In the reception room, where she was looking into her notebook, Serena casually acknowledged the servant’s notice that the guest had arrived.
“Yes.”
“Shall I bring them here now?”
“Yes.”
Because of that, as soon as Lucas entered the reception room, he could see Serena, her hair tied high in one place and dressed in modest clothing, frowning in displeasure as she read her notebook.
Even with a pen stuck in her ear, and her finger wetted with saliva to turn the pages.
“Still so rude.”
At Lucas’s low voice, Serena’s movements abruptly stopped. She then put down her notebook, slowly raised her head, and looked at her guest.
The height, as famous as the robust Farell Duke on the continent, and the broad shoulders couldn’t be hidden by the shabby hood.
“I have no reason to hear such words from a suspicious guest.”
Serena stood up and glared at the hooded man. It was the first time she had seen a man noticeably taller than herself since the Farell Duke.
“Especially from someone who hides something.”
Her blue eyes looked sharply up at Lucas. Lucas was merely so touched by the fact that he momentarily lost his words. The goal he had been running towards for six years had now been achieved.
“You think I’m hiding something?”
The low voice that had been familiar since earlier kept echoing in his ears.
“Isn’t it something you’ve forgotten?”
From the shadow of the hood, the corner of the man’s mouth twisted.
Though he was surely a stranger, the unique low voice ransacked her mind, and instantly, Serena recalled her engagement ceremony six years prior.
“Could it be…?”
Contrary to her denial, Serena’s blue eyes trembled slightly.
Just then, as the clouds in the sky opened, sunlight poured through the window, illuminating every moment vividly.
“No. It can’t be…”
The Crown Prince had forgotten Serena.
There hadn’t been a single letter in the past six years, and he had failed to fulfill his betrothal even when the fiancée had turned twentyfour in the empire. This naturally meant a cancellation of the engagement.
“Why, is it because I have grown taller than you?”
Lucas, suddenly removing his hood, revealed a face just as Serena remembered. The sharp eyes that were even piercing when he was much smaller were the same, and so was the mischievously twisted mouth.
But the six years had brought changes too. The figure that had grown much taller than Serena, the robust shoulders, and above all, the moving Adam’s apple as he looked down at her and spoke, all gave off a manly scent.
“I still remember what you said at the engagement ceremony.”
His scornful eyes freely looked down at Serena.
“You said something about disliking shorter men, didn’t you? Why, would you say that again now?”
“Who said that they dislike taller women first? I was only responding.”
Of course, it was true that Serena, who had been angry at the time, had looked down on her fiancé, who looked like a child, and had rather ignored him. But it was her fiancé who had started the fight in the first place.
“Ha, yes. We both remember that day quite well.”
“Yes. It was a mutually unpleasant day.”
As Serena spoke coldly and stepped back, Lucas completely removed his shabby hood and threw it aside. His broad shoulders and chest, clad in a white shirt, then became more clearly visible.
Even if six years was a long time, who would have expected that the Crown Prince, who had been much smaller than his peers at fourteen, would return like this?
“Today?”
Lucas took a step forward, narrowing the distance between them again.
“Is today an unpleasant day as well?”
He had clearly grown, which was more than apparent. But Serena could not understand why he had snuck in as a wandering knight to stand before her.
“You meet your fiancé again and have no greeting?”
Surely, Lucas was the rude one.
However, Serena wasn’t foolish enough to simply get angry. Even in the past, when he had been nothing more than a sharpeyed little fiancé, he was the Crown Prince of the empire. Moreover, now she had many things to protect.
“I apologize.”
Serena, sharply and coolly cut off, stepped back two paces.
Then she lifted the hem of her dress and formally curtsied, as if the relationship between the two was no different from that of strangers.
“The acting Duke of Astel greets His Highness, the Crown Prince.”
“Is that… all?”
Serena, who bowed her head slightly, did not see Lucas’s wavering eyes. From the beginning, she knew nothing of his feelings.
“I apologize for my previous rudeness.”
Serena, who had curtsied, stood up straight and looked at Lucas. Her jewellike blue eyes were still beautiful, but this was not the reunion he had imagined through countless nights.
“You haven’t forgotten our engagement, have you? Haven’t you been waiting for me?”
Lucas asked, inadvertently furrowing his thick eyebrows. It wasn’t just him that had changed over six years. Serena’s height felt almost the same as before, but now Lucas’s eye level had changed.
“I don’t recall making such a promise.”
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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