“Don’t touch a man’s body carelessly!”
“I…a man?”
“Unmarried men and women should keep their distance. Don’t you know that?”
He must have just been babbling, but I was momentarily moved.
‘Confucianism is alive in this world too. Bravo, the principle of separation between men and women!’
Feeling nostalgic, I got up with my heavy body.
I waved my hands, shooing him away like a fly.
“I’ve got it, now go. If you don’t, I’ll call for someone.”
“You’re threatening me now?”
“Looks like you’ve left your duties to run away. Is it okay if you’re caught?”
The boy flinched again.
But this time, he didn’t give in.
“I have the right to be here. And I have something to ask you!”
I gave up on the tiresome argument and cleared my throat loudly.
And then I called out.
“Helloooo, knights! There’s an intruder here!”
“Can’t you be quiet?!”
“Oh, there’s a dog hole here too? Scary, isn’t it?”
“Don’t do it!”
The boy hung on to my leg with a crying face.
The armored knights pulled off the insolent koala.
“I will never forget today’s incident, woman!”
The boy yelled, even as he was being dragged away by the knights.
I waved goodbye with a broad smile.
“Nice to meet you, let’s never see each other again.”
After the boy left, I examined the dog hole.
Sadly, it wasn’t big enough for me to pass through.
“What’s this? Trash?”
I found a torn piece of paper in the dog hole.
When pieced together, it was a picture of a monster drawn in black ink.
The ferocious teeth and piercing eyes were exquisitely depicted. The skill was extraordinary.
Even though it was torn, it felt too precious to throw away.
I took the broken picture back to my room.
I thought my connection with the boy was over.
[Star Icon][Star Icon][Star Icon]Two days later.
Nikolai, having decided to accept Kares’s proposition, sought Elizabeth.
The door to the canary room was locked with a bronze lock, just as before.
Nikolai felt simultaneous, directionless anger and immeasurable longing.
Opening this door felt like Laila would greet him.
He had dreamed it many times.
The fact that she no longer existed in this world felt like a dream.
“Niki, promise me you won’t forget me. That you’ll protect our Finch.”
Laila’s dying voice briefly touched his ear, then disappeared without a trace.
A numb pain crept up from below his breastbone.
What expression would Laila make if she knew he hadn’t met Franz for a long time?
He erased his thoughts and unlocked the lock.
“Elizabeth?”
Elizabeth was lying in bed, turned away.
She must have heard the door open, but she didn’t flinch.
Being kidnapped was not enough; her last hope, the marriage to Duke Nettleton, had come to nothing.
Nikolai had laid down the law in front of her, vowing to make her fiancé a servant of the royal court, and her younger brother a concubine.
‘If she doesn’t get angry, it’s strange. She can’t help but be despised.’
She was used to being looked down upon.
But this time, she wanted to avoid it.
To be honest, she wanted to make excuses.
There were circumstances that she had no choice but to deal with.
But the emperor was not one to seek understanding; he was a being who commanded.
Irrational and autocratic as it was, Nikolai’s word became law.
But why was his mouth getting dry?
Thanks to the increasingly intense cherry blossom scent, he felt his tension doubling.
“Have you gotten used to life in the palace?”
He wanted to ask dryly, but his voice cracked slightly.
Elizabeth still didn’t move.
She seemed to have made up her mind to thoroughly ignore Nikolai.
It made his heart sink.
“How long are you going to pretend you don’t know?”
He reached out to grab Elizabeth’s shoulder but hesitated.
Only belatedly realizing that she had fallen asleep.
Elizabeth, curled up, furrowed her brow.
Was she having a nightmare?
Her eyes, hidden under her eyelids, shook from side to side.
Her delicate eyelashes revealed emotions even more subtly.
Pain, fear, anxiety. A desperation greater than all of that combined.
Her thick lips parted, and a halfcrumbled voice leaked out.
“Don’t, don’t do this. Please, just once…….”
Save me.
It was definitely that shape of the mouth.
“No! Stop!”
Elizabeth spat out a groan, thrashing her thin arm through the air.
Nikolai discovered the red bruise left on her wrist.
He clenched his eyes shut.
It was a wound inflicted by his knights. Thus, it was no different from a wound he had inflicted.
He wanted to kill the knights who had manhandled Elizabeth.
Maybe he almost did.
A wave of emotions, indescribable by mere guilt, washed over him.
Since meeting Elizabeth, the unfamiliar and unpleasant vibrations hadn’t disappeared.
If it had merely been unpleasant, it wouldn’t have been so confusing.
Nikolai aimlessly grasped Elizabeth’s hand.
Small, soft, and warm.
So he found himself mumbling.
“Don’t be afraid. As long as I’m here, no one can hurt you.”
For the empire and the royal family, Elizabeth had many duties to perform.
Nikolai was bound to protect her.
So his desire to gather up all her fears and incinerate them, and his wish to find the source of her anxiety and eliminate it, were only natural.
No matter how he wrapped it up, it was nothing more than a deceit.
‘I insulted Elizabeth’s fiancé and imprisoned her in a welldecorated jail. I am the man she fears, and the one who hurts her.’
Nikolai swallowed the bitter venom.
Fortunately, Elizabeth seemed not to have heard the words he had spoken.
Nikolai clapped his hands.
“Aah!”
Elizabeth sprung up like a spring.
He felt sorry for waking her up so rudely, but he didn’t show it.
Fluttering her eyelids, Elizabeth looked up at Nikolai.
A beautiful smile blossomed on her drowsy face, not yet fully awake, like a flower bathed in spring sunshine.
Nikolai’s chest was marked with a smile that would be etched like a brand, but he didn’t expect to hear her true feelings, which she did not want to reveal.
“What? He’s a tyrant from the dog faction, isn’t he?”
“?!”
“I thought it was Radia again.”
Sigh. Elizabeth, tasting her lips again, went back to sleep.
Nikolai’s thick eyebrows shot up sharply.
He could not bear it any longer.
After Being Cheated On, She Picked Up a Treasure (Female-dominant)
One-line summary: The husband I married on a whim had been secretly in love with me for a long time.
On the day when Jun Shao finally obtained the imperial decree for her marriage, Lan Qu, the person she had admired for six years, defied the decree and ran away.
Her gentleness and devotion, her promise of a lifetime together, were all disregarded by him. Instead, he dreamed of entering the palace to serve the Emperor’s sister as a sixth-rank attendant.
News of this incident spread throughout the capital, and the alleys in front of and behind the Lan mansion were crowded with people who came to watch the commotion.
Jun Shao should have been embarrassed and angry.
But someone stepped in to protect her dignity.
The figure was in a miserable state, yet still possessed an undeniable elegance and handsomeness.
The young lord struggled to climb the wall of the Lan mansion and shouted to her, “If he won’t marry you, I will!”
So, Jun Shao took advantage of the situation and married the person.
She thought the young lord did it to save the Lan family from the crime of defying the imperial decree, but never imagined that from beginning to end, what he coveted was her.
*
After the wedding, Jun Shao felt like she was living in a dream.
Her Wife-master was as beautiful as a fairy in a painting, skilled in the six arts, well-versed in poetry and literature, capable of being gentle and attentive, and also grand and dignified. Most importantly, she was the only one in his heart and eyes.
Jun Shao didn’t know how Lan Shiwu, as a illegitimate son without a father and blessed with beauty, had managed to preserve his purity, recklessly escape, and use his last ounce of strength to ruin his own reputation, all because of his love for her, just to stand before her.
She could only see him gazing at her with eyes full of love, and when she bestowed a name upon him, his eyes shone like stars.
“You have come to me like a weary bird perching on a branch. I shall call you A Qi.”
