Lucy and all the servants had expressions like they had just smacked their foreheads.
“Clothes?”
Eriel faintly frowned, but Damian’s gaze fixed on her exposed shoulders failed to read her expression.
“No matter how hot the day is, wouldn’t it be better to dress properly?”
“Damian.”
“I know you’re going to the club to investigate investors. Just sending you alone to a place crawling with vulgar men is enough for me to respect your opinion.”
Their gazes met in mid-air.
A brief silence followed, but neither seemed willing to back down.
“…Everyone wears clothes like this. And I never discussed today’s detailed schedule, so how do you know?”
“Do you think it makes sense for a husband not to know his wife’s schedule? Why are you trying to hide such a schedule from me, then?”
Biting her lower lip firmly, Eriel’s eyes welled up with tears.
Her gaze, which had briefly avoided Damian with fluttering eyelashes, soon shot back at him.
“The kidnapper who took our daughter, and you, my husband, tell me not to even mention he’s the kidnapper. Then how should I talk about this? If I tell you, you’ll say don’t go. You’re planning to solve the kidnapper’s background yourself anyway, right? Without telling me anything, you’re going to just inform me again? And you’ll surely say it’s for political reasons! …You say you’re respecting my opinion sufficiently even now. But what opinion are you respecting?”
Once Eriel’s lips opened, they didn’t stop pouring out words.
“…Eriel.”
“Don’t call me. I don’t want to hear it.”
As Eriel tried to pass by, Damian quickly reached out to her.
Because of this, the rose he had been hiding behind his back fell to the floor.
With the thud of the single rose falling, everyone’s eyes in the hall focused on it.
Even Eriel paused for a moment and lowered her gaze.
“I was short-sighted. You’ll go with the knights, and the club’s guests will be nobles, so it won’t be dangerous. …Take care.”
Damian, who had released Eriel’s wrist, picked up the flower from the floor.
However, Damian did not hand that flower to Eriel.
With a completely stiff face, Damian tried to force a smile, creaking like mismatched gears.
“Yes.”
Even at that sight, Eriel turned away without saying much. The sound of the door closing echoed unusually loud.
*
Eriel, letting out a complicated sigh, leaned her head against the carriage.
Crumpling the paper she had been holding, she distorted her closed eyes.
Slowly inhaling through her nose and exhaling through her lips, her chest moved up and down slowly as she tried to calm herself.
Eriel’s green eyes, as she lifted her eyelids, were like a forest in darkness where even moonlight was blocked.
Between her clouded eyes, her narrowly opened gaze shifted forward.
If Damian resolves it, it will be mixed with His Majesty’s esteemed opinion due to political reasons.
That was not the outcome Eriel wanted.
For those who dared to kidnap Lucy and frame her husband for rebellion, Eriel had no intention of giving easy forgiveness.
Of course, neither did Bruno.
“Madam, we have arrived.”
The coachman’s voice rang out. The maid sitting beside her opened the door and placed the footstep.
As Eriel stepped out of the carriage, the alley behind the club came into view.
As Eriel walked on, knights accompanied her on the side.
Not far away, a door with a blue monster painted on it came into view.
It seemed to be the back door leading directly to the club, but a completely different picture from the one painted on the main entrance was drawn there.
Because all the visitors were nobles, no one knew the trivial fact that the picture on the back door was different from the signboard.
Eriel burst into laughter upon seeing that picture.
Certainty settled in Eriel’s hand as she turned the doorknob.
“You all wait here. If anything happens inside, I’ll scream, so stay as far away as possible.”
“Madam! Even if it’s a club, won’t it be dangerous if you go in?”
“…My brother is inside. If you see anyone outside making suspicious movements, you must check. They’ll be someone’s pawns, and it would be troublesome if the other side finds out.”
“Yes, understood.”
With that, Eriel moved into the pitch-black space behind the door.
After a few steps, candles softly illuminated the dim corridor.
Eriel skillfully walked down the corridor and began counting the candles on the upper part.
One, two, three, four……
“…Thirteen.”
Eriel stopped walking at that number and began feeling the wall.
Tapping the stone-like wall surface, looking for a place with a different sound, she found a spot that sounded hollow.
When she firmly pressed that brick, with a rolling sound, the wall turned.
In an instant, a bright light enveloped Eriel. Raising her arm to shield from the light, Eriel frowned.
“Welcome, Lady Eriel. It’s been a while since you came as a guest today.”
Eriel slowly lowered her arm and grinned. It was a familiar voice that Eriel was hearing after a long time too.
It was Maribel, who used to be her younger brother Blake’s dedicated maid.
“It’s been a while, Maribel.”
“I’ll escort you inside first. Master Blake gave us advance notice. He said to escort Lady Eriel to Room X when you arrive.”
*
Bruno had been sitting in the study for a long time like a person whose soul had left his body.
He even refused the alcohol he used to love so much.
On the first day when he was turned away from the duke’s residence, he got angry, and on the second day, he paced around all day anxiously.
However, from the third day onwards, he had been holed up in the study like a soulless person, sitting there until the fourth morning.
Unable to bear the sight any longer, Jessica entered the study on the morning of the fourth day.
“You, how long are you going to be like this?”
“……”
“Will things be resolved if you stay like this? You should go to the club and meet that person, even now!”
Bruno, who had been quietly listening, raised his eyes at Jessica’s cry.
“Meet? Do you think it will be resolved if I meet? Those bastards abandoned me!!”
“Then go meet that precious brother of yours and beg!! If we stay like this, both you and I will die like dogs!”
At Jessica’s words, Bruno slammed the desk and stood up abruptly.
“My brother turned me away! Despite owing me a huge debt! My brother, my brother, damn it……”
Bruno, after rubbing his face repeatedly, closed his eyes with a long sigh.
Abandoned by both sides, all Bruno could do was curse and sigh.
“Your brother is going to the imperial palace today. Then he’ll surely pin all these crimes on you alone! Do you want to become the person who tried to frame the duke for rebellion too? If so, we’ll all be executed.”
“Hah……”
Bruno sighed and slumped back into his seat.
Jessica, grabbing Bruno’s forearm as he looked like he had lost all hope for life, opened her mouth.
“Bruno. We need to think carefully now.”
Jessica, bending her waist to meet Bruno’s eyes as he sat down, properly grasped both his forearms.
“I’ll go to the duke’s residence and tell the duchess that they took Derek and threatened us. That’s what we were originally going to tell the duke and duchess, right? It’s the same. Now, I’ll go and say that.”
Bruno, who was about to shake off Jessica’s arms, gradually started listening to her words.
“…And then?”
“Back then, those nobles clearly seemed dissatisfied with Damian, not the Genova family. If they had intended to eliminate us from the beginning, they wouldn’t have entrusted us with such a task. Something must have changed for things to turn out like this, but anyway, their original target was your brother, right?”
“…That’s right.”
Thanks to Jessica reminding him of the situation, Bruno regained his composure. Jessica nodded once as she released Bruno’s forearms.
“Damian is still alive. The deal is still valid.”
Jessica said. There was no need to explain what that meant.
The other side still hadn’t gotten what they wanted, and Eriel would surely forgive Jessica like that.
If they said they were threatened with Derek as a hostage and had no choice but to do as they were told… Yes. With her weak nature and family-oriented personality, Eriel would…!
“I’ll hint to the duchess that there’s someone behind us. You already mentioned the club, right? I’ll say that we’re actually victims too. That we wanted to reveal the fact that there’s someone behind us because of guilt.”
“Then at that time, I’ll go to the club and……”
Their gazes met instantly.
“I’ll leave evidence of agreeing to their plan to kill Damian.”
Jessica nodded at Bruno’s words.
“Yes. Even if… Even if they say they’ll abandon me just like that, I should be able to draw out that much of a reaction.”
Bruno stood up confidently from his seat.
“Alright. Let’s go quickly. I’ll go to the duke’s residence too.”
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.
[Touch the gear icon in the bottom right corner of the screen to move to the next chapter if you want.]
