I Pretended To Be Dead And Ran Away (22 Chapters Left to Complete) - Chapter 7
The sensation of hair flowing down my back was vivid.
My hair, grown past my waist, was far too long to deny as a mere illusion.
Moreover, it was only thanks to the other person standing behind me that the front of my upper garment hadn’t been fully exposed—though, in truth, it was already completely torn open.
All the shirt buttons had flown off, making it impossible to fasten, and the vest was no better.
Suddenly, I felt my heart start pounding again with fear.
I quickly picked up the ring, slipped it back on, and stood up as if nothing had happened.
Since I’d just been crouching down, he couldn’t have seen much anyway. Still, I recognized who the voice belonged to the moment I heard it.
“Ianathas, sir?”
I turned around with an unnaturally bright voice.
“Why are you up and about so early?”
Ianathas was Felix’s most trusted hound.
Officially serving as an aide, he was in reality the acting captain—and one of the very few people allowed to enter this mansion freely, without any pass.
He was fairly familiar with the servants.
Including me.
“How strange.”
“What do you mean?”
Ianathas approached with an amiable smile.
Yet I knew well enough that he wasn’t as gentle as he appeared.
“A moment ago, you looked like a woman.”
“Huh? Me?”
Unconsciously, I subtly tucked my ringed left hand behind my back. He stepped unusually close, looking down at me with evident curiosity.
“Ah…! Wh-what are you doing…!”
“Let me just verify.”
Ianathas pressed his palm firmly against my chest. The sudden, forceful pressure made me flinch.
“How odd… truly. Maybe I was dreaming?”
“Sir Ianathas, you seem to smell of alcohol.”
“Well, I drank.”
Though not as strong as the scent emanating from Felix’s room, Ianathas still reeked heavily of liquor.
Still, while the smell in Felix’s room was so pungent it made my head spin, Ianathas’ scent merely seeped through despite being oddly masked by perfume.
“I just saw an incredibly beautiful woman.”
“Oh?”
“But on my way over here, she suddenly turned into a man.”
“…Oh?”
He then pressed hard on my chest again. Though flat and utterly ordinary—as expected of a man’s chest.
“You must’ve been dreaming while walking.”
“Seems so. Her chest was quite ample. I feel absolutely nothing from yours.”
“…Yes.”
He chuckled as if my reply amused him greatly. My heart clenched, so I lowered my gaze.
“I’ve always thought, if you were ever a woman, you’d be stunningly beautiful. Maybe that’s why I imagined it.”
“That’s too kind of you.”
“Does that sound like a compliment to you?”
“Isn’t it one?”
Talking with Ianathas was always difficult—he always circled around his true intentions, leaving me unable to decipher his real meaning. And right now was no exception.
His habit of teasing by making compliments sound ambiguous hadn’t changed.
“Then let’s call it a compliment.”
With those words, he finally stepped away.
“I break out in hives whenever I touch other men.”
“But you’ve just been touching me…”
“Exactly. Isn’t that strange? I never get hives when touching Reniel.”
Seeing him eye me suspiciously, I forced myself not to look away despite my fear and met his gaze squarely.
At that, he once again grinned with that deceptively friendly expression, eyes crinkling in amusement.
“It would’ve been wonderful if Reniel were a woman. You’d have been the ace of my businesses, then.”
For reference, the business Ianathas managed for House Le Pelique was a gambling den—so he surely meant the female dealers employed there.
That establishment had a rather unusual setup:
All dealers had to be women. Rumors within the ducal household suggested it served as a hub for information gathering.
Recalling what I’d glimpsed briefly in the original story, those all-female dealers were actually assassins.
“What a shame….”
I disguised “I’m glad” as “What a pity.”
“Indeed.”
Ianathas said that while checking once more the gap in my torn clothes.
“But what brings you out at this ungodly hour?”
I held his gaze as I asked. His yellow eyes crinkled again, feigning cheerfulness.
His brown hair seemed to darken into deep chestnut in the shadows.
“I had a report to deliver to my lord.”
“I see.”
“And you, Reniel?”
“I was on my way back to the on-duty quarters.”
“Oh? Let me escort you.”
“No, I’ll go alone.”
“Let me escort you.”
“Oh, alone….”
“Let me escort you.”
Feeling as though I were arguing with a broken machine, I eventually nodded. He immediately strode ahead.
His long legs casually took the stairs two at a time, so I deliberately followed just one step at a time, pretending I couldn’t keep up.
He glanced back, urging me silently to hurry, forcing me to also take two steps at once.
It was absurd that even my walking pace wasn’t up to me when heading back to my own room—but fear outweighed the absurdity, so I merely smiled and followed.
“Hah… hah…”
“You’re quite out of shape, aren’t you? You should exercise more.”
“…Yes. Thank you for your concern.”
Just as my breath was catching in my throat, we reached the fifth floor.
He headed straight for the on-duty room and opened the door. With a loud creak, my room’s door slid open as if screaming.
“Thank you for escorting me.”
I gave him a look, hoping he’d take the hint and leave. But instead, he scanned the room as if searching for something.
“How strange.”
“What is?”
He wandered around the tiny on-duty room as if tracking a faint aura, then seemingly gave up and stepped back, saying,
“They say the lost daughter of House Nuremberg has ash-blond hair and violet eyes.”
“I see.”
“Yet, oddly enough, both Reniel and that princess share the exact same age, hair color, and eye color. Quite fascinating, isn’t it?”
“…I see.”
I had no desire to understand his nonsense, but I forced myself to reply as if curious.
“But there’s nothing here—how dull.”
“Yes, I suppose I’m rather dull myself.”
He chuckled and patted my shoulder.
“Well then, good luck with your duties.”
“Yes, same to you, Sir Ianathas.”
And with that, he left the room.
At last, I was alone.
****
Jingle jingle!
I jolted awake at the sound of a bell.
My on-duty room on the fifth floor was connected to only one other room—
none other than Felix’s bedroom.
I quickly wiped my drowsy face with a handkerchief and hurried toward the Duke’s chamber on the third floor.
My body felt slightly stiff, likely from not getting proper sleep.
But my current salary was higher than that of a knight, and my savings could already buy a small plot of land in the frontier.
“Hang in there.”
Muttering that to myself, I passed the fourth floor and soon arrived at the third.
Unfortunately, the Duke’s bedroom sat right in the center of a U-shaped corridor, meaning I had to walk quite a distance.
The main building was several times larger than ordinary buildings—it felt like sprinting across a sports field.
Yet, remembering my wages, I managed to force a smile.
Ignoring my trembling legs, I reached the Duke’s bedroom on the third floor. I took a calming breath and knocked naturally on the door.
The moment I knocked, a sharp pain shot through my head.
It must’ve been the aftereffect of sleeplessness. But so what if I hadn’t slept? I’d get overtime and special duty allowances anyway.
Knock knock.
“My lord, you called for me?”
By the way, knights were generally forbidden from entering the main building.
While most nobles naturally kept bodyguards, House Le Pelique was an exception.
This was because they had so many potential traitors and enemies—thus, they kept even knights at arm’s length.
After all, one could never know when someone might conspire to murder them.
Of course, if someone truly intended to kill, they might disguise themselves as a servant—but unless they were burly knights, they’d be subdued instantly.
And recalling the original story:
‘Ha! Just die already, Felix Le Pelique! Ahahaha!’
Tanasis, the story’s villain, had once forced a deadly poison down Felix’s throat.
‘Sorry, but I can’t die from poison. I’m immune to all toxins.’
‘Impossible!’
‘All thanks to your mother—I’ve tasted every poison in existence.’
Thus, since poison was useless anyway, the household tended to be rather lax with its servants.
“My lord.”
When I called again, the voice from inside stopped mid-sentence.
“Come in.”
Upon receiving permission, I stepped inside.
“Oh, you’re here.”
Ianathas was still in the mansion.
Felix, wearing only a loosely tied gown, sat on the bed with a bored expression, inhaling a cigarillo.
“My lord, just this morning I saw Reniel wandering the third-floor corridor.”
I stared at Ianathas, baffled that he’d bring this up out of nowhere. He looked back at me with that ever-friendly smile.
“Reniel, apparently His Grace also saw that woman with blue hair whom I glimpsed last night.”
“Oh?”
“But His Lordship took a sleeping potion, so his memories aren’t entirely clear.”
Cold sweat broke out. My palms grew clammy, and my breath quickened—it wasn’t just from the cigarillo’s pungent stench.
“Reniel, did you see anything?”
“Ah, no… not really…”
Then Felix lifted his chin and exhaled a long stream of smoke as he spoke.
“That woman stole something important last night.”
The moment our eyes met, he said it—as if he already knew everything.
My Arch-enemy Sealed My Memory and Said That He is My Husband
This is an incredibly captivating story that you absolutely shouldn’t miss! I’ll give a brief introduction here, and below you’ll find a detailed synopsis of the plot.
The female lead is a fierce and powerful demon king. The male lead is a once-in-a-millennium celestial lord, admired by the entire cultivation world.
They are equally matched, legendary rivals who have battled for centuries.
In the final duel, the female lead is gravely injured. The male lead saves her, seals her memories, and hides her true identity. He tells her that he is her fiancé. His entire life has been flawless—except for the one thing he never expected, never controlled, and never wanted to control: falling for his greatest enemy. She is his inner demon, his obsession.
When the female lead regains her memories, she is furious at his deception.
She makes his life a living hell.
And somehow, the male lead—possibly a total masochist—doesn’t mind at all. In fact, he’s happy she’s paying attention to him.
Yep, we’re back to my favorite trope: male lead suffering. If you love this kind of story, jump into the pit with me now!!!
Intro
Dong Xia lost her memory.
Her handsome and extremely powerful fiancé Li Qing comforted her: “It’s okay if you can’t remember. I’ll always be with you.”
Everyone thought Dong Xia’s ancestors must have burned incense to get such a perfect fiancé. He was the number one person in the immortal realm, yet he remained chaste and only loved her.
…
The day before marrying her fiancé, Dong Xia finally remembered everything.
She wasn’t suffering from memory loss at all.
Her arch-enemy had made her fake her death, destroyed her cultivation, replaced her memories, and pretended to be her deeply in love fiancé.
No wonder he said, “It’s okay if you can’t remember”!
Dong Xia laughed coldly as she pulled out her long knife: Li Qing, prepare to die 🙂
*
Li Qing, as the supreme being of the immortal realm, was the people’s shining beacon.
The only unknown stain in his life was his affection for Dong Xia, the ruler of the demon realm.
In the final battle of the war between immortals and demons, the sky collapsed and the earth shattered. The ruler of the demon realm was finally slain under the sword of the supreme being of the immortal realm, and everyone in the immortal realm applauded.
The cultivation world lost a ruler of the demon realm.
And in the back mountain of Li Qing’s cave dwelling, he secretly hid away a fiancée.
Notes:
1. The female lead is white on the outside, black on the inside, and the queen of flattery; the male lead repeatedly tests the edge of darkness, a VIP guest at the crematorium.
2. Fantasy cultivation world setting.
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Chapter Comments (22)
Inline Comments (54)
‘The missing Princess of Nuremberg is a mana purifier—one born only once per cen
Could it be her? Is it possible that she’s living in a state of shock and no one knows her identity?
Reniel trailed off uncertainly, unsure whether this warranted gratitude.
Could it be her? Is it possible that she’s living in a state of shock and no one knows her identit
“Th-thank you…?”
Could it be her? Is it possible that she’s living in a state of shock and no one knows her identit
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Wait, what? For real? How come the Nuremberg Princess is hiding her gender and work at the mansion of the Duke who technically her archenemy? And Renal is Tanasis’ fiancee? Wow, never expected it to be revealed this early.
Very good story and i do prefer it if any person will give it a try worthy of your time
So apparently Renal is regarded as a threat for imperial family for her purifying ability and decided to make her Tanasias’ fiancee for close monitoring and helped him control his artificial ability. But Renal must’ve sensed or found out something that can put her life in danger. Thus she went into the hiding in the enemy’s nest and disguised as a man with the ring’s help. I wonder what kind of finding Reniel got to the point it threatened her life.