Swan sat on a wide decorative rock under a poplar tree. The feeling of the cool stone against her buttocks was refreshing, and the autumn breeze caressed her forehead, making her feel very comfortable.
The book she took from the bookshelf was a story about a boy of similar age to Swan who lost his entire family and embarked on an adventure. As Swan unfolded the pages, she was immediately sucked into the story. At the moment when the boy in the book encountered a witch threatening his life, Swan involuntarily tensed, swallowing dry saliva with a gulp.
At that moment, a black shadow stretched over the bookshelf. Raising his head, Swan, with an expressionless face, was frightened when she saw Jocelyn staring down at her.
“Jocelyn…”
Covering the book with a loud noise, Swan stood up unsteadily. While stumbling around, she slipped one leg down to the grass. Suddenly, Swan realized that Jocelyn’s expression was quite different from before.
Perhaps because he received a three-day sobering up punishment, or maybe that’s why? It’s difficult to express it in words, but he seemed somewhat weakened. As Swan, about to turn around, glanced at Jocelyn for a moment.
Jocelyn, with indifferent eyes, turned his gaze towards the Duke’s expansive garden and said, “Why are you doing this? Young master, you may leave. Worried that I might force you to stay, perhaps?”
Swan’s lips twitched. Of course, she had such worries, but honestly, it felt wrong to say ‘yes.’ For some reason, doing so felt like a bad thing. Similar to tormenting a young animal…
At that moment, Jocelyn looked at Swan. His gaze appeared distinctly different from the last time they met.
Jocelyn spoke.
“I know everyone in the Duke’s household dislikes me. Surely, young master, you must feel the same… Well, who would like an old woman like me? It’s natural for you to feel uncomfortable.”
Swan blinked in a bewildered expression. Jocelyn’s words made the young boy feel an inexplicable sense of guilt.
Above all, Jocelyn’s statement that “everyone knows they dislike me” touched Swan’s vulnerable spot. It was because Swan had felt exactly that way until Sedeloi came and embraced her at her father’s funeral home.
Jocelyn didn’t know that fact. So Swan felt even more captivated by the obligation to comfort her somehow.
“That’s not it…”
“What do you mean it’s not?”
As Jocelyn questioned, Swan moved her gaze, mumbling.
“It’s not that I dislike you…”
“Is that so?”
When she chuckled, Swan once again felt her throat tightening. Overcome by fear of what would happen if she went back to that room full of portraits with Jocelyn dragging her wrist again, she stood still, unable to run away.
However, instead of grabbing Swan’s wrist, Jocelyn suddenly sat down on the rock Swan had been sitting on just a moment ago. It was a moment when Swan, who had never seen her sitting or leaning before, widened her eyes in surprise.
In the wrinkled and dry mouth of Jocelyn, a sigh-like whisper flowed.
“You don’t dislike me, young master Swan… Although you say that, the others in this mansion are not the same. Doesn’t everyone avoid me as if I were a plague?”
Swan didn’t exactly know what a ‘plague’ was. Nevertheless, upon hearing those words, she felt her body shivering and her skin crawling.
Jocelyn continued.
“I devoted my entire life to the Valthamminster family. I never thought about my body and gave everything generously. But now, I have nothing left. Once I’m driven away from here, I’ll wander the streets like a wretched dog until my useless life ends.”
Startled, Swan’s fingertips twitched.
“Driven away? Me? Jocelyn, why would you…”
At that moment, feeble fingers that had been resting on Swan’s knees gained strength.
“Because someone has used Lady Swan to cloud the eyes and ears of Duke Valthamminster.”
“Cloud…?”
Swan muttered in a vague tone. However, Jocelyn, with unreadable eyes, only looked at Swan with a cold gaze and did not answer her question.
“You are different, young master. Since you are intelligent, you weren’t swayed by such schemes… If you were an heir of the Valthamminster family, if you could have taken Swan as your concubine, I wouldn’t have worried at all, even in my old age.”
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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