Crash!
“Ack!”
“Kali?”
Silently watching, Kali suddenly snatched the cup from Ulergen’s grip and threw it to the floor.
Glass shards splintered in every direction as the cup shattered against the hard marble. In that moment, Ulergen, almost unconsciously, threw himself to shield Yuri Hsien.
“……!”
As if determined not to allow even a small piece of glass to harm Yuri Hsien. It was a behavior even Ulergen himself hadn’t realized.
Kendall screamed at the sight of the broken cup on the floor.
“What are you doing right now! What are you!”
She seemed about to grab Kali’s hair, but Kali suppressed her with just a glance.
‘What, what is this…’
It felt like standing before a wild beast. She couldn’t understand how a seemingly ordinary woman’s eyes could be so sharp and fierce.
It was when Kendall swallowed dryly.
Kali pointed to the floor with a swollen knuckle. Kendall, forgetting even her right to be angry, followed Kali’s finger with her gaze. So did everyone else in the room.
“Gasp……!”
“Oh my goodness……!”
“Hmm!”
Everyone except Kali and Kendall exclaimed in astonishment. Steam was rising from the lemonade spilled all over the floor. It wasn’t heat causing the steam. The marble was melting.
“It’s, it’s poison!”
Andersen was the first to come to his senses and shout.
“That woman, the beverage Kendall brought had poison in it! She dared to harm the master, by putting in poison!”
Although he didn’t recognize Kendall as the Duchess, no one paid attention to that. Such a natural and quick attempt at poisoning was too shocking.
“No, no, no!”
Kendall belatedly jumped and denied.
“There, there must have been some mistake. Th, ah, it’s not! Wh, why would I give poison to the Duke!”
Her face ashen, Kendall staggered backward. Even her lavishly puffed red hair, disheveled, didn’t seem to concern her as she shook her head vehemently. Her golden eyes, usually glaring and darting at Yuri Hsien, trembled in despair.
“Th, that’s right, isn’t it? Honey, ah, you know, how much I love the Duke.”
Despite Kendall’s desperate denial, no one in the room would believe her now. Or even if they did, seeing that the lemonade Kendall was about to hand to Ulergen had melted the marble, no one could rashly take her side.
Kendall’s mind went blank. She had to assert her innocence somehow.
“Look at this! It’s strange, isn’t it! If I really, really wanted to harm the Duke, shouldn’t the glass cup not be intact? The marble too! The marble also melted; it’s strange that the poison was held intact in the glass cup!”
Ignoring the sharp glass cutting her fingers, Kendall picked up the broken glass. The glass cup containing the marblemelting poison was astonishingly intact. And Kendall’s hand holding the cup, likely tainted with the poison, was also unharmed.
“Look! My hand is fine too!”
She shoved it as proof, but Yuri Hsien’s expression only grew more grim. Yuri Hsien realized that when she was too angry, the world seemed to twist, causing a strong vertigo. Somewhere, a dry twig snapped.
When she realized that the sound came from her own hand, Yuri Hsien was already standing in front of Kendall.
“How dare you, how dare!”
She yelled, then grabbed Kendall’s wrist holding the glass and twisted it as if to break it.
“Ah, aah!”
Kendall’s piercing scream went unheard by Yuri Hsien.
“How dare you, poison! To a person who just returned, poison! And you call yourself a human?!”
Her voice roared with fury. Andersen saw Yuri Hsien this enraged for the first time in his life. Even if Ulergen had memories, it would likely be his first time as well.
“Ah, ah, ugh! What is, this doing……!”
Kendall tried to pry off Yuri Hsien’s hand with her free hand, but it was useless.
“Skinny, of all things!”
I really didn’t know where this strength was coming from.
Yuri Hsien ground her teeth as she spoke.
“You are the culprit. That’s why you picked up the glass shard so easily, without any doubt!”
“What, what?”
“Because you were sure it wasn’t poisoned!”
“……!”
“How could you be so sure if you weren’t the culprit? You saw the marble dissolve with liquid in front of your eyes, how could you dare to touch the glass shard with your bare hands if you weren’t sure?”
Kendall swallowed his breath. He was blinded by the immediate need to explain, and hadn’t thought it through. Kendall tried to find some excuse, but it was useless.
“I sense the energy of magic here. Very wicked… filled with evil magic.”
Kalri, who had reached out his hand near the liquid that had melted and evaporated the marble, confirmed it.
“This smell… I have smelled it before when I was the leader of the Huangxing First Knight Division. It’s Kashan poison.”
“Kashan poison is a tasteless, colorless, odorless poison, isn’t it?”
Andersen exclaimed in surprise. Kalri, who had heavily nodded his head, suppressed Kendall and answered instead of Yuri Hsien.
“Yes, it is. It’s not a natural poison, but a magical poison artificially created by witches in the past.”
“Ugh!”
After Being Cheated On, She Picked Up a Treasure (Female-dominant)
One-line summary: The husband I married on a whim had been secretly in love with me for a long time.
On the day when Jun Shao finally obtained the imperial decree for her marriage, Lan Qu, the person she had admired for six years, defied the decree and ran away.
Her gentleness and devotion, her promise of a lifetime together, were all disregarded by him. Instead, he dreamed of entering the palace to serve the Emperor’s sister as a sixth-rank attendant.
News of this incident spread throughout the capital, and the alleys in front of and behind the Lan mansion were crowded with people who came to watch the commotion.
Jun Shao should have been embarrassed and angry.
But someone stepped in to protect her dignity.
The figure was in a miserable state, yet still possessed an undeniable elegance and handsomeness.
The young lord struggled to climb the wall of the Lan mansion and shouted to her, “If he won’t marry you, I will!”
So, Jun Shao took advantage of the situation and married the person.
She thought the young lord did it to save the Lan family from the crime of defying the imperial decree, but never imagined that from beginning to end, what he coveted was her.
*
After the wedding, Jun Shao felt like she was living in a dream.
Her Wife-master was as beautiful as a fairy in a painting, skilled in the six arts, well-versed in poetry and literature, capable of being gentle and attentive, and also grand and dignified. Most importantly, she was the only one in his heart and eyes.
Jun Shao didn’t know how Lan Shiwu, as a illegitimate son without a father and blessed with beauty, had managed to preserve his purity, recklessly escape, and use his last ounce of strength to ruin his own reputation, all because of his love for her, just to stand before her.
She could only see him gazing at her with eyes full of love, and when she bestowed a name upon him, his eyes shone like stars.
“You have come to me like a weary bird perching on a branch. I shall call you A Qi.”
