I showed Bran the Red Caterpillar and briefly told him what I could.
“So this dried-up bastard seduced you? And he’s under that wicked woman?”
Bran was unusually agitated.
We moved the Red Caterpillar to Yora’s room. Bran and Yora tied him to a chair, making sure he couldn’t move.
“Can I kill him?”
Yora’s eyes blazed with resentment.
“No, Yora. I understand how you feel, but this guy is important. A valuable evidence to prove the misdeeds of the South.”
“Cut his tongue?”
“You wouldn’t do it anyway.”
Accepting my words, Yora sadly nodded.
Yora is basically kind. He would want to take revenge, but he lacks the cruelty to execute brutal vengeance.
I could guess how hard it was for Yora to receive assassin training.
“We’ll punish him by law.”
Yora nodded at my words.
“Don’t worry, we’ll take care of him. We’ll risk our lives to make sure he doesn’t escape.”
Bran spoke like a valiant knight.
“I trust you guys.”
I took a deep breath and knocked on the Duke’s office door. The door opened…
The Duke’s pupils dilated upon seeing me.
“Your Grace, I’m sorry for the late hour. There’s something urgent I need to tell you.”
I showed him the recording stone.
His face darkened.
“If I knew you’d return so soon, I would have waited outside for you.”
“?!”
Did he see me in the darkness?
“Come in.”
I stepped into his office without a word.
Unlike the office in the mansion, this place was dry, made of gray bricks.
Everything was monochrome, except for the red flames in the fireplace.
“Ventus, show it.”
I projected the recording from the stone onto the wall. He quietly sat on the sofa.
I hesitated when I saw the Red Caterpillar beside Julia.
The Duke leaned forward from the sofa.
“It’s the Red Caterpillar.”
As soon as I finished speaking, the Caterpillar in the video spoke.
“For the Duke of the North to return to his homeland, the former deputy of the North had to die. That must be why he condoned the death of Hern Nugent.”
“Unforgivable. I suspected it, but… Oh, father.”
Julia trembled with hatred.
“The South is politically divided now. To bring peace, Lady Medea’s faction, who wants to support and be in good terms with the North, needs to gain more power. But the Duke of the North keeps misunderstanding and doubting us…”
“Foolish and cruel human! Daring to… Drake, do you know what the Duke said to me? How dare he equate me with Lady Medea, Hern Nugent’s daughter?”
“Oh dear.”
The Caterpillar interjected, feigning surprise.
“They must want to suppress the Nugent family. I understand. It’s necessary to fully control the North. Ah… Lady Rahert said after much deliberation, the only one who could see the truth was ‘Lady Nugent.’ Then, she told me, if I arrive in the North alive, she would grant me freedom…”
“How merciful.”
“Yes, truly…”
The Red Caterpillar choked up.
“But she insisted I convey this. The woman the Duke took with him is a spy planted by other factions in the divided South. Lady Nugent must deal with her to save the North.”
Why would he defame me, someone who should be on his side?
Did he suspect me of betrayal?
Was this whispering Medea’s intention, or the Caterpillar’s own doing?
It’s clear he wanted to inform Medea that I had betrayed her.
Judging by how quickly he turned on the transmission stone, I can guess.
As always, he thought he could monopolize Medea’s trust if I was gone.
Did he tell Lady Nugent I was a spy from the South because he wanted to get rid of me?
Then it happened.
The ceiling crumbled, and I jumped down. The video turned off.
‘I should have turned it off a bit earlier.’
For a while, the Duke said nothing.
In the silence, he kept staring at the grey wall where the video had vanished.
Finally, he stood up and looked at me. His deep blue eyes fixed on me.
“Esdel, are you hurt?”
“No. I was startled when the roof collapsed suddenly, but it seemed to be poorly constructed.”
Another lie.
His blue eyes, tinged with sadness, looked at me.
“It may be too late to say this, but I want to apologize again.”
“Huh?”
‘Is he talking about the incident at the training ground?’
“I saw you following Lady Nugent.”
“!”
“I let you go alone to such a difficult place because I am powerless.”
‘The Duke, powerless?’
“No, Your Grace. I’m actually quite good at running…”
What am I saying, Esdel.
As I fidgeted, our eyes met directly.
No, he shouldn’t be the one apologizing to me.
He saved me from the hellish Rahert family.
It’s natural he couldn’t fully trust me, yet I felt ungrateful for resenting him.
The Duke, still gazing at me, slowly opened his mouth.
“In this life, I will trust you. No matter what, I will trust you. And I will bear all the consequences. Just don’t get hurt, Esdel.”
“!”
He’ll trust me in this life.
In this life.
“No, Your Grace. I will also bear those consequences. And…”
The words I had always hesitated to say finally came out.
“Someday, when the day comes that I can speak, I will confess everything to Your Grace. Until then, may I ask you not to inquire about what I am hiding?”
“I will not ask. Until the day you choose to speak.”
Sion Belphegor nodded with sincere blue eyes.
“I, too, hope for the day when I can tell you everything.”
He smiled gently.
I do not know what he cannot speak of, but whatever it is, I can wait. Just having him within reach is like a dream come true for me.
“Yes, Your Grace.”
I can only respond with a ‘yes’.
“Could you call Arcadia for me?”
“Yes.”
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.”
[Touch the gear icon in the bottom right corner of the screen to move to the next chapter if you want.]
