Life After Divorce (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 15
Huh. Berita swallowed hard, her breath ragged. Her lips parted like a slash. It was an oddly innocent reaction for someone accused of betraying her sworn sister by sleeping with her husband.
Yet, as if she’d anticipated this moment coming someday, she lowered her trembling eyes and spoke with surprising detachment.
“Sister, I don’t understand what you’re talking about. Why would you ask me about your husband’s well-being?”
“Didn’t you just leave with Devon for a pleasure trip while I was still tearfully moping in a corner of the residence not long ago? You even comforted me the day before, when I was crying over Devon’s infidelity.”
And that wasn’t all. Casually sweeping my hair back with the back of my hand, I opened my mouth. After all, I knew every detail from having read the original story.
“You enjoyed your romance behind my back in the mansion—kicking each other playfully under the dining table, stealing kisses behind closed doors, and in his bedroom at dawn while I slept… I won’t even utter what happened beyond that; it’s too filthy.”
“S-Sister, you must be so traumatized by my brother-in-law’s affair that your memories are distorted. Shouldn’t you call a physician for a thorough examination?”
Hah. To scold me just to hide her own sins. As I twisted my lips and glared fiercely, Berita flinched.
“Don’t think I don’t know you deliberately recommended the Shadow Guild to me just to drive a wedge between Devon and me. And yet, you shamelessly made a secret deal with the guild to hide only your own affair. You must have had quite the time. You probably thought of me as nothing more than a naive, easily manipulated doll.”
“T-This is a terrible misunderstanding! I only suggested the guild because you kept suspecting your husband so much! Do you even realize you’re insulting me…?!”
Berita gazed at me pitifully, her eyes brimming with clear tears—enough to make any outsider think I was the aggressor.
But I deliberately narrowed my eyes and smiled sweetly.
“Oh dear, Berita. You can’t call this an insult—it hasn’t even begun yet.”
Berita’s face drained of color as she sensed something ominous in my reaction. Frozen in panic, she abruptly jumped to her feet.
“Oh, this won’t do. I can’t keep talking to you while you’re this agitated. Please send for me once you’ve calmed down.”
So, cornered and now choosing to flee?
I gave a derisive snort at her shallow tactic and calmly lifted my teacup.
“Sit down. Before I lose my composure and grab you by the hair.”
Berita, who had just begun walking past the table, flinched.
I leisurely tilted my teacup and half-closed my eyes—locking gazes with her.
I could see her Adam’s apple bobbing nervously in her flushed throat. The sight of her trembling, terrified that her sins would finally be exposed, was almost comical.
After staring at me with bewildered eyes for a long moment, she sank back into her seat and lowered her gaze despondently. A flash of resignation crossed her face.
“How did you find out…?”
“Does it matter?”
What matters is that you slept with my husband. As I said this coolly and set down my teacup after a sip, she let out a shaky breath and finally shed clear tears, as if she’d been waiting for this moment.
“I… I was so miserable. Of all people, I had to fall in love with your husband…”
Hah. I’d half-expected some clever excuse, but instead she offered this pathetic self-pity.
Berita hadn’t given a single thought to how utterly shattered Etricia must have felt, betrayed by both her sworn sister and her husband.
Fine. Let’s see just how far you’ll go. My interest thoroughly drained, I turned my chin sideways and crossed my arms.
“What exactly was so hard for you?”
“The day you introduced him to me, I saw a nobleman for the first time. All the men I’d known before were dirty and foul-smelling—but he was different. He shone so brightly… I was always lonely, and he was the one who comforted me—”
“So you found comfort in his bed? Right here in the mansion where I live?”
Cutting her off coldly, Berita anxiously opened her mouth again.
“Y-You know I’m an orphan. You never attended social events yourself, and you refused to act as my chaperone. My age kept increasing, and as a commoner like me, I had few chances to meet men…”
“Just give me the conclusion.”
At my calm response, Berita bit her lips nervously. She must have expected me to break down crying, asking how I could do this to her. Maybe she even planned to coax me into becoming her husband’s concubine, claiming it wasn’t her intention. Her scheme was so obvious it made me want to laugh.
After a pause, Berita looked up at me with wide, innocent eyes.
“Sister, he says he loves me. He says I’m his everything. He claimed no woman in the world could ever compare to me. So… could you please give him up for me?”
“What…?”
Just as I braced myself for another excuse, her words left me stunned.
Is she seriously asking this? At a time when she should be groveling for forgiveness?
Now I finally understood what “speechless from sheer disbelief” really meant.
Berita, reading my expression, looked down meekly and mumbled.
“T-This is for your sake too. Two people who don’t love each other will only be miserable together.”
She must have sensed my sharp gaze, yet Berita kept talking recklessly.
“A-And Devon’s affairs were just an expression of his frustration… He was angry at you for not defending him when the central nobles all slandered him and opposed his ennoblement at the time of your marriage.”
“So you’re saying he took a mistress because I wasn’t good enough?”
Berita pressed her lips tightly together and lowered her chin as if confirming it was true. Pearl-like tears fell through her softly cascading hair.
“Y-You have everything already, Sister. You don’t need him. My late father only left me that old, run-down mansion…”
There it was. I twisted my lips fiercely and tapped the table sharply.
Berita had been an orphan abandoned by a servant of House Bueil. Her father, a convicted fraudster, had disguised his status to work in the household, then eloped with a maidservant after stealing the count’s valuables—leaving little Berita behind.
Out of pity, Count Bueil had raised her not as a servant but as a foster daughter, giving her an education and lifestyle befitting nobility.
Perhaps that’s why Berita grew up spoiled, believing a coy smile could excuse anything—forgetting her true place, thinking herself a swan simply because she lived among them.
She took Etricia’s kindness—treating her like a real sister—for granted, exploiting Etricia’s pureheartedness by demanding her most precious possession, certain it would be handed over without hesitation.
She secretly felt superior to Etricia, who suffered from Devon’s betrayal—and she deceived both Etricia and me.
Swallowing my rising fury, I channeled the rage from my core into my voice.
“Berita, don’t you think?”
Berita trembled her eyelids and glanced at me dolefully.
Her repulsive expression alone drew a cold scoff from me.
“You haven’t even apologized to me once.”
Berita froze like stone. Then, as if shards of ice shattered in her mind, she snapped out of it and grabbed my hand from the table.
“S-Sister, I’m sorry. I was just so shocked—so flustered—”
“Shut it, Berita.”
I harshly slapped away her hand as it reached toward me with desperate urgency.
Berita shuddered, clutching her spasming hand to her shoulder.
“I’m done listening to your stupid excuses.”
“S-Sister…”
‘To repay the late Count Bueil’s grace—raising you like a foster daughter—by striking his daughter in the back…’
With a cold sneer, I pushed myself up from the table.
“You said you wanted Devon? Fine, take him. You’ve always been quick to steal my things since we were children.”
“H-How…?”
My efforts to scold maids who gossiped about Berita’s origins had often come to nothing—she’d repeatedly laid hands on money and valuables.
Back when I was absorbed in the original story, I never imagined that my indulgence and failure to properly discipline her would bite me like this.
But Berita, I’m different now. You’ll lose everything you stole.
Since neither Count Bueil nor your parents taught you what happens when you steal from others, I’ll teach you myself.
“Berita, as of today, you’re no longer allowed to use the name of House Bueil. That means you won’t just be barred from attending social events—you won’t even get a glimpse of the imperial palace balls you’ve always dreamed of. The monthly allowance you received and the old mansion Father gifted you will both be confiscated.”
Berita’s tear-filled eyes wavered with shock—as if she’d just received a death sentence. Of course she would. You’ve always dreamed of entering high society.
“S-Sister, I was wrong. Please calm down, I—”
“Oh dear, why do you keep calling me ‘sister’? We don’t share a drop of blood.”
“Sister…”
“Don’t even speak my name again. Don’t ever think of using your connection to me. If you do, I’ll make sure everyone who knows you points fingers and calls you the daughter of an ungrateful thief.”
My icy, razor-sharp words made Berita bite her lip and squeeze her eyes shut. Tears fell onto her dress as she clutched the fabric desperately. I stared down expressionlessly at the tears streaming down her hand.
Not a shred of pity stirred within me.
Because in the faint, pale glint of her eyes, I clearly saw resentment toward me—and self-pity.
As always, that small mind of hers was probably already scheming how to appease my anger and stay with Devon.
“Don’t think of me as the Etricia from your memories. I’m cold toward those who deceive me.”
Our eyes met for a fleeting moment before Berita hastily looked away. Hmph. I snorted and turned toward the door—but then remembered something.
Ah, right. I slightly lifted my dress, turned my body, and smiled gently at Berita.
“If you ever end up marrying my husband later, do let me know.”
I wiped all traces of amusement from my face and said coldly,
“Because then I’ll hire an assassin to murder Devon and turn you into a widow.”
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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Chapter Comments (1)
Inline Comments (41)
No one knew where he came from or how he’d arrived; nothing about his origins or
My feeling is that he is the second laed. Exaggeration in its description and ambiguity in who it is. He is definitely the second laed.
Fragile child? Edmund’s thick eyebrow twitched.
Haha! Edmund says to himself, Where is the fragile child! She is evil, not fragile.
"Don’t grow too attached. She’s someone who will leave."
Remember what you said, Edmund. In the future you will crawl after Etricia.
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oh man girl, using your self as bait never goes well! just kiss the man instead