It meant the responsibility for the new empress was now entirely on Clad.
Duke Lev’s lips tightened as he nodded.
Once Count Compagni left, Clad’s eyes twinkled open again in the darkness.
His sensitive gaze reached the curtain-obscured window.
Though he could see nothing, he soon furrowed his brow.
The chilling aura he showed only half to Count Compagni now enveloped Duke Lev standing beside him.
“The bride?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
“Drop the formalities, Lev. Haven’t I been Euphris’ jester long enough? Still clinging to ‘Your Highness’.”
“According to Count Compagni, the carriage carrying the empress is at the mansion’s front.”
“Empress.”
Clad echoed Lev’s words, laughing.
His thin lips twisted up at the sides.
His white teeth gleamed in the shadows.
“So, what will the story be this time? The previous eight wives dead, missing, or fled from the violent deposed emperor? Do we have to watch this unfold?”
“…”
“A bloodbath party at the Black Mansion. Something like that?”
“It’s not your fault, Your Highness.”
“Who said it was my fault?”
Clad shrugged his shoulders as he rose from the rocking chair.
The old chair creaked and screamed until he stood upright.
Duke Lev remained silent, waiting.
Clad walked over to a console and opened the first drawer.
He roughly tore open a packet of pills, chewing and swallowing them dry.
It was his usual headache after encountering the royal watchdog.
His long fingers naturally reached for his throbbing forehead.
His sharp voice scattered aimlessly in the space.
“Just start looking for the tenth empress now, Uncle. Maybe prepare a coffin or a divorce agreement in advance? Let my wife choose.”
“Wouldn’t you consider trying?”
Duke Lev asked, watching Clad tear open another packet. His voice dripped with sympathy.
“You might not live honorably, but you can live happily.”
“Starting again, huh? Is that your idea of happiness, Uncle? Holding a woman, seeing a child. Playing the role of a husband, a father, laughing and chatting?”
Duke Lev shut his mouth.
Clad, his eyes bloodshot, spread his arms and laughed like a jester.
“Look at me, Duke.”
“Your Highness…”
The half of his body that had been submerged in shadow was now fully exposed to Duke Lev.
Clad’s smile was very brief, as if he loathed even showing himself in that single streak of light.
His bloodshot eyes quickly retreated into the shadows, shimmering like a wounded beast.
“Who would want a husband like me?”
Duke Lev solemnly clasped his hands together and swallowed hard.
There he was, the once-hailed most handsome youth of Euphris.
One side of his face was breathtakingly beautiful, but the other was horrific.
Thick, vein-like scars intertwined and hardened like beast entrails on his skin.
The area, rough and rigid like tree bark, seemed terribly scarred from a horrific burn.
The dreadful scar from that day extended not just on his face, but to his exposed upper body and beyond.
Half of his body was precisely split vertically, mangled and grotesquely distorted.
The cruel curse made the unaffected half of his body, so piercingly white and beautiful, all the more pitiable.
Duke Lev slowly scanned Clad before closing his eyes.
Even after 10 years, time seemed to have stopped in this place.
When the former emperor died, his brother, Grand Duke Igor, attempted to assassinate his young nephew to usurp the throne, but failed.
Instead, he left a terrible mark.
Somehow, the wounds inflicted on him turned his body grotesquely black as if rotting away.
Each night, Clad suffered agonizing pain so severe it felt as if his limbs were withering, and during the day, he became hypersensitive due to the pain and lack of sleep.
Even after summoning foreign magicians for treatment, the once beautiful prince had to give up half of his body.
Clad Euphris, now the deposed emperor, confined himself to this black mansion.
He barely left his bedroom, akin to being in a prison.
That had been his reality for 10 years—a decade.
The event was too burdensome for a young boy of just 14, who hadn’t even experienced adolescence yet.
Nobody could truly understand his feelings and suffering.
Duke Lev, feeling heavy-hearted, opened his eyes.
Clad’s pain-heightened eyes were still intensely fixed on him, as if knowing all his thoughts.
“Who would want a father like me?”
Ex-husband Wants Reconciliation
One-line summary: Chasing the wife to the crematorium (making an effort to attract someone who has become indifferent), the female lead doesn’t look back, the second male lead takes the position.
Intro:
To repay the kindness of the older generation, Su Mu crossed into a female-dominated world and became a live-in daughter-in-law of the Yan family, single-handedly saving the Yan family from fire and water.
But her husband, Yan Jiyue, the eldest son of the Yan family, treated her with sarcasm and never showed her a good face.
It wasn’t until after Su Mu’s death that this pampered and arrogant young master shed a few fake tears and pretended to want to die for love.
This life’s kindness was enough. If there was a next life, she would definitely kick Yan Jiyue away.
Who knew that the heavens would be so kind as to allow her to be reborn, returning to the time when she had just married into the Yan family.
Su Mu glanced at the Yan eldest son, who still spoke coldly to her, and threw a divorce letter in front of him.
“Let’s divorce!”
***
Yan Jiyue never imagined that he would be reborn. He happily went to find Su Mu, wanting to make up for the mistakes he had made in his ignorant youth.
Wasn’t the reason the heavens allowed him to be reborn to let him reconcile with Su Mu?
But when he pushed open the door to Su Mu’s room, the person lying on the bed was another man.
Su Mu’s personal attendant, Xie Yi.
Yan Jiyue hated him so much that his teeth itched. In front of Su Mu, Xie Yi was a gentle and considerate whisperer of sweet nothings, but in reality, he was vicious-hearted and deliberately sabotaged their husband and wife relationship.
In the previous life, it was he who secretly hid in Su Mu’s coffin and committed suicide, stealing a step ahead of him to be buried with Su Mu.
Yan Jiyue’s eyes were filled with hatred as he cursed, “What kind of thing are you? Your background is lowly, what right do you have to occupy Su Mu?”
Xie Yi looked at the sleeping Su Mu and no longer pretended to be a whisperer of sweet nothings.
He proudly stuck out his belly, “I have the right because my belly is capable of giving the Wife-master a daughter.”
***
Yan Jiyue was consumed with jealousy. He spread rumors that Xie Yi had once been branded with the mark of a “harlot” on his chest.
But on the night Xie Yi cut off the flesh bearing that mark, Su Mu suddenly realized something was amiss.
“How did you know the exact moment I was poisoned? And why did you show up a month early?”
Xie Yi remained silent, blood from his wound soaking through his robes. His sapphire eyes brimmed with anguish – or was it just a flawless act?
Between a once-arrogant husband now seeking redemption, and a gentle soul willing to die for her – who truly held the darkest secrets? And could it be that Su Mu and Yan Jiyue weren’t the only ones given a second chance at life…?
[Reading Guide]
1. True divorce, chasing the wife to the crematorium, the female lead doesn’t look back, the male lead is Xie Yi.
2. The ex-husband did not cheat, he just realized too late and didn’t realize that he liked the female lead.
_____
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