Love Me Just Once (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 7
At first, no answer came at all.
Idren knocked a little harder on the door. Unable to hide his impatience, he called out her name.
“Ophelia?”
She was, after all, the very person who had jumped from the balcony yesterday. On top of that, she had even chased away all her attendants outside the room, leaving him no choice but to worry.
Idren anxiously twitched his fingers. Just then, a small voice came from behind the door.
“…Come in.”
The subdued voice was hoarse from disuse. Perhaps having heard it too, the lady-in-waiting—whom Ophelia had supposedly banished from the room—opened the door for him. Idren stepped into the princess’s dimly lit bedroom. Despite it being bright morning, Ophelia’s chamber remained oddly shadowed.
When the door closed behind him, Idren finally understood why. Wooden planks had been nailed firmly over the balcony where sunlight should have streamed in.
Idren halted at the sight of two large, crudely crossed boards—a violently obvious intent.
It was her voice that snapped him back to reality.
“Why did you come?”
Only then did Idren regain his senses and turn toward where her voice had come from. Ophelia sat on the bed, dressed more plainly than yesterday.
She gestured toward the chair beside the bed with a tilt of her head. As he obeyed and sat down, Idren realized her manner was oddly brusque. Ophelia had never pointed at something like that before.
That wasn’t the only unfamiliar thing. Her plain clothing without any usual adornments, her tired and slouched posture—everything about her was entirely new to him.
The Ophelia he knew always held herself with perfect posture. Wearing the most expensive items available was simply a given.
Whenever she looked down at something with that cold expression, Idren had sometimes wondered if she might have been born amidst frost and northern winds.
She had been a person without a single flaw.
Yet here, in this shadowed room, Ophelia looked more fragile than ever.
It was then that her dark blue eyes looked up at him.
“I asked why you came?”
Her question, ending with a lifted tone, now carried sharpness. Realizing belatedly that he hadn’t answered her question, Idren finally spoke.
“Yesterday…”
“If it’s about that, forget it.”
Ophelia cut him off before he could finish. Though her tone sounded irritated, a closer listen would reveal it was merely dismissive.
Though he’d come specifically to admit his wrongdoing, the realization that she considered even hearing his apology a waste—because she hadn’t held onto yesterday’s incident at all—made something swell painfully in his chest. Idren frowned.
Strictly speaking, the reproaches he’d hurled at her yesterday had been justified.
Yet her indifference stung.
But before he could say anything about it, Ophelia spoke first.
“Do you know why this happened?”
Though her sentence lacked a proper subject, Idren instantly grasped her meaning.
‘This’ surely referred to their regression into the past.
By now, Idren fully accepted that all of this was real. The racing heartbeat he’d felt on the day Ophelia fell from the balcony had made that truth undeniable.
But if asked why this had happened to them specifically, he had no answer either. Idren shook his head. Ophelia let out a deep sigh.
“…I see.”
Then, she swept both hands down her face. Idren watched her bare, expressionless visage and the impatient motion of her fingers. Seeing her reveal emotion so openly felt so unfamiliar he couldn’t look away.
Ophelia had never shown him feelings like this before.
Suddenly, he wondered if she might finally give him the answers to his questions now. Idren opened his mouth slightly.
But once again, Ophelia spoke faster.
“If you’ve nothing else to say, could you leave? I’m tired.”
[This is the timeline separator]The moment Idren stepped out of the room, he met Penrel waiting outside. The knight walked alongside him down the corridor, and once they were alone, he spoke up.
“Your Highness, may I ask you something?”
Idren nodded. Yet even with permission granted, Penrel asked cautiously, watching his expression.
“Will you proceed with the marriage as planned?”
At those words, Idren stopped in the hallway.
So much had happened that he’d briefly forgotten—he and Ophelia hadn’t married yet.
“Of course…”
He’d meant to say, “Of course I will.”
But her words from yesterday caught him by the ankle.
“You yourself sent the marriage proposal to my father, not to me—so how could you possibly expect me to refuse?”
Hearing that, Idren realized what he’d missed.
He should have asked Ophelia’s opinion first if he truly intended to propose.
Of course, affection rarely factored into royal marriages. The weightier the name, the more people valued conditions over feelings.
That was why noble households varied so widely.
Some couples lived in such close harmony it was hard to believe their union had been arranged, while others couldn’t even keep their own spouses faithful and brought forth evidence of infidelity.
Knowing this, Idren had never expected much from Ophelia after their marriage. He had believed that if he demanded nothing from her, she’d eventually turn toward him.
But what if the very first button had been fastened wrong from the start?
Noticing his hesitation, Penrel added,
“This may be presumptuous of me, Your Highness, but Princess Reden seems different from the person you know.”
At those words, Idren understood why Penrel had brought up the marriage.
At this point in time, he had been genuinely excited about marrying her, having remembered Princess Reden as honest and kind.
But Penrel had worried that he was marrying someone he didn’t truly know.
Though Reden boasted a long history and possessed one of the Three Sacred Treasures, it wasn’t an ideal country for a marriage alliance. Rumors of King Reden’s excessive extravagance often crossed borders.
Knowing Penrel opposed the marriage solely out of concern for him, Idren had reassured his knight by sharing what he knew of Ophelia.
After hearing Idren’s rather rose-tinted memories of her character—tinted by personal affection—Penrel had accepted the engagement. He reasoned that even if it meant sacrificing political advantage, marriage to such a person wouldn’t lead to an unhappy life.
Thus, when their married life later turned out differently than expected, Penrel had been the one most troubled by it.
“…I should have opposed it more strongly back then.”
On a certain night during the war, Penrel, deep in his cups, had once said those words.
“Had I done so, Your Highness might at least have someone you could rely on, even if you couldn’t love her.”
Idren hadn’t been able to argue against that.
Yet he couldn’t say he regretted marrying Ophelia either. Without her, he would never have ascended the throne in the first place.
But this time, at least, he didn’t need to worry about disappointing Penrel.
Because he already knew how cold and indifferent Ophelia truly was.
Idren answered the knight, whose eyes were filled with concern.
“I already know what kind of person she is.”
The knight looked at him with doubt, as if questioning whether he truly understood, but said nothing more.
Just as they turned the corner—
“Grand Duke.”
Hearing that voice again—already familiar from this morning—Idren furrowed his brow.
“Prince Mahanas.”
A man with teal-colored eyes and chestnut hair stood before him.
Though his overall coloring resembled Ophelia’s, the saturation and brightness were distinctly different. The prince lifted the corners of his mouth in a smile.
Idren felt revulsion at that friendly expression. Given what he knew of Ophelia’s relationship with her family, this was only natural.
Instead of mirroring the smile, Idren hardened his expression and spoke.
“I noticed the balcony of the princess’s room has been boarded up. It looked so unsightly it was unpleasant to see.”
The prince seemed slightly taken aback by his hostility but quickly countered with a smooth excuse.
“As you know, Grand Duke, after the dangerous act she committed yesterday, we hastily blocked it off out of worry.”
“Even so, leaving the room in such a state might drive even a sane person to attempt something dangerous, wouldn’t it?”
If they truly needed to seal the balcony, there were many better methods—installing new hinges or changing the latch so the door could only be opened from outside. Both considering Ophelia’s status and aesthetics, far superior solutions existed.
Choosing such a crude method instead surely aimed to instill a sense of threat in someone.
Though that someone likely wasn’t him, the very fact made Idren all the more irritated.
In his presence, both the King and Prince of Reden had pretended to cherish Ophelia. King Reden’s five-page letter brimming with affection for his daughter still sat in Idren’s desk drawer.
Granted, the latter half of that letter had insisted that since he loved his daughter so dearly, no ordinary bride-price would suffice—but Idren hadn’t doubted those words. The Ophelia he knew had been worthy of love.
But now Idren understood. Ophelia did not get along with her family.
Without exchanging greetings, Idren brushed past the prince and called out to his knight.
“Penrel.”
Seeing his lord’s sharpened tone toward the prince, the knight tensed as he replied.
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“The wedding will proceed as scheduled.”
No matter how their circumstances had changed, Ophelia would marry him.
Because she needed this marriage.
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.
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Cowardice? Bitch you barely even look at him or speak to him 😦😡
Finally! Put her in her place!!! She should treat you better 😡😡😡
That caught him by surprise 😭🥺🤣 that he almost choked