Soon, the sound of crying erupted.
“Sniff, I-I’m not a fool…! Ah, Alan, you, sni-sniff, stepped on my drawing first…!”
“Did I do it on purpose?! I already said sorry! But you kept bothering me, so what can I do!”
Bonita, who was lost in contemplation amid the commotion, turned around in surprise.
There, Alan, with a flushed face, was confronting a girl whose face was entirely covered in tears.
Derek, who was nearby, awkwardly tried to intervene.
“Wait, Alan. It’s true that you stepped on Maya’s drawing. Just apologize and say sorry…”
“I already said I’m sorry! She’s the one being stubborn!”
“Sniff…!”
The girl could no longer speak and began to cry sorrowfully. In her hands, the torn drawing, crushed by a wooden clog, revealed its half.
“Fine. That’s why I didn’t like these gatherings, like a social club from the start. The gingerbread house was a gift from our mom and dad, so why do we have to share it with them?”
“Ugh.”
Derek made a puzzled expression.
Alan, among the three Hiassens brothers, had particularly intense emotional swings. He was lively when things were going well, but if something went wrong, he could become agitated and stubborn. He was sensitive, which could be considered a virtue or a flaw, depending on the perspective.
The girl called Maya showed no signs of stopping her tears. Alan, with a stern look in his eyes, turned his head away.
With the standoff lasting longer than expected, the other children who were playing started to glance around.
“Why are they fighting…”
Derek felt a pang of misfortune as tears filled the eyes of three-year-old Lenn, who was sitting next to him.
Children tend to strongly resonate with emotions, especially when they are younger.
If Maya continued to cry like that, the inside of the cookie house would undoubtedly turn into a sea of tears. If that happened, when their mother, who arrived later, called Derek with a stern expression, it would be troublesome.
“Ugh, this is why kids are like this!”
Ten-year-old Derek scratched his soft brown hair, feeling helpless about what to do.
Unexpectedly, the one who rescued Derek was an entirely unexpected person.
“What’s going on?”
“Sob, sniff… Hello.”
Bonita approached the crying girl who was sitting on the floor, wiping away her tears.
Maya, who had been crying with frustration over her drawing being torn apart after an hour of hard work, became curious about the pretty girl she saw for the first time and looked up with teary eyes.
Bonita asked, “What’s your name?”
“I, I am…”
Bonita patiently waited until the girl opened her mouth.
Waiting was something Bonita excelled at.
After all, Aria always returned late without saying anything.
“I’m, I’m Maya Loviniere.”
Bonita’s patience seemed to pay off, as the girl who had been nervously fidgeting with her shoulders soon timidly revealed her name.
It was a voice that seemed to have cracked due to crying for quite a while.
Maya looked at Bonita with reddened eyes. The girl, who had been hesitating, asked with a hint of uncertainty, “……And you?”
“I’m Bonita.”
At that moment, Alan, who had his fists clenched, subtly glanced in their direction.
Ever since Bonita intervened, he had been curious about what this little Rissian noble girl might do. However, due to his prideful demeanor, Alan deliberately turned his head, indicating that he still had no interest.
“Maya, why were you crying?”
“W-Well…”
In response to Bonita’s calm question, tears began to well up again in Maya’s eyes. It was because she had remembered the forgotten incident due to curiosity.
Before Maya could burst into tears again, Bonita quickly asked, “Was it because your drawing got torn?”
Maya, holding the torn paper, nodded. Bonita examined the torn drawing.
It was a tall castle that seemed to be where a princess lived.
Although it was at best the skill of a seven-year-old, it showed effort. Since it was fully colored, it probably took at least an hour to draw.
A good idea popped into Bonita’s head as she observed it.
“Maya, do you like drawing things other than castles?”
“Different things? Like what?”
“Well, things like mountains, streets, or people. Stuff like that.”
After a moment of contemplation, Maya nodded her head again. Unlike when she was crying earlier, Maya, who had now become quiet, looked angelic.
Bonita picked up a stack of drawing papers placed next to Maya. There were pencils, watercolors, and various colored crayons prepared for the children to draw and play.
Bonita took a pencil and leaned down.
By this point, Maya had figured out what this unfamiliar girl was trying to do. She was going to draw.
Maya expressed disappointment, saying, “I don’t want to draw it again…”
But as Bonita started sketching lines on the paper, Maya’s disappointed face turned into astonishment and admiration.
“Wow…!”
The world unfolding from Bonita’s small hands was marvelous.
What seemed like simple lines soon transformed into an aged and worn road with traces of human activity.
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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