The moment Adelheit felt the heat emanating from the man’s eyes as he gazed at her, her body trembled as if gripped by chills, despite not feeling cold.
If a monster was something that mesmerized someone into losing their senses, then her husband truly fit the description. Once his gaze captured her, it was impossible to look away.
The heat seemed to transfer to her, tightening her insides. A strange desire originating from her body made her skin crawl.
‘Why, why is this happening…’
As she struggled with the fear that something was about to begin, her gown, draped over her shoulders, slid off. It was unbelievable to her that she was in front of another person, even her husband, wearing nothing but a thin layer of clothing. Overwhelmed with unbearable shame, Adelheit’s face flushed red.
If her hands were free, she would have covered her face. But both her wrists were already captured by him.
“Don’t look at me like that…”
She pleaded, squeezing her eyes shut. Her voice sounded pitiful even to her own ears. Valentin coaxed her in a low voice.
“I want to keep looking. All of you…”
His words were unbelievable. Did he really want to see her shivering like this? Why? What could there be to see in such a wretched woman like her…
“But, you’re… my wife.”
He whispered seductively close to her ear, kissing her earlobe lightly, causing Adelheit to gasp and open her eyes in surprise.
As their gazes met, he immediately narrowed his eyes, smiling as if he had anticipated her reaction. He kissed the bridge of her cute nose.
“So, beautiful… very much.”
“Uh…”
“Always… dreamed of this.”
If he were a monster, he wouldn’t look at her with such longing and painful eyes. Monsters couldn’t enter paradise or feel emotions.
“My Adelheit.”
Why did it feel so poignant every time he called her name? Tears blurred her vision, making her thoughts sluggish.
“Ah…”
As Valentin applied more pressure on their interlocked hands, Adelheit’s delicate fingers stretched to their limit. The moment she parted her lips, he tilted his head and captured her lower lip. Her entire being focused on that thin skin.
It felt like holding a moist flame. Gently exploring, his sharp canine grazed her lower lip. Their startled breaths mingled. Her slender jaw trembled.
‘I need to regain my senses…’
Lost in her dazed thoughts, Valentin’s body over her suddenly stiffened.
“…Ah, uh.”
His groan sounded almost like a scream. In a moment, an unbearable pain seemed to torture and pass through him. Valentin buried his face in Adelheit’s neck, gasping for breath.
His back, curved like a slender bow, trembled like a bare winter tree.
The grip of Valentin’s large hand, which had been firmly pressing down on her hand, slowly weakened. As his upper body collapsed, Adelheit instinctively embraced his back.
His breath on her cheek and neck was shockingly faint.
“Your Highness?”
“Don’t, come closer…”
Worried he might crush her with his robust frame, Valentin mustered his remaining strength to push her away. His arms gave way, and he collapsed onto the bed, forehead first, seemingly unconscious.
Adelheit scrambled over to him, placing her hand on his sweat-beaded forehead. It was burning like an ember.
“Good heavens…”
Struggling as if trying to hold on, his limbs twitched a few times before finally going limp. His pale face was completely devoid of life.
In a panic, Adelheit placed the back of her hand near his nose. Thankfully, she could feel his faint breath.
She hastily pulled the sheets over Valentin’s body to cover him.
‘His body is cold, but his forehead is burning… Why is this happening all of a sudden?’
She quickly realized the reason, as if someone whispered the answer in her ear.
‘Earlier, the maid applied holy oil to my lips. Just applying it to the body is fatal for a monster, and he ingested it directly. Oh, how could I have forgotten that?’
Adelheit wrung her hands anxiously. She knew this was the moment to confirm everything. According to the original plan, she should have stabbed Valentin by now.
But how could she commit such a terrible act on a patient burning with fever? Adelheit bit her nails in distress.
‘What if something really goes wrong…’
She was overwhelmed with fear. The revulsion at the thought of wielding a blade against a sick person was strong, but the fear that she might be wrongly accusing a healthy person of being a monster was even greater.
What if his loss of consciousness was merely a coincidence, not due to the holy oil?
‘…He will never forgive me.’
She gazed at the unconscious Valentin’s profile. The thought that a fearsome monster could be lurking within his handsome body should have been terrifying, but it wasn’t easy to think so conclusively. She saw deep loneliness in Valentin, who craved her affection.
‘It’s strange. If he really was a monster, he shouldn’t have emotions.’
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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