.
“He didn’t want to become a different existence. He wanted to stay by my side only as long as his life allowed. I agreed.”
Lev stood alone by the dark window, feeling desolate.
“I understood it in my head, but it was harder to bear when he really left. Much more than I thought.”
So, he abandoned the title of the Duke of Clevent and asked to be called a princess, leaving the empire to roam around various places.
“Elisia… She might not want that either.”
Upon Leon’s words, Lev looked at his son with an inscrutable gaze.
“There seems to be no apparent way to rescue Elisia from the compulsion.”
Lev added, “It would be good if we could ask her directly.”
However, Elisia did not regain consciousness even after two more days.
Moreover, the spot burned by the black flames looked strange. Normally, with such a deep and large burn, blood would seep out, or fluid would flow, and then it would heal, or inflammation would occur. However, it remained as it was, as if Elisia had been devoured. So, calling it a wound or a scar felt incongruous.
The crisis occurred unexpectedly.
While Leon, who had been by Elisia’s side all along, briefly went to his office, a frantic servant, Bernard, came running, calling for him.
“Your Grace, Elisia has…!”
Unable to continue his words, the anxious servant made Leon rush back to the bedroom.
The small, motionless body of Elisia was engulfed by black flames, as if she had been swallowed whole.
With a hiss.
As he entered, seeing the flames intensifying as if wrapping around arms and legs, Leon, like a furious beast, shouted and leaped onto the bed.
“Ah. Aah.”
The servant, emitting a feeble sound, sat hesitantly in front of the bedroom door.
The flames intending to engulf Elisia vanished in an instant as Leon reached her.
“No, Elisia.”
Leon, with a sobbing sound, tightly pressed Elisia into his arms as if trying to hide her small body within.
After crouching like that for a while, Leon, still holding Elisia, stood up.
“We’ll go to the Duchess’s bedroom.”
“Your Grace.”
“Make sure no one, absolutely no one, comes up to the second floor.”
As Leon headed towards Elisia and the Duchess’s bedroom, Bernard supervised the servants, directing them downstairs to the first floor.
The commotion from afar soon quieted down.
Leon, without laying Elisia on the bed, continuously beat the Duchess’s room curtains while holding her tightly within his arms.
When the room turned pitch dark, Leon illuminated a single candle next to the bed.
As the warm, red light illuminated the lifeless and colorless Elisia, an illusion formed, making her appear as if she regained color, like a delicate lime blossom about to break.
“Elisia, I can’t let you go like this.”
It was his first experience of such emotions.
He had thought that love, usually spoken of as beautiful, noble, and warm affection, included what he felt for Elisia, but Leon realized that what he felt for her exceeded that.
His mother did not turn his father into Oder’s companion.
Listening to that story, Leon could understand how deeply his mother must have loved his father.
It wouldn’t be meaningful if it weren’t that person.
But she would have completely shared her heart as much as she didn’t want to find another mate.
So, he could only share his life with her as much as she wanted, in the way she desired.
When you fall in love, you become weak.
No matter how high the status and lineage, even if you are Oder’s bloodline, you can’t turn away someone’s heart if they dislike you.
“Am I disappointing you like this?”
Elisia might not be any different from his father.
Leon loves her, but sharing Oder’s power is another matter.
“But I want to keep you alive, Elisia.”
He muttered to himself self-deprecatingly as he slowly undressed.
Oder’s companion.
Turning the desired partner into a lifelong companion was usually a ceremony held on the first night of marriage.
It was an event shared when forming a deep and intimate connection.
“Elisia, I won’t do anything you hate.”
Emotionally clinging to her, Leon received everything from the kind and innocent woman.
However, Leon knew well that it wasn’t genuinely her giving herself to him.
He became Elisia’s companion without spending the night.
What Elisia doesn’t desire, Leon doesn’t want either.
They will share a dream night when both truly want it, when she gladly accepts it.
The night when the two truly share one dream will be when she wants him, accepting it joyfully.
“So, don’t leave and stay here, Elisia.”
Just having you stay in this world is all I ask for; I don’t wish for anything more.
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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