The slums we arrived at on horseback were strangely quiet.
Surely Arnold would have come and told them that relief supplies were arriving.
Having already experienced these people becoming more orderly than anyone else when receiving aid, I blinked and looked around the empty streets.
“This can’t be right…”
“Daeon. Where is Arnold?”
When I looked at Leoprick saying this was impossible, he ordered the knight beside him to find the aide who had gone ahead.
Just in case, I was about to go look around with Betty when it happened.
“Your Highness! Take cover!”
With that sudden shout, everything descended into chaos.
Along with that cry, arrows suddenly flew from somewhere and soldiers sprang out.
Shouts shaking the air and armed soldiers appearing here and there.
They all had swords pointed at our party that had entered the slum entrance.
Interspersed among them were slum residents who were armed but seemed unsure of the situation.
Imperial knights surrounding me and Leoprick with looks of shock and bewilderment clear on their faces.
And Betty and I, completely stunned and unable to do anything.
It was utter pandemonium.
“Amelia, over here!”
A pale-faced Leoprick quickly put me on a horse after I had only taken a few steps.
After having Betty mount behind me, he deflected arrows flying from all directions while guarding our surroundings.
“Go to the palace right now, Amelia. Go and inform His Majesty of this.”
Saying Arnold was likely captured too, he urged me to escape this mayhem.
“But, Your Highness!”
“Hurry and go. I can’t fight while protecting you too right now!”
So please live, he said. Hurry and stay in the safest place, he said.
Leoprick looked at me with an intense gaze that seemed about to burst with emotion.
After that brief exchange, I gritted my teeth and turned the horse’s head.
“You must live, Your Highness! You absolutely must!”
“Of course. Don’t worry about what’s behind you and ride.”
With those words as the last, I gripped the reins and began galloping quickly.
Betty made a strange sound behind me, but I had no time to pay attention to such things.
Lloyd is captured.
Who could be doing this when they even have leverage over Duke Valois?
I should have postponed the departure when Leoprick acted like something was off from the start.
Relationship building could have been done anytime, I should have trusted his instincts.
As these thoughts continued, I gritted my teeth and steeled myself.
Self-blame can wait until after saving Leoprick.
I had to save Leoprick.
That was the only thing I thought about.
I dropped Betty off at the road leading to the palace after riding nonstop.
“Betty. Go to the Marchioness’ house and the guild right now and inform them of this. Can you do it?”
“Uh, um. Yes. I can do it. Neither place is very far from here.”
Betty, who initially stumbled and couldn’t dismount properly, seemed to be holding back bile that was about to come up, likely due to the gravity of the situation.
Though her state was pitiful, there were more important matters at hand now.
I looked at Betty with a sympathetic expression.
“Okay. I’m counting on you.”
“Don’t worry, Your Grace!”
Fortunately, she had come to her senses and as soon as she finished speaking, she took off running.
I too turned my horse back towards the palace and rode in frantically.
After informing the captain of the knights standing at the palace entrance of this incident, I ran urgently to the Emperor’s office.
It didn’t matter who whispered what behind me or what kind of looks they gave.
What mattered was Leoprick’s safety.
Nothing more, nothing less.
“Is His Majesty here?”
And finally, I arrived at the Emperor’s office.
There was Count Felice, who was just leaving the room.
When I asked him, he gave a vile-looking smile and bowed exaggeratedly.
“How clever of you to return alive.”
“…If you know, then this will be quick. Step aside.”
How clever to return alive, he said.
With those words, I could instantly tell who was behind this incident.
Just as I was about to pass him and enter the office, it happened.
“It would be better if you didn’t go in.”
“…What do you mean by that?”
Count Felice smirked with an ambiguous expression.
Then he left without giving any other answer.
Count Felice didn’t have the guts to pull off something this big.
He always liked to hide behind others and plot schemes, and he never moved without someone to answer his questions.
Then could it be? Is this incident something Duke Valois has orchestrated?
As that thought occurred to me, I hastily opened the door to the office.
If the Duke had tried to eliminate the Emperor like I had…
Come to think of it, it was suspicious that there were no guards in front who should have been here.
Shouldn’t there be someone here at this hour…?
Feeling the blood drain from my face, I hurriedly opened the door.
Count Felice wasn’t a particularly suitable person to entrust with an important role in treason.
He was timid, indecisive, and someone who lacked decisiveness or boldness in all matters.
But there was one thing he was good at:
Namely, a bit of hypnosis, incitement, and fabrication.
Duke Valois was one of the few people who accurately grasped this strength of his.
Although it was a skill learned from some crazy wanderer who claimed to have studied magic in the past, Count Felice’s hypnosis was somewhat effective, if only temporarily.
His way of speaking that feigned ignorance and caused misunderstandings in others was always the optimal weapon for driving wedges between people.
So, Duke Valois sent Count Felice to the imperial couple.
“What brings the Count to see me?”
Meeting both the Emperor and Empress was not an easy task.
One had to either request an audience in advance or seize the timing when both were together in the Emperor’s office.
Fortunately, this could be achieved with the help of someone planted in advance by the Emperor’s side.
From now on, the important thing was…
“I have come because there is something I wish to tell Your Majesty.”
To mix hypnosis and words appropriately so that they wouldn’t even realize they were under hypnosis.
To make those unfavorable faces looking at him, if not friendly, at least not hostile.
Count Felice glanced at them and slowly opened his mouth.
“Your Imperial Majesty. And Your Imperial Majesty the Empress. On my way here, I saw that His Highness the Crown Prince and Her Grace were heading to the slums for relief activities?”
“Yes. That’s what I understand.”
When he started speaking, the Emperor made an uncomfortable expression as if wondering why he was asking such a thing.
It seemed like an exasperated look, as if asking why he was inquiring about something he should obviously know.
The Count, trying not to show any discomfort at the Emperor’s reaction, discreetly took out a tool for hypnosis.
“Then, Your Majesty, are you perhaps aware of the unfavorable rumors about the imperial family that have been circulating in the slums recently?”
“What? Unfavorable rumors?”
The Emperor, who had initially been focused on the object Count Felice had pulled out, frowned deeply at the sudden strange words.
Among all the emperors in history, he was the one who cared most about strengthening imperial authority.
He was also a person who strived to pass on strong imperial power to his children.
So he would be flustered if complaints were erupting from those he thought he had been looking after well.
After confirming that the Empress sitting next to the Emperor also had a surprised expression, he slowly began to move his hand.
“According to what I’ve heard, they are so dissatisfied that they seem to be planning to harm His Highness the Crown Prince on this occasion. Duke Valois has sent soldiers just in case, but…”
“What are you saying? Planning to harm the Crown Prince!”
The Empress reacted strongly when her son was mentioned.
She might also be thinking about how much they had poured into the slums all this time.
Count Felice inwardly grinned as he looked at them.
“So, what happened was…”
The timing was now.
When his hypnosis would be most effective.
Count Felice slowly swung the object in his hand as he continued speaking.
So that the Emperor and Empress would think of Duke Valois’s soldiers not as a group of rebels, but as heroes who saved the Crown Prince.
Leoprick was in a difficult situation.
It was bad enough that soldiers had suddenly appeared, but the slum dwellers who followed made it worse.
At first, they seemed to be standing with the soldiers under coercion, but as they came forward in front of the soldiers, they slowly began pointing spears at Leoprick.
“Wh-what has the imperial family ever done for us!”
“Who would believe it when you suddenly offer support after never giving us any aid!”
And the soldiers were surrounding them from behind, as if protecting them.
Seeing this, he could roughly guess the situation.
Whoever the leader of this rebellion was, they were trying to make it look like the slum people had started a riot by co-opting them.
And if necessary, they probably planned to eliminate them and push all the way here.
Leoprick sighed deeply and beckoned to Daeon.
“Have you found Arnold?”
“He seems to be inside the slums. It looks like they’ve taken Arnold hostage.”
Daeon carefully added that besides Arnold, some slum residents were also surrounded by the army.
They probably intend to use them as hostages to threaten me.
Leoprick shook his head as he looked at this absurd standoff.
“Is there any way to avoid a fight here?”
“It doesn’t seem so at the moment. Even if we try to flee, they’ll likely chase us.”
Daeon shook his head after quickly surveying the surroundings.
He said there was no other breakthrough besides a frontal assault, as things stood now.
But a frontal assault would be impossible with their current numbers.
Just as he was looking around with a worried face, it happened.
“Your Highness! Behind you!”
Suddenly, the sound of horse hooves came from behind.
When he turned around with a startled face, he could see numerous soldiers charging through the thick dust.
Could they be reinforcements for the other side?
As Leoprick’s face filled with dismay, it happened.
“Your Highness! Are you alright!”
A familiar voice was heard from among those rushing in from behind.
But as he was wondering if it could really be that person he knew, who wasn’t a swordsman…
“It’s me! It’s Zero, Your Highness!”
Truly unexpectedly, an utterly impossible name came out.
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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