My Husband's Cinderella (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 15
Only in the evening did Coon’s letter finally arrive. For several weeks, the letters had come at the same time, yet no reply had come at all.
Could there have been something especially urgent keeping him busy?
With not a single letter arriving for days, Chloe had grown sullen.
She hadn’t expected one today either, since none had come by afternoon—but by nightfall, a familiar envelope sat in “that spot.”
The gloom that had been circling her all this time lifted. As if nothing had happened, Chloe brightened and tore open the envelope.
“I’m sorry for the delay. I simply had no time to send it.”
He must truly have been busy, for he boldly omitted his usual warm greetings.
The letter itself was astonishingly brief—barely half a sheet of stationery.
“…If he really was that busy, I should be grateful just for receiving it.”
In truth, the brevity wasn’t a major issue. After exchanging letters nearly every day, it was only natural that the two would eventually run out of things to say.
What truly troubled Chloe was the subtle shift in his tone.
His strangely curt and irritable manner of speech left Chloe bewildered—it was the first time she’d encountered it.
“P.S. I read the newspaper quite thoroughly, Chloe. Seeing that you seem to be living happily truly delights your friend.
Yes, truly so.”
And on top of that, a sarcastic postscript.
He wouldn’t act this way merely because he was busy. It meant Chloe herself must have caused the real issue…
“Did I do something wrong?”
No matter how much she pondered, no clear answer came to mind.
It wasn’t as if Chloe was foolish or insensitive.
This was her first time engaging in deep interaction with someone of the opposite sex, and she’d never experienced romantic courtship before—she was utterly inexperienced.
A girl who’d never stepped into this unknown world couldn’t possibly deduce the right answer, no matter how many theories she spun.
“To my friend, who seems rather sulky lately.
Hey… are you angry about something?”
Chloe did her absolute best.
She decided to confront her friend head-on.
After quickly writing her letter and coming downstairs, Chloe began an early dinner. She wasn’t particularly hungry, but eating something might stop her from overthinking.
Though she usually filled her stomach with ordinary meals, today she specially requested a different dish from the head chef.
Soon enough, the chef began cooking with a dissatisfied expression.
Just as the delicious aroma hit her nose, the dish arrived—a soup and panne combination, with crabmeat cream soup served inside the bread.
She scooped out the soft interior of the bread, finely cut and soaked in the soup. The bread, moistened by the creamy sauce, melted gently in her mouth.
“But what if he doesn’t reply? Did I come across as too impolite?”
She’d come to dinner merely to distract herself, yet Chloe was still thinking about her friend.
Now that she thought about it, perhaps her reply had been too playful.
Maybe he’d genuinely expressed his anger, and she should have taken it more seriously.
The spoon she’d inserted into the bread grew hot from the warmth. Soon, heat crept slowly up her fingers gripping the spoon.
Just as a startled Chloe hastily dropped the spoon—
“Helena?”
The empty seat had somehow been filled. The one sitting there was none other than Helena.
With tangled hair and a pale complexion, Helena looked exactly like a ghost.
Helena’s eyes showed only sparse traces of pupils. Her eyes wide with fury, she immediately raised her voice.
“Enjoying your meal, Your Highness?”
Having said that, Helena abruptly stood and approached Chloe’s side.
“What right do you have to put food in your mouth!”
Her shrill voice struck Chloe’s eardrums.
Crash!
It was followed by the sound of shattering glass—the very plate Chloe had been savoring moments before.
Glass shards scattered across the floor, and soup splattered everywhere from the bread.
Chloe vaguely understood why Helena was furious—she must have seen the newspaper Chloe had read.
After staring at Helena with a stunned expression, Chloe soon sighed.
“Please just overlook this matter.”
Since she had no desire to fight with Kalis over this, Chloe willingly let it go.
But Helena only grew more hysterical.
“Shut up! Don’t act so high and mighty! How dare you pretend to be refined when you’re coveting someone else’s man!”
“Coveting? Don’t go around loudly spreading falsehoods.”
“Kalis is mine! And someday, your position will be mine too! Stop interfering with our love and quietly accept our charity while you leech off this household!”
“If you say I’m interfering, that’s truly hurtful. I’ve actually been rooting for your love.”
“All talk! Kalis rejected both your hand and your dance! Yet you dared to lure him! Claiming you love him, that you still can’t forget him!”
Love him? Can’t forget him?
Even melodramatic novels wouldn’t produce lines so absurd.
Chloe’s face twisted visibly in response.
“I’m curious—where did you hear that?”
“What? Scared now that the truth’s out after pretending otherwise? Where else? My husband told me himself!”
“You don’t mean His Highness—no, Kalis, do you?”
“Yes!”
The whole story became clear.
To appease his jealous lover questioning why they were together, Kalis must have offered Chloe up as a scapegoat.
Whether it was Kalis fabricating lies for an excuse or Helena blindly believing them—
Chloe alone was left wronged in this lovers’ quarrel between fools.
“Ha…”
Chloe’s sigh soon turned into laughter.
“Listen carefully, Helena.”
Now that she thought about it, she’d only explained her stance to Kalis—never to Helena.
Chloe decided to clearly state her thoughts now. Surely that noisy woman would finally fall silent.
“I don’t love him.”
“…What?”
“If my very existence bothers you so much, then accompany the Duke yourself from now on. I’m not afraid of being pushed aside by a mere concubine and excluded from society.”
Kalis returned from his outing utterly exhausted—and immediately found himself in trouble.
It was due to Helena’s unilateral announcement.
She declared she would attend all future banquets in Chloe’s place.
For Kalis, who secretly looked down on Helena’s lowborn status and poor breeding, this was utterly unacceptable.
He’d swiftly used Chloe as a shield, but the two women had apparently already spoken—his lies were thoroughly exposed.
As a result, he’d received a severe scolding from his beloved.
He vividly recalled Helena sobbing uncontrollably, asking if he was ashamed of her.
Helena was the woman he adored beyond measure, yet she couldn’t serve as a stepping stone to his success.
“That damn woman must have deliberately humiliated me.”
Ever since returning from the royal palace, Chloe had grown shamelessly bold. The woman who always kept her head bowed now dared defy her husband, who was like heaven to her.
“Could His Majesty the King have promised her something?”
Chloe’s only reliable support was her parents. Had they truly accepted their daughter’s request for divorce?
Perhaps they were furious that their precious daughter was being treated horribly in the Duke’s household.
“I really should’ve warned Helena to be more careful!”
Kalis, having completely forgotten his own misdeeds, began blaming the innocent Helena.
“…If I stay idle, I might actually get divorced.”
Deep in anguish, Kalis soon summoned a servant.
“You called, Your Highness?”
He tossed a pouch toward the servant, who kept his head bowed. The servant carefully checked the pouch, eyes widening as he looked up at his master.
“Take this money and sneak into the royal palace.”
“Yes… yes, sir…”
“Find out exactly what the Duchess discussed with her family on the day she went to the palace. Report every single word back to me without omission.”
Kalis then ordered him to resolve the matter as quickly as possible.
The servant immediately withdrew and, a few days later, sent an anonymous letter to the Duke.
“Haha! That damn woman Chloe!”
Carrying the good news that “the King and Queen had firmly rejected the Duchess’s request for divorce.”
Three days after the letter arrived, the servant returned to the mansion, noticeably thinner from running around everywhere.
Kalis quietly handed him another pouch—inside were ten gold coins.
After confirming his payment, the servant explained what he’d seen and heard in a dry, hoarse voice.
“The Duchess confessed the current situation to her family and requested a divorce from Your Grace. However, both His Majesty the King and Her Majesty the Queen refused her plea…”
“So the King and Queen both know about the Duke’s household affairs?”
“Yes.”
“But they won’t permit a divorce?”
“Yes, exactly.”
Receiving this firm confirmation, Kalis burst into laughter.
So the refined act of that woman was nothing but a swan’s desperate flailing. His brief pity for the irritating woman vanished in an instant.
“Yes. She’s just lost the last ally she had left.”
Kalis muttered with a mocking tone.
Alone now, he wordlessly pushed his chair back—only to pull it forward again just before it touched the wall. Using the chair’s creaking as background noise, his contemplation ended shortly thereafter.
“Then I suppose it’s time to go see that shameless face.”
A man who’d uncovered the truth had only one thing to do.
To punish severely the woman who’d shown her claws without knowing her place—and teach her exactly where she stood so she’d never dare defy him again.
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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Damn. These sure some assumptions to be making, not only about the man but also the people around him. However, it is probably true that he is unsympathetic to common suffering of the masses, what with them being beneath him and all.
Well, that’s sad and all, not something one should have to do to survive, but it doesn’t change that fact that you have neither sympathy nor charity in your soul and so aren’t worth any sympathy or charity from others.
Competing in the Miss Congeniality Tournament, where she was sure to place in the top three!