My Husband Has Changed (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 5
“Have you heard the news?”
At the scullery maid’s breathless voice, Greta barely lifted her head from the washing tub. With mourners flooding in, they needed three or four times the usual number of dishes. Every maid in the castle was stuck in the kitchen, cooking food and carrying plates.
One of the women scrubbing dishes raised her face, exhausted.
“What happened?”
“H-His Highness….”
“Her Highness? What about her?”
“No, no….”
The maid panted, struggling to move her lips. Her face had gone deathly pale, and she waved both hands frantically. Someone handed her a cup of water at the sight of her distress. She managed to swallow a few sips, yet remained so agitated she couldn’t calm down for a long while.
“What’s wrong with her? She looks like she’s seen a ghost.”
“Well… that, that thing….”
“What? A ghost?”
At someone’s question, the maid nodded vigorously. Her lips trembled, and she kept glancing around wildly—it was truly like watching a madwoman. Several servants who had been watching with arms crossed exchanged glances among themselves.
She must have gone mad. Let’s drag her out.
Just as they took a step toward the maid, the door slammed open once more.
“I s-saw it! I saw it with my own eyes!”
A burst of warm steam rushed out as cold outside air surged in. The maids hunched over the washing tubs wore expressions of irritation. They were already overwhelmed—now not one, but two people had to come in spouting nonsense.
Someone asked flatly, without expectation or concern, as if merely bored.
“What did you see?”
“The… the Grand Duke….”
“Our Grand Duke? Why mention someone who’s passed away?”
But the woman had referred not to the Grand Duchess, but to the Grand Duke himself. The air in the room stirred faintly.
Amidst the commotion, Greta alone remained composed. Without showing surprise, she neatly stacked the dishes she’d just finished washing.
The northerners had caused such uproars more than once before….
Their fierce loyalty to Ansgar was no longer surprising. After all, they firmly believed that even whispering a trivial joke about the family seal behind someone’s back was sacrilege.
“…Did I hear you right?”
Despite Greta’s indifference, the story kept moving forward. Contrary to their dramatic entrance, the women had been whispering quietly among themselves—but at some point, their voices suddenly grew loud.
“What? Is that really true?”
“You’re freezing to death already. Where did you even see such nonsense? Hey, did you smoke mallet leaves or something?”
“No, please believe me! I saw it clearly with my own eyes!”
“Yes… that’s exactly what I heard too….”
“You don’t really mean… a corpse that’s been lying still for over ten days….”
“If you find it so hard to believe, go see for yourself right now.”
“If it were that simple….”
The second maid, frustrated, began pounding her chest with her fists. Unable to contain her indignation, her voice rose sharply, as if splitting iron in half.
Just as Greta awkwardly gathered the dishes and took a step forward, the maid’s voice erupted, striking her ears like a slap.
“The Grand Duke has come back to life!”
Who? What? What did she say…? The dishes slipped from Greta’s hands and crashed loudly to the floor, shattering noisily in all directions. Startled by this sudden turn, people grumbled irritably as they stepped around the shards.
Amid the chaos, Greta immediately grabbed the shoulder of the woman who had shouted.
“What… what exactly do you mean by that…?”
“What?”
The maid frowned as soon as she realized the hand gripping her shoulder belonged to the Grand Duchess’s nursemaid. Normally, that alone would’ve been enough—but Greta’s expression now was deeply unsettling.
“The Grand Duke… right now… did I hear wrong? Come back to life?”
“Why are you suddenly speaking informally…? Honestly, how many times must I say it? He really has come back to life!”
“…”
“If you don’t believe me, go to the audience chamber yourself and see….”
Before the woman could finish, Greta, pale as a sheet, flung open the kitchen door and dashed out. Through the open doorway, a few maids shoved aside by Greta’s stout frame let out irritated groans, glaring after her.
Left abruptly without an audience, the maid shrugged at another kitchen servant.
“What’s gotten into her all of a sudden?”
[This is the timeline separator]“Adelheid.”
The hand clutching the edge of the coffin was still deathly pale. Adel slowly lifted her frozen eyes. When faced with the inexplicable, people usually panicked and fled. But she had just learned that when something was too unfathomable, the body simply froze instead.
‘It’ made a sound.
“Ahh… ugh….”
Unlike the clear voice that had just called her name moments ago, this sound was clumsy and indistinct. Adel looked at ‘its’ face—stiff, frost-laden eyelashes; twitching cheeks; blackened lips. No matter where she looked, she sensed no trace of life.
It was, after all, the very body that had lain in the coffin until just now. Beneath the pallid skin, dark blue veins still stood out prominently—on the forehead, the nape, the elbows, the backs of the hands… everywhere her eyes fell. It was a visage utterly impossible to believe still breathed.
“Ugh… hnn…”
Wide golden eyes fixed intently on Adel. It was hard to tell whether it was Valentin or something else that trembled so violently. The hands resting on his knees shook uncontrollably. She clutched her skirts tightly, crumpling the fabric.
At that moment, Valentin fully emerged from the coffin and stood upright on his own power.
“AAAAH!”
“M-Morrig, my lord…!”
The overwhelming silence that had gripped everyone vanished instantly. Immediately after, pandemonium broke loose. Priests scrambled to call upon their gods, maids shrieked, and a few even kicked open the door and fled—a blatant act of sacrilege.
In the faces of the knights standing guard beside the coffin, Adel saw her own reflection.
Shock. Confusion. Fear. Instinctive revulsion and loathing….
“Adel…”
He called her name. As if that alone were the only truth in the world, as if nothing else mattered… his gaze, fixed solely on her amidst the chaos, was thoroughly drenched in something profound.
Cold fingers then seized her wrist—not the warmth of human skin. Adel’s jaw trembled.
“Hnn…”
The moment she began to sob, he pulled her into his arms. His arms, his rounded shoulders, her slender waist… he drew her close slowly, as if tenderly embracing something precious.
His chill body gradually warmed to her own.
“Adel.”
Despite the burning intensity in his eyes, his face remained utterly blank—as if he couldn’t even see Adel’s terror-stricken expression, as if her tears meant nothing he could change.
‘Or perhaps… rigor mortis still holds him, leaving him unable to form any expression at all…’
A chilling dread crept up the back of her neck at the sudden thought, like a honed blade pressed against her skin—leaving a faint cut before vanishing. He pressed his forehead against her neck.
“Adel.”
Strangely, his voice calling her name sounded almost plaintive. It was impossible to believe this was reality. Was she going mad? Or had she been dreaming this whole time?
The feverish breath escaping Valentin’s lips spread across Adel’s neck—a body that until just moments ago couldn’t even breathe, let alone speak.
His entire being clinging to her felt not like a husband, but like something rigid and icy—a corpse. It was a moment of sheer, horrifying dread.
[This is the timeline separator]Adel anxiously watched the healer examining her husband. The healer, who had happened to be staying in Ansgar, looked terribly exhausted—he’d been pulled from sleep and dragged here.
“How is he?”
At Adel’s impatient question, the healer slowly straightened his bent back and turned to face her.
“Astonishingly, every part of his body is functioning normally—his breath, pupil response, blood flow, even his heartbeat. You said his heart had stopped for over fifteen days?”
Adel nodded faintly. The healer let out a brief sigh of amazement.
“Morrig must have intervened. I’ve truly never seen a case like this. I feel compelled to write a paper on it immediately. If only we were in Falkenheim right now….”
A glint of greed shimmered in the healer’s eyes—an expression as if he’d just discovered an utterly coveted specimen. He clicked his tongue regretfully.
Though such an attitude bordered on sacrilege, it was understandable coming from someone of western Falkenheim.
Falkenheim was a town densely packed with academies and universities that produced the continent’s finest scholars and mages. Falkenheim scholars often devoted their entire lives to studying fresh and unusual phenomena.
“However…”
The healer trailed off, his expression turning solemn as he scrutinized the Grand Duke closely.
Valentin, now gripping Adel’s wrist tightly, stared at the healer with a look so possessive it seemed if he were a beast, he’d already have bared his fangs.
After a long silence, the healer finally spoke.
“It seems he’s lost his memory—likely from the shock of ‘thawing’ after being frozen. And quite thoroughly at that.”
“…His memory?”
“For example, even someone who’s lost their memory should retain basic survival instincts—like knowing fire burns or causes injury. Yet the Grand Duke shows no trace of such awareness.”
“…”
“Moreover, his divine energy feels utterly drained—as if completely dried up. Was he always like this by nature?”
Adel looked troubled. She didn’t know much about her husband. Humans born without divine energy were rare, but not unheard of—after all, she herself had never received the grace of divine power.
She shook her head.
“I’m not sure.”
The healer fell into deep thought for a moment, then finally opened his mouth again.
When scheming men desperately battle for her favor in the male harem
This one’s also on my reread list! The rivalry, scheming between the men in the imperial harem are just as intense and thrilling as in classic palace drama novels, where concubines fight to the death. Give it a read, girls! I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Synopsis:
“I am not worthy of her… but I still want to be by her side, even if only as a loyal dog…”
Those were the painful whispers of Yue Guanyi – the proud Crown Prince of the Great Qi, who was torn between deep love and a guilty conscience. Despite holding the supreme power of the Imperial Guard, he still could not forget the dark past when he was sold into a brothel.
Fate played a cruel twist when Qiu Shuzhi – a young female official who had just passed the imperial examinations with top honors – stepped into his life. She did not know that she was the one who had saved him from a tragic fate many years ago. And now, her heart was the target of pursuit for both Yue Guanyi and the powerful Empress Dowager Qin Qing.
While Yue Guanyi only dared to silently care for and protect the one he loved from afar, the Empress Dowager Qin Qing openly expressed his feelings and did not hesitate to take advantage of his power to approach Qiu Shuzhi. The covert struggle between the two most powerful forces in the imperial court began…
Trigger warning: All men in this novel are yandere style.
_____
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