“Salode!”
As soon as he entered the castle, Idren called out the name of the financial advisor.
The inside of the castle was quite noisy. Perhaps because defense had been taking place until just a moment ago, armed guards filled the corridors, moving busily.
The head servant who had been overseeing the situation spotted him and hurriedly approached.
“Your Majesty!”
Lisana. Idren, who had called the man’s name, asked him:
“What happened to Ophelia?”
To the naked eye, there was clearly no problem. Since he had been watching only her from before taking off his helmet, Idren could be certain that nothing had happened to Ophelia. At least, if it wasn’t something that happened on her back side that he couldn’t see.
The reason he revealed his face was purely because Ophelia didn’t seem to notice him. In fact, his wife’s blue eyes seemed to widen when he took off his helmet. Though he couldn’t be sure before properly assessing, as her body crumbled.
Seeing Salode standing beside her supporting her, Idren tried to enter the castle as quickly as possible, but it took longer than expected to make his way through. It was one of the most anxious moments of his life.
Lisana, who had received a towel and basin from a servant nearby, held them out. Handing over his sword, still dripping with blood and flesh, to the servant, Idren wiped his face. His reflection in the water was a mess.
As he cleaned his face, Lisana said:
“The Queen is in the bedroom.”
“Is she injured somewhere?”
“There are no external wounds. The doctor said she fainted from shock.”
“Shock? From what?”
As he questioned, Idren realized that Ophelia would not be accustomed to the scene that had unfolded outside the castle. Where he had been standing was not a pretty sight.
“…Was it too gruesome.”
Even knights often fainted or vomited when witnessing their first kill. Unless it was ordered assassination, Ophelia would not have had many occasions to see blood directly.
Thinking he should ask Salode for more details, Idren put down the dirty towel.
“I need to wash up first.”
He couldn’t meet Ophelia looking like this.
After wiping off what was on his body and changing clothes, he entered the bedroom where Ophelia lay sleeping.
Despite being told there were no external injuries, Idren checked to see if she had any wounds. He carefully examined her exposed skin. A faint white mark on one palm caught his eye.
Idren frowned at the subtle but definite scar. A burn? He gently set down the hand he had been holding. In any case, the fact that it had scarred meant the wound had healed quite some time ago. So it wasn’t something to worry about right now.
Shifting his gaze back to the woman’s face, he murmured:
“She’s lost weight.”
It wasn’t just that she had lost weight. Her makeup was heavier than usual, and she was wearing red, a color she didn’t often wear.
As if she had forcibly tried to add vitality.
He asked the servant who was tidying her bedding beside her:
“Did something happen to the Queen?”
The woman rolled her eyes for a moment before answering in a small voice:
“She hasn’t been sleeping comfortably at night.”
“She couldn’t sleep? Why?”
“I don’t know that much. At night, she always dismisses everyone around her…”
Watching the servant bow her head and retreat, Idren wondered if Ophelia had been suffering from insomnia.
But the face he had observed several times while sharing the bedroom had always seemed peaceful. Looking at that doll-like, quiet face, hadn’t he thought she might not even dream?
Wondering if it had been different in her previous life, he tried to recall, but nothing came to mind. Back then, he had been a fool who didn’t know how to open people’s hearts.
Idren sighed and rubbed his face. He thought he should meet with Salode first.
[This is the timeline separator]When she opened her eyes again, what she saw was the familiar ceiling. Ophelia blinked. She remembered last locking eyes with Idren, but couldn’t recall anything after that.
It was then that she heard the familiar voice.
“Are you awake?”
Ophelia turned her head towards the sound. Idren, who had risen from the chair beside the bed, was approaching.
As she tried to sit up, he helped her and placed a pillow behind her back.
“You gave us quite a scare when you suddenly collapsed.”
They say there’s nothing wrong with your body, but it might be good to have another examination later, just in case. He added, sitting naturally on the bed.
“Has this happened before?”
Receiving the water glass he handed her, Ophelia shook her head. She couldn’t say she had been perfectly healthy, but she hadn’t been weak enough to faint either.
Blinking to chase away the sleepiness, she said:
“I think it’s because I couldn’t sleep.”
Her lips, reciting the same reason she had heard, seemed dry despite still having color. Idren reached his arm behind the woman who felt distant despite clearly being close.
Carefully embracing shoulders thinner than he remembered, he was about to ask what had disturbed her nights. But Ophelia spoke first.
“Starlet is dead.”
It was a fact he had already known.
Though it wasn’t what he had wanted to hear from her, Idren didn’t interrupt. What Ophelia wanted to say took precedence over what he wanted to hear.
She continued speaking in a halting voice:
“Reden has fallen. Many refugees were created, so I told Anika to take care of them. Regardless of my personal feelings, they had the Tears of Mevasa. But,”
And Ophelia paused to catch her breath.
“Anika is dead too.”
That too was a fact he had been informed of while she was asleep, but instead of correcting her, Idren slowly stroked her trembling shoulders.
Ophelia still seemed very tired. He glanced at the medicine the doctor had left on the bedside table. He had been told to give it to her if she seemed to need calming.
He whispered to reassure the shaking woman:
“I’ve already been informed of everything by others.”
“No, this isn’t the end. Gilrod Nebel also,”
He also knew that the head of the Nebel family had died. Idren said to the woman who kept trying to inform him of things:
“It’s alright. I know everything.”
Don’t worry and rest a little more. And the man took the water glass from her hand. After placing the empty glass on the bedside table, he turned towards her.
Ophelia looked at the man who faced her as if embracing her, gently rubbing her forehead. The faint scar on his cheek caught her eye. Seeing something unfamiliar, it must have been acquired while he was in the mountains.
Ophelia tried to tell him how much she had ruined the situation beyond that. But before she could say anything, Idren held out a cup.
It was clearly different from the water glass she had received earlier. Ophelia silently accepted and drank the colorless liquid with a faint fragrance. She thought it must be medicine, since Idren wouldn’t give her anything harmful.
Her eyes slowly closed, perhaps because it contained a sleeping drug. Idren, who had taken the empty cup back, stroked her forehead soothingly.
When she opened her eyes again, the day had already changed.
Perhaps due to the effects of the medicine, she didn’t even dream. Ophelia blinked blankly. Her head felt heavy.
The attendant waiting by her side hurriedly approached.
“Are you awake?”
Instead of answering her, Ophelia looked around. As if reading her mind, the attendant said:
“His Majesty seems to be very busy with work.”
He had much to sort out, so that made sense. Ophelia nodded readily. The woman looked at her with a somewhat pitying expression for a moment before asking:
“Would you like to start with a meal?”
After the meal, she washed and changed clothes. As she performed these basic acts to maintain a decent appearance, her mind gradually cleared.
While preparing to go outside the bedroom, Ophelia asked the attendant various questions. The woman did her best to answer within her knowledge while making her look presentable.
She said that the royal army had brought Prince Brinwell’s head as proof of victory, and Siana and Hazel had returned to the castle. In Siana’s case, though she should have been guarding Nebel’s castle as originally planned, she had come to the castle for personal protection due to the special circumstances.
Since Siana was in the castle, Ophelia needed to meet with her once, so she rose from her seat without further delay. She planned to move to the reception room first and call for her.
However, Hazel, who was guarding the door, showed reluctance when she appeared.
“The King said he would prefer if you stayed in the bedroom as much as possible.”
Ophelia frowned at the inexplicable words.
“Why?”
The answer came not from the knight’s mouth, but from behind.
“Because there’s nothing good for you to see, I said.”
Hazel bowed his head towards the direction the voice came from. Ophelia turned around. Idren was walking towards her.
Taking just a few steps to get close enough, he gently took her hand. I said I would take care of everything, but it’s not quite finished yet.
“It won’t be too late to come out when everything is done. Go back in and rest.”
Ophelia looked up at the man who would hand her over to the knight if she just agreed. He was clearly wearing a docile expression, but the overall atmosphere was strangely sharp.
Perhaps it was because of the odd fishy smell in the air. Ophelia recalled what she had learned by asking questions while being attended to.
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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