Then I glanced at her side. Hubert, just like when he boarded the carriage, was reading a newspaper.
I looked back at Aris and smiled faintly.
“Yes, it’s interesting. Want to read it?”
“No thanks.”
“It’s a book by Dufeng. Don’t you like his work?”
“How can I read that now?”
“Why can’t you?”
She looked at me with wide eyes as if I didn’t understand.
“Geez, I need to prepare mentally for the banquet! My heart is pounding. I hope Aris doesn’t make any mistakes.”
She sighed dramatically, hands clasped over her heart.
I knew how much she had been looking forward to this banquet.
I casually scanned her from head to toe – the dress and the jewelry.
‘Truly splendid.’
She was armored like a soldier going into battle.
My gaze suddenly stopped on her dress.
Today’s Aris looked more beautiful than usual, but her dress was different from her normal style.
She usually preferred lively designs that accentuated her vivacious personality.
But today’s dress was much more demure. The flowing fabric looked nice but didn’t quite suit her.
Of course, it was because that dress was originally meant for me.
I looked her up and down and smiled emotionlessly.
There was nothing else to say.
I wasn’t particularly upset that she was wearing the dress meant for me.
Today, a dress was the least of my concerns.
‘I just want to end this pointless conversation and get back to my book.’
But Aris didn’t seem to want to end the conversation. She hesitated and glanced at me, raising questions in my mind.
Aris sighed.
“Sister, you’re upset, aren’t you?”
“……?”
“Because I ended up wearing your dress.”
“…….”
“I’m sorry. The original dress didn’t fit me properly. It was fine during the fitting, but when I put on the finished product, it felt suffocating. My water energy probably didn’t match with the dress.”
Her long-winded excuse made me think of just one thing.
‘What nonsense.’
I had heard her whining to Hubert about not going to the banquet if she couldn’t wear my dress.
“It’s okay. Your dress isn’t bad either. A bit short, but still.”
At that moment, a sneer flickered in Aris’s eyes and then quickly disappeared.
“Right. I had to switch, but that dress was made with jewels chosen meticulously by Aris. It suits you well.”
A second round of nonsense.
Her compliment was a lie.
A dress with a lively design that would suit Aris looked like a doll’s outfit on me.
Aris, who was possessive of her belongings, never shared with others. Her giving me her dress?
There was a reason. It was because of the dress she was wearing now – originally mine.
Aris played with the hem of her dress, looking satisfied.
The way the fabric flowed through her fingers showed it was of high quality and rare. It was clearly a valuable dress.
That dress was intended for me to attend the banquet as the new ‘princess’ of Liorsa.
A specially made outfit from the most popular boutique in the capital, a piece that added grace to anyone who wore it.
Under normal circumstances, I couldn’t have afforded it even if I spent all my savings. But since I had to welcome guests in place of Princess Lalahtu, the royal family had prepared it specially for me.
The problem was that the boutique was the very one Aris had longed to visit.
They only made custom clothing and were so booked that it wasn’t easy to place an order, even for the high nobility.
Aris was shocked that the boutique had ignored prior orders to make a dress for me.
“I should have been the one playing the role of the princess!”
That’s what she had said when the dress arrived.
She seemed genuinely shocked, as if her true feelings had inadvertently slipped out.
Even after she closed her mouth, her resentment was apparent. Her face screamed of frustration.
‘Are you jealous of this?’
Why else would the royal family show such consideration? To deal with the barbarian from the empire.
Aris only wanted the benefits that came with being a princess.
But her dress was already completed.
Even she couldn’t have done anything about this situation.
“Aris is really sorry again.”
I snapped out of my thoughts at Aris’s voice.
She rambled on with her excuses again.
“But I had no choice because the dress’s energy didn’t match with the water energy.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
I didn’t feel like playing along with her insincere words, so I replied curtly, but Aris’s eyes welled up with tears.
“Sister’s voice is cold. You really don’t like that I’m wearing this dress, do you? This dress was meant for you, the princess.”
Tears rolled down her cheeks.
‘This is maddening.’
I pondered deeply.
What exactly does she want me to say?
It felt more challenging than cracking a wealthy man’s safe code.
Finally, she started to sob.
Swoosh.
Hubert folded his newspaper and looked at me.
Aris clung to him, whining.
“Hubert, sister is angry. I’m so anxious because I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t attend the banquet.”
Hubert took out a handkerchief and wiped her eyes.
“Stop it. You’ll ruin your beautifully made-up face.”
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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