The place young lady Piochel took me to was a shiny building nearby.
The area around the building, which seemed to be a cafe, was quiet with not a single person around.
The gloomy weather and heavy air matching it felt precarious, as if anything could happen.
Yet the absence of people rather brings relief to my mind. Ridiculously so.
Of course, I know young lady Piochel didn’t choose this place for my sake.
To her, I’m just a shame to be hidden, and as an impurity between the two of them, it wouldn’t be good for me to be seen by others.
The sound of rain hitting the window repeatedly echoed through the space.
Above it, my heartbeat pounds fiercely, drumming against my body.
Young lady Piochel, with her legs crossed, slowly lowered her gaze and looked me up and down.
My body trembled as if the skin was being peeled off wherever her scrutinizing gaze touched.
On the way here, every time the splashing rain bounced off my feet, the muddy tips of my shoes felt utterly shabby and wretched.
My body, completely soaked by the rain, must look just as miserable.
Sitting across from me, young lady Piochel maintained her neat and tidy appearance, not a single raindrop on her, just as when I first saw her.
Her flashy accessories and hair were also without the slightest disarray.
Soon, a crooked smile appeared on her lips as she set down her teacup with a clatter.
“I warned you, but is it bravery to not listen?”
“……”
“Or is it stupidity?”
Her blatant use of informal speech, unlike before, hinted at her anger.
My heart sank coldly.
I had tried my best to avoid the capital and not draw attention, but it was clear I had been discovered.
It’s even foolish to use the word ‘discovered’.
After meeting that man and Alfonse, and then strolling along the beach…
I had been out and about in broad daylight.
After doing all that, it’s ridiculous to talk about being ‘discovered’.
The not infrequent reports of their engagement being called off seep into my mind.
Seeing that, I had let my guard down and felt relieved.
I had such foolish thoughts, not even daring to ask that man directly.
While feeling a loathsome guilt at the thought that it might be because of me, I couldn’t stop those actions.
It would have been better if I were just a brazenly and terribly selfish creature.
Yes. This was bound to happen eventually.
It wasn’t surprising, as I had already prepared myself for this.
But I thought only I would pay the price for intervening between them like this.
If the cutting off of sponsorship funds was entirely due to young lady Piochel’s intervention…
Just the thought made my flesh dig into my clenched fists.
Her inscrutable expression confirmed my anxieties.
“If you stick by that man’s side, you’ll be miserable.”
“……”
“Because all you have is that body and a pretty face. How long do you think that face will last?”
“……”
“That man gets bored easily. How long do you think it will take for someone like you to be replaced?”
None of her words could cut me.
I know I’ve become dirty enough to deserve this level of insult by now.
It’s rather easier on my mind to be insulted like this.
If only it weren’t for the strange questions constantly rising inside me, it surely would have been.
Still, I try to tell myself it’s not true.
That the young lady wouldn’t have done anything to this project.
That she wouldn’t have cut off Lady Baorbin’s funding.
My mouth, heavily weighed down with accompanying fear, couldn’t even ask that.
Did you really do that?
“That person told me.”
“……”
“To pretend I didn’t see until the engagement.”
Until the engagement.
In other words, she’s saying my role is nothing more than amusement or a toy until the engagement.
That that man asked for that.
Asked. It’s a word that doesn’t quite suit that man.
Did he really say that?
If so, why did she come looking for me?
Tap tap, the young lady’s fingers tapping on the teacup carry an uneven rhythm.
It was different from when she handed over the envelope of money before.
Somehow, I get the feeling that what she’s saying might be a lie.
It might be a flimsy lie created by my desire to believe so, but it really was.
So.
So what would change?
Rather, her impatience stirred up my guilt.
Because in the end, it remains unchanged that I have come between them like an impurity, creating this situation.
Yet at the same time, I felt relief at the fact that young lady Piochel came to find me and spoke like this, meaning there was nothing between her and him.
It’s an utterly disgusting thought.
The anxiety that keeps rising even in this situation was even more ridiculous.
Whatever intention the young lady had in speaking, she ultimately scratched at the part I fear most.
After the engagement, that man would pretend as if someone like me never existed.
It’s right that the noble heir of Blanchet should have no flaws like me, and he was more than capable of doing so.
I recall what that man said fleetingly at the beach.
That if he really liked someone, he would give them everything.
But that I wasn’t such a person.
Yes, that’s exactly what it means.
I am just the kind of existence that should fall into being amusement in some invisible space.
The reality that coldly strikes me, although I already knew it, tears my feelings apart miserably when actually confirmed.
Of course, such feelings were quickly incinerated, leaving no trace.
Because what’s important to me now is not the idle emotional play of wretchedness or shabbiness.
As I watch the raindrops falling steadily, the young lady’s dry voice languidly soaks the space.
“But what to do about this.”
She gazed at me quietly with her chin resting on her hand, then gently curved her eyes.
Somehow, that appearance felt like the god of death come from hell to take me away.
As did her next words.
“I have no intention of allowing that.”
Piochel quietly observed Yuriel.
Until she would collapse, pale and shaken.
But Yuriel didn’t waver at all.
She was like a branch already twisted to the point of breaking.
That appearance only made her seem more disgusting.
To think she wouldn’t leave despite receiving that money, with her status.
It was outrageous.
Usually, people who play the role of mistress characteristically say shameless things without a care.
This woman performs shameless acts without a care, yet when face to face, she says nothing as if feeling guilty.
It’s true that a woman like her shouldn’t have anything to say even with a mouth, but to actually sit there like that is utterly disgusting.
The report that came up was quite interesting to say it was terribly shameless.
That she went out, pale as a sheet, after that captain collapsed.
It had been long since I’d forgotten about that little poke I’d given just for fun with a bit of venting.
But to think she would show such an interesting reaction.
This woman’s weakness was all too easy. The people around her, not herself.
How can you be so shaken when you don’t even know it was because of me yet?
I can’t help but let you know.
“You know, I’ve never failed to achieve what I set out to do.”
Clank, the teacup was lifted and set down once again.
Yuriel’s face, pale to the point of transparency, rippled in the coffee cup.
Watching that sight leisurely, Piochel curled up the corners of her mouth crookedly.
“I heard Viscountess Baorbin made a bad purchase with a mine.”
“……”
“Surely you don’t think it’s a coincidence?”
Only then did the frail body tremble like an aspen tree in midwinter.
Satisfyingly so.
A gentle smile spread across Piochel’s lips.
[This is the timeline separator]As usual at the same time, Tiove came in to report to Cassian and withdrew.
The week that had been flowing quite quickly lately had slowed down.
Ah, was it since I started meeting that woman?
It’s not that I hadn’t thought about narrowing the interval. It would have been quite amusing to see that woman moving according to my orders helplessly again.
Following that woman’s words, who made up lies that didn’t even make sense, allowing only once a week was my mercy, not a willing permission.
But again, the woman goes against my mercy.
Recalling Tiove’s report, Cassian lit a cigar earlier than usual.
It was the first time he deviated from his routine of maintaining a fixed daily life.
A addictive scent rises from the smoke stretching out long from the cigar.
Through the clusters of that smoke, I see the woman coming in on time far away.
Turning my gaze, there’s a paper box containing the woman’s red hair like a specimen, reminiscent of that beach.
The woman’s hair that I grasped on that beach.
This morning, Tiove reported to me.
That woman is not my blood relative.
You who are not my blood can now come and go here.
Click, I close the box and quietly watch the woman entering the Marriott Hotel.
The result is quite satisfactory, but the feeling of looking at the woman is quite dirty.
Again. The woman lied to me again.
Ah, to be precise, it’s not a lie.
She’s just pretending not to know even though she knows, just keeping her eyes closed.
Pretending not to have met Piochel even though she did. Pretending such things didn’t happen.
Then how will you, who will know everything today, act?
Click, I hear the door opening and as usual, the woman enters my domain.
The dress I bought her flutters over her frail body.
Ridiculously, even in this situation, the woman is doing her best.
Yes. Her best.
That damn, wretched best is always the problem.
I, a madman who couldn’t break out of my shell, smile sickeningly and try to cut you with the knife I prepared.
After quite a while.
“I’m getting engaged.”
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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