119. Nightmare
2024.01.27.
Lancelot, upon hearing the news, woke up from the guest room, shaking off the sleep he had accumulated.
Muttering whether that Clade fellow had gone out for a walk or something, he rubbed his sleepy eyes and stepped out of the room.
Then, calling a gardener who was selecting flowers in the garden to decorate the dining room, he placed some freesias in a vase and headed toward the study.
Clade Euphris’s study was excessively dull, containing only the bare necessities.
Lancelot, grinning good-naturedly as if to say, “Since there’s no lady of the house, I have to do even this,” swung the study door wide open—and nearly dropped the vase.
Damn it. Clade Euphris had done it again—sleeping in his study chair!
***
After Oliver’s departure, the mansion somehow felt even more desolate.
Yuan Pelliese dipped a brush into diluted cleaning solution and began scrubbing the pitch-black outer walls of the west wing.
After scrubbing about thirty times, one side became smooth and revealed its original red brick color.
It was less like cleaning and more like scraping away layers.
Unaware of anyone approaching, she was vigorously rubbing the blackened bricks with both hands when suddenly a hand as white as snow appeared right before her eyes.
Startled, she couldn’t even scream, stumbling backward—then immediately, long, knobby fingers gently brushed the tip of her nose and vanished like the wind.
“It’s dirty.”
“!”
“What are you staring at?”
Yuan always sniffled and rubbed her nose against her shoulder, often leaving soot smudged on the tip.
Clade had surely come out again, teasing her like he was on an outing, and this time, had wiped the smudge off her nose.
Realizing this, Yuan shot a glare at Clade, who had already settled beneath a parasol and leaned back in a rocking chair.
“I—I was startled! You suddenly… it was embarrassing…”
“You get embarrassed over this? After all the things we’ve done every night that are far worse.”
The night after returning from Louise’s funeral.
Yuan, unable to contain her floating heart, gave Clade a mild sedative tea and then tightly embraced him.
Clade, who had stared back with determined eyes claiming he wouldn’t fall asleep, inevitably closed them. And Yuan had gazed again and again at his face—someone who had truly felt like family these past few nights.
This man will be the one I live with from now on.
The one who buried Louise and stood by me through the funeral—a real family.
Such a beautiful, radiant man, angelic in appearance, is mine…
“I told you I don’t remember any of it.”
Yuan snapped out of her reverie, reliving the night filled with both agony and ecstasy.
The man who didn’t know the truth narrowed his brows slightly.
“What kind of nights we’ve spent. I don’t remember. So if anything made you uncomfortable, just tell me. Don’t stay silent like a dumb animal.”
“…I’ve never had such an experience.”
“You look exactly like someone who would keep quiet.”
With that, Clade abruptly turned his head away.
Beneath his fluttering golden hair, the tips of his ears were red.
Yuan suddenly felt her heart swell completely.
She desperately wanted to touch those golden strands—so much that she could hardly bear it.
“Would you… like me to cut your hair?”
Clade didn’t answer.
Only after a long while did he reply.
“…You know how to do that too?”
Yuan now understood that this meant yes.
In the courtyard of the west wing, where only the sound of brushing had echoed, the snipping of scissors and a man’s discontented voice began to alternate.
After freely touching the golden hair and finishing the cleanup, Yuan resumed her work.
How many dozens of strokes had she made with the brush, standing behind Clade?
Yuan lowered the mirror she had been studying for a while and called out to Clade, who was gazing outside the mansion.
“Your Highness.”
“….”
“Your Highness. Let’s turn this place back into the Red Mansion someday.”
Worried he might have fallen asleep, she briefly turned her head to look back—and flinched at meeting his gaze directly, quickly turning her back to him again as if to hide her flushed face.
“So that it can be found even in the dark of night.”
He had told her not to worry, but Yuan couldn’t help it.
She had buried Oliver, then Louise as well.
The vivid memory of wandering lost in the forest, failing to find this mansion filled with traces of defeat and betrayal, still haunted her.
She didn’t want this mansion—where he had lived, where they would live together—to remain buried in darkness forever.
“And we’ll hang many lanterns. Light fires in every fireplace so that smoke pours from the chimneys.”
“….”
“So even if someone gets lost in the woods, they can find their way here.”
For a long time, no answer came from behind.
Yuan, having turned an entire row of bricks red, patted her lower back and stood up.
Tucking her disheveled black hair behind her ears as the breeze blew, she turned back toward him.
He was still looking at her—like someone who hadn’t looked away even once.
“You don’t need to leave the mansion at all.”
His low voice slipped into her ears alongside the sunlight.
Clade answered, gazing with utterly indifferent eyes at the outside of the pitch-black iron gate—beyond which he had stepped only once in the past ten days.
“The two of us.”
Us.
The two of us.
She had only thought about how to get Clade out.
She had only pondered how to ensure they could find the mansion even if they got lost.
She had never considered the answer: simply not leaving the mansion at all.
Though she thought it a rather ridiculous and uninspired answer.
Yuan trembled slightly, as if struck by lightning, at the word “us” that had brushed past Clade’s lips.
She had to struggle hard to suppress the corners of her mouth, which kept trying to rise.
“…That’s a way too.”
Her cheeks, exposed to the cool air, turned red.
Afraid he might look at her again, Yuan hastily pulled her ear flaps further down and whispered.
“Since this is our home… we should stay in during winter. It’s cold, after all.”
After staring at the ground for a while, he lifted his head.
A cool breeze passed over Clade’s exquisitely carved nose—so sharp it could seem arrogant.
His tightly closed lips still faced outside the mansion—the dense, white forest covered in eternal snow.
Clade didn’t respond to her words.
But if she had asked, “Even so, can’t we repaint this mansion red together on a warm day, and keep the lights on at night?”
He probably wouldn’t have refused.
Certainly.
It seemed that way.
***
“Your Highness.”
Yuan startled awake, her eyes snapping open at the sensation of someone gently shaking her.
Tasha, unlike Yuan, showed no sign of fatigue, and approached her with a slightly worried expression.
Yuan stared blankly not at Tasha, but into the air, her focus still blurred.
“The Prince…?”
“Hmm?”
Tasha’s face flushed with confusion at Yuan’s sudden, out-of-the-blue question about the prince. Yuan glanced around dazedly once more.
“The mansion…?”
“We decided to take a short rest. It’d be better to get out and breathe some fresh air.”
Tasha answered with a worried look, yet in a slightly firm voice.
“Did you have a nightmare?”
Only then did Yuan realize she had been dreaming of last winter.
She shook her head as she watched Tasha actively helping others open the carriage doors and begin setting up tents in the woods.
A few drops of blood splattered around.
Yuan quickly wiped them away with a handkerchief and applied a medicine onto it—a drug that helped stop nosebleeds, though it also made her drowsy as a side effect.
It was effective enough for temporary relief, but it was a sleepy-making drug.
With dazed eyes, Yuan gazed into the forest, savoring the sweet dream she had briefly experienced.
Her hands, which had just moments ago caressed Clade’s soft hair, now itched.
Why did sweet dreams always end so quickly?
Since she first met him again after leaving, she had been dreaming of him more often than when she first departed.
Only the tender, overwhelming moments appeared—moments that sweetly shattered her.
Indeed.
Her heart clearly refused to accept that Clade, who hadn’t looked at her once until the very end at Glory Hall, had been the last.
But she had to accept it. She absolutely had to.
Yuan steeled her weakening heart and glanced briefly at the trunk she hadn’t yet opened, unable to find a moment alone.
The day she stormed into the Pelliese mansion.
Regina Pelliese, who had been expected to fiercely resist, seemed to finally grasp her situation—and failed to stop Yuan from taking Louise’s letter.
It was fortunate that Regina Pelliese had finally become docile, even if belatedly.
Yuan shoved the bag under a chair and carefully stepped down from the massive carriage.
Then, she headed toward the maids preparing the Empress’s tea, standing with her back to the Empress, Tasha, and the elderly maids who were seated on a brightly colored mat where the tent had been set up.
Despite their strong objections—though she hadn’t helped at all with setting up the tent, unlike Tasha, who had insisted on helping despite her itchy skin, while the Royal Second Knight Corps handled everything—Yuan insisted on helping with small tasks, taking a beautifully decorated cookie plate from them.
But suddenly, a large shadow loomed over her, and the plate was swiftly taken from her hands.
“Count Kimfri?”
It was Eugene Kimfri.
Eugene Kimfri, tall and sharp-featured, stood before her in the knight’s ceremonial uniform instead of steel armor, since he wasn’t heading into battle. His bright pumpkin-colored eyes sparkled beneath his distinctive navy-blue crew cut as he looked down at Yuan.
“Menial tasks aren’t befitting of a princess.”
“No… I believe I’m perfectly capable of serving the Empress. Carrying a plate of sweets is well within my strength, and I’m quite energetic.”
“I’m not worried you can’t carry one plate. I mean that food for Her Imperial Majesty shouldn’t pass through too many hands.”
His tone was extremely formal, seemingly polite at first glance—but the meaning was different.
Yuan stood blankly for a moment, then quickly realized Eugene Kimfri’s words implied he didn’t trust her—she might poison the food meant for Empress Marilyn.
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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