“You ditched me and now you show up with a new woman within a week.”
“……”
“How can someone who doesn’t even keep a contract speak of promises?”
“Listen, I…”
“Don’t say anything.”
I wanted to stop wavering.
I wanted to put an end to my selfdeception and disappointment.
The sudden heat that would rise and the chest that would then grow cold were unfamiliar.
It was hard to endure the one who pushed me away and turned his back.
I despised my foolishness for still wanting to believe in Nikolai, even after a vehement rejection.
“I don’t want to hear any excuse, nor am I curious.”
“So I don’t get a chance to explain?”
“Did you give me a chance to protest?”
I asked coldly.
Deep creases etched between Nikolai’s brows.
“According to you, I must be an easy woman. We kissed the moment we met. I was wailing, drunk, and even stamped on a worthless contract.”
“You’re exaggerating.”
“And yet, I thought we had an agreement. It seems you were just playing games.”
“Never have I done that.”
“Then why do you touch me only when you’re bored?”
A bitter sorrow spread across Nikolai’s handsome face.
He stood tall like a tree bracing against a storm, but his clenched fist trembled like a willow leaf caught in the wind.
“Weren’t you flitting around, visiting your former fiancé’s house, or some random guy’s villa?”
“Exfiancé? Are you talking about that farmer?”
“You’ve been practically like siblings with Douglas’s younger sister, haven’t you?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Everything matters. Who you meet, who you talk to, who you smile at.”
Nikolai’s voice became unprecedentedly agitated.
Green flames flickered fiercely in his eyes.
The immense fire threatened to incinerate everything, even scalding my heart.
“Do you think it was easy to come here? Overriding my father’s will to become a wretched man.”
“Father’s will? What are you talking about?”
I brushed my cooled strands of hair back.
Nikolai continued without even taking a breath.
“Who do you think I am, turning my stomach inside out, humiliated by vulgar people?”
“!”
“Do you intend to truly make me a tyrant? Turn the slums into a sea of fire?”
I couldn’t understand most of what he was saying.
It seemed Nikolai himself didn’t comprehend what he was saying either.
The skin around his eyes turned red.
Thick veins protruded on his neck.
I must be going mad.
His appearance looked fatally attractive to me.
“Have you been stalking me?”
“I’ve been protecting you. Secretly.”
“I didn’t ask for it.”
“I don’t move on requests either.”
“So why, then?”
I don’t know either. But I won’t stop. Protecting you as well.
Is it a vow, or a confession?
Or perhaps it’s a threat.
Clearly angry, but why does he look so pitiful, trembling like a scared child?
I reached out my arms to him.
With both hands, I wrapped his cold cheeks, filled with palpable tension.
The trembling that’s transferred through the grip.
Is it strange that Nikolai’s eyes softened for a moment, looking like a cornered cat, but then suddenly looked like an enraged beast?
“Elizabeth. Do you dislike this me?”
“I’m not sure.”
“If you do, I’ll disappear. Right in front of you.”
His eyes were more sincere than ever.
He was pushing me into a deadend alley, forcing me to choose.
His stubbornness angered me, and while being angry, I felt foolish for having another piece of my heart stolen.
Suddenly, I felt a strange chill on my back.
I sensed an abrupt change in atmosphere somewhere.
I’ve felt this before. Yes, in the library!
“Cut it out.”
“So you dislike it.”
With those words, Nikolai’s body fell backward.
Splash!
I didn’t even have time to scream.
Whether it was deliberate or a mistake, I couldn’t tell.
The lake, darker than the night sky, swallowed him up.
Completely submerged, he didn’t resurface.
“Your Majesty?! This is going too far! Come out now!”
Only ripples formed on the water’s surface; no reply came.
Why does this man do such strange things?
Why does he do such crazy things?
There was no time to waste.
Tearing off my cumbersome skirt, I jumped into the lake.
To rescue an evidently insane tyrant.
(This is a time separator.)
When I met Douglas in the slums, Claudia couldn’t easily start a conversation.
It was the same when she arrived at Netleton Manor after accepting his invitation.
Instead of meaningless pleasantries, Douglas poured the cheap rum Claudia loved to drink.
‘Douglas has changed. His shoulders have broadened, and there’s a determination in his eyes.’
It wasn’t the intuition of a seasoned warrior, but the intuition of a woman who has observed a man for a long time.
The unique atmosphere Douglas exuded that made everyone around him comfortable was still there.
His lanky height and his hair, which looked as sweet as flower petals, remained unchanged.
An unforgettable childhood friend that I tried several times to forget.
The thrill that almost made my heart burst, and the desire to share the future, I had never been able to express.
Douglas’s eyes were always following another woman, not Claudia.
The wicked woman who seduced the emperor and disrupted the order of the empire.
“Why did you go to the slums?”
Douglas asked.
Relieved that the awkward silence was over, Claudia moved the glass to her lips.
“You have to start by looking at the slums to understand how the country works.”
“You’re inspecting public affairs right after coming back. You’re still the same, Radia.”
“Why did you go?”
“To buy medicinal herbs Susan asked for.”
“And?”
“I couldn’t. No, I didn’t even dare to.”
Douglas replied bitterly.
It wasn’t the face of someone regretful for not buying herbs.
Perhaps embarrassed for revealing his feelings to an old friend, he quickly changed the subject.
“How does it look in the eyes of the Knight Commander? Is the country running well?”
“It’s still a trash heap. There’s so much to fix, from start to finish.”
“Is that all?”
“Hmm. I saw a very interesting woman.”
“Interesting? That’s a first, coming from you?”
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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