Being alone in a strange room was a first. Essela suppressed her uneasy heart and clasped her hands together. The pink diamond necklace felt particularly cold today.
Her throat was parched. She wanted some warm tea. The tea brought by the sternlooking butler had long since gone cold.
She felt like she had been here quite a while, but the door showed no sign of opening.
Unaware, Essela, who was gazing at the door with expectation, suddenly recalled a cold voice in her mind.
“If you are sure you will not have any expectations, then I will let you in.”
It was true. Essela kept staring at the door. Essela lowered her head again.
Do not expect. Just coming here was too much for me. So do not expect to see my sister.
Essela kept pondering the Duke’s words.
As darkness fell, Essela, with the help of Veronica and Sally, escaped from Madelleine and arrived at Duke Vicander’s mansion. There was no way to enter the tightly closed mansion. She had to wait for her sister, who was out.
As the sky darkened, a carriage stopped at the gate, and that cold voice poured over Essela’s head.
Casually looking up at the carriage window, Duke Vicander’s face was visible.
A breathtakingly beautiful man. At the same time, a man so eerie that he didn’t seem human.
Normally, Essela would have been frozen stiff. But somehow courageously, Essela, gripping the pink diamond necklace in her hand, spoke to the Duke.
“…I, Essela Madelleine, wish to meet the great hero Duke Vicander. Please just tell my sister I’m here.”
Despite her upbringing in grace and composure, Essela’s voice trembled pitifully.
As soon as Essela’s words were done, the Duke twisted one corner of his mouth and smiled. His red eyes ominously flickered. Overwhelmed by the oppressive aura, Essela involuntarily stepped back.
“If you will continue to talk foolishly, then send her away.”
That was the end. The gate opened, and the carriage left before Essela could say more. A calm voice came from behind.
“What will you do?”
A brownhaired knight looking at me asked, getting down from the horse. Unlike the chilling Duke, his aura was much more comfortable, and Essela cautiously spoke.
“I came to see my sister. Can’t you just tell her I’m here?”
Today might be the last opportunity. Since I sneaked out like this, I might have to stay home from now on. I had to tell my sister.
But contrary to Essela’s determination, the brownhaired knight stared at me and bluntly said,
“Do I really have to tell Miss Olivia that the princess is here?”
“What? What’s the…”
Princess, not Miss. My sister is Princess Madelleine.
Before correcting the wrong title, the brownhaired knight finished with a low voice.
“Miss would undoubtedly want to meet you if she knew the princess was here.”
“But why!”
“Because Miss is kind. Knowing that, the princess came uninvited without considering Miss.”
For a moment, Essela felt like she’d been struck. How could he be so rude, presuming to know what he doesn’t? Essela wanted to get angry, but her lips trembled.
Essela just wanted to apologize to her sister. Really, she had been wrong so much. She wanted to cry and beg her sister for forgiveness.
“Even the princess’s presence here limits Miss’s choices. Not only deciding whether to see or not but to see ‘right now’ or not.”
She didn’t know that even coming to see her sister without asking if she wanted to meet could be wrong. There was no reproach in the knight’s voice, just stating the facts.
She hadn’t even considered whether her sister wanted to see her. Whether it was now or not. Anything like that.
How could someone else think of my sister more than I, her family, could?
Esella’s head bowed down quickly. The knight who was watching her slowly asked again,
“Do not even expect Miss to come. If so, you can at least have tea before leaving. What will you do?”
There was only one answer that Esella could give. Esella nodded her head weakly.
“I will.”
.
.
.
Esella looked at the door over and over. The firmly closed door remained as if it had never been opened in the first place. Disappointment piled up, but every time it did, Esella muttered to herself.
I came in deciding not to expect. Sister might not come.
The assumption that weighed heavily on her heart gradually became a fact.
Esella gently wrapped the cold teacup with her palm. The cold feeling comforted her heart. Yes, even if I met my sister now, I wouldn’t have been able to talk properly.
I could only say sorry.
I’m sorry for saying something I shouldn’t have said to my sister, for blaming my mother’s death on my sister, for not stopping my father and brothers from treating my sister poorly.
I went out to play even when I knew that my sister would get scolded every day after arguing with me.
I was waiting for my sister under the attic on the fourth floor.
Suddenly Esella’s eyes widened. The strength drained from her hand holding the teacup.
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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