Marriage with the Younger Brother of the Man Who Betrayed Me (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 2
Though I felt sorry for the Captain, I could sense my lifespan was nearly at its end.
I tightly grasped his hand one last time and the necklace hanging around my neck.
The necklace was an heirloom left to me by my late mother.
Didn’t she say it would unleash power in moments of danger?
I was certain I’d heard that, yet now, when my life hung by a thread, it offered no special strength at all.
It merely calmed my mind a little.
“Yulia! Snap out of it! Yulia!”
I’d closed my eyes, accepting my end, but the Captain’s voice kept ringing in my ears.
Without making any effort to cling to my fading consciousness, I simply let it go.
So this is how my life ends.
It was at that very moment I felt a strange power emanating from the necklace clutched tightly in my hand.
[This is the timeline separator]When I opened my eyes again, I was lying inside a tent.
Not the opulent imperial banquet hall from my final moments, but some rough, unfamiliar tent.
My body lay upon a makeshift cot prepared there.
Having lived righteously only to be unjustly poisoned, I’d first assumed I’d reached heaven.
But this scenery clearly wasn’t heaven, no matter how I looked at it.
Still dazed and unable to grasp the situation, I was startled as someone entered the tent.
“Vice Captain! Are you awake?!”
The moment I saw who entered, I rubbed my eyes in disbelief.
Flame-red hair, a freckled, mischievous face…
It was the very face I’d missed so dearly I sometimes saw it even in dreams.
Seeing that face, I smiled faintly and thought to myself:
So I really am in heaven.
Unless this were heaven, there was no way someone killed by a monster three years ago could be walking around perfectly fine.
The fellow who’d just entered the tent—Karl—was undoubtedly my subordinate who’d turned to dust three years prior.
I’d personally buried his body myself when he died, so there was no doubt he was truly gone.
How much I’d wept then, stroking the cold, lifeless face of my fallen comrade.
Thus, his presence here could only mean this was heaven—or some other afterlife.
Feeling my heart ache with joy, I spoke to him.
“I’m glad to see you again. When I buried you in the earth… I thought perhaps we’d never meet again. I’m not ashamed to admit I cried a great deal.”
“…Huh?”
Karl looked bewildered, then suddenly burst into a light, feathery laugh.
“Oh, you must’ve been dreaming! A dream about my death? Even though it was only a dream, I’m honored you wept for me yourself, Vice Captain…”
“Wait—you said… a dream?”
“Yes, you must have been dreaming. I’ve never died. As you can see, I’m perfectly alive. It was you who nearly died, Vice Captain.”
While I stood utterly confused, Karl went on spouting incomprehensible things.
“No one had any idea such a powerful monster was hiding in the Third Rift of Count Harkenstain’s territory!”
At the mention of the Third Rift of Count Harkenstain’s territory, my ears perked up.
“Rifts,” as the name implied, were tears in the fabric of space and time.
Beyond these rifts lay a world entirely different from ours.
Every monster attacking the Empire emerged from these very rifts.
Thus, monsters were alien lifeforms originating from another world, crossing over through rifts into ours.
Therefore, for nearly ten years, the Empire’s specialized anti-monster unit—the Silver Knights—and its Vice Captain, myself, had fought monsters and worked tirelessly to seal these rifts.
Among them, the Third Rift of Count Harkenstain’s territory, which Karl had just mentioned, was one we of the Silver Knights had successfully sealed five years ago.
That was ancient history—why bring it up now?
What on earth was going on?
While I puzzled over it, Karl kept talking.
“If Captain Martin hadn’t rushed into the rift to save you, who knows what might have happened… Still, rest easy. The rift has been safely sealed.”
Though it had happened five years ago, Karl’s words brought the memory vividly back.
At the time, seeing the rift’s small size, we’d rashly assumed only weak monsters lurked inside.
We’d let our guard down.
Thus, I’d entered the rift alone, without bringing any other subordinates—and nearly died inside.
Contrary to the rift’s modest scale, an extremely powerful monster had lain in wait there.
I might have truly died if Captain Martin hadn’t arrived just in time to rescue me.
Afterward, the Captain slew the monster, saved me, and escaped the rift.
In short, Karl—who died three years ago—was now alive and well, speaking of a rift sealed five years ago.
At that moment, a wild hypothesis struck me.
Absurd as it sounded, could I have traveled back in time?
Desperate for confirmation, I asked Karl,
“What year is it now?”
“It’s the 68th year of the Heldenberg Era.”
I’d died from poison in the 73rd year of the Heldenberg Era.
If it was now the 68th year, then I truly was five years in the past from my death.
But how was this possible?
After dying, instead of reaching the afterlife, I’d regressed to the past?
While I reeled in confusion, Karl began saying something even more absurd.
“Oh, and Captain Martin will be here shortly. He’s been terribly worried since you collapsed.”
“The Captain was worried?”
“He may not seem like it, but he holds you in especially high regard, Vice Captain.”
Just as I was about to respond to Karl’s remark, someone else spoke first.
“Hah! Who said I hold her in high regard?”
Captain Martin, who had just entered the tent, retorted sharply to Karl’s words.
Seeing the Captain’s face as he stepped in, I was startled yet again.
He looked far too young compared to the Captain I remembered.
Could it truly be… could it truly be that time had rolled back five years?
I quickly calculated in my head.
If this really was five years ago, the Captain would be twenty-six now.
He was a year older than me, after all.
Twenty-six—of course he’d look young.
Come to think of it, my own body felt strangely light, likely because I’d reverted to my twenty-five-year-old self.
Anyway, the Captain—now five years younger—grumbled at me in a slightly gruff tone.
“Why would I hold Vice Captain Yulia in special regard? I was only worried because your collapse would harm our entire knighthood.”
Hearing the younger Captain’s words, my mind went blank for a moment.
Immediately, the Captain pointed this out.
“Why do you look so dazed? Did the monster in the rift hit you on the head?”
At twenty-six, the Captain was even more curt and cold than the thirty-one-year-old version I knew.
He seemed almost like a different person from the one who’d clutched my dying hand and urged me gently to hold on a little longer.
But then again, at this point, we’d only known each other a short while—he likely felt no fondness for me yet.
I’d joined Captain Martin’s command as Vice Captain at age twenty-four, and before that, we’d operated separately with no real connection.
That meant, by current reckoning, we’d only known each other for a year.
Moreover, at this time, I’d been deeply in love… with Ernant, and thus resented the Captain for threatening his position.
The Captain, knowing I was Ernant’s ally, naturally treated me coldly.
To reassure the Captain, who clearly found me irritating, I said,
“My head’s fine.”
“That’s good. It was already bad enough to send you charging alone into an unverified rift—imagine if it got worse.”
“…”
“This time, your recklessness nearly killed you. You do realize that, right?”
I had no rebuttal.
At twenty-five, I’d been young and foolish enough to enter an unverified rift alone.
“I understand. I’ll be more careful.”
“Tch.”
“And—”
Gathering my trembling heart, I slowly spoke.
“Thank you… for saving me.”
“…”
I meant it sincerely.
Thank you for saving my twenty-five-year-old self—a foolish child who’d nearly died alone in the rift.
Thank you for mourning my thirty-year-old self as I died from the poison given by the man I loved.
Captain Martin truly deserved my gratitude.
Yet for some reason, upon hearing my thanks, the Captain merely stared at me blankly, as if seeing something utterly strange.
Then, after a moment, he strode over with his long legs and gently cupped my face in his large, warm hand.
Male lead is reincarnated to save his wife
I’ve also read this one twice already. The female lead is kinda soft and gets embarrassed easily—not really my type, but the plot is definitely worth reading. Hurry up and read it, y’all!
Intro
When Shen Yuan encountered Su Jin again in his previous life, she had already become the Prime Minister of the current dynasty. As for him, the former top young master of the capital, he had long since fallen into the abyss, becoming a singer on a pleasure boat.
After a song ended, he was redeemed and sent to the Su Residence.
Su Jin respected and cherished him, gave him a roof over his head, and bestowed him with warmth. Shen Yuan fell deeper and deeper, but before he could express his feelings, Su Jin passed away.
Shen Yuan died to follow her in death, but instead, he returned to when he was fifteen years old.
At that time, he was not yet engaged, and Su Jin was just a poor scholar.
Shen Yuan gritted his teeth, casting aside all his pride, and thought of ways to coax and entice her every day.
The colder and more indifferent Su Jin was towards him, the more proactive Shen Yuan became.
He was not afraid of being mocked by the world, only wanting to marry his Wife-master early, to hold her hand and never let go for a lifetime.
[Note: This story will not specifically point out the male lead’s reincarnation time point; it’s all in the details. Whenever you feel that the male lead is acting strangely, he has most likely been reincarnated.]
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Yulia is exceptionally intelligent and always finds creative solutions to difficult problems.
Took you so long!! I suspected him when he sneek up on you at the river and finally confirmed my suspicion of him since the Ball!!