Raindrops falling from the sky were drenching the world, pouring down intensely like water scattering under a waterfall.
“Curse…”
He neither turned around to grab Lina nor questioned her words. He just kept his lips tightly closed with a dazed expression.
Bellige, who had been staring at the empty space where Lina had bid her final farewell, finally lifted his steps.
“I cursed the Marquis family.”
The curse that killed his father and condemned himself to hell.
“I killed them all.”
‘Was she the cause of all that?’
Perhaps it was because the muddy ground, soaked with rain, clung to his feet. Despite the pouring rain, he was moving slowly.
With a speed that seemed filled with deep agony or perhaps a hint of hopelessness.
“Lies.”
Yes, there was no way that statement could be true. The curse of the family was a long-forgotten history, and it was unclear when it even started.
But for Lina to claim she did it.
Bellige scoffed as if he couldn’t believe it. But if that statement was really false, why…?
“400 years ago, I killed them all, including the saint whom you loved.”
Lina’s words tormented him like a nightmare that visited him again today, as if he still hadn’t awakened.
To try to deny reality, Bellige clenched his fist. However, the sharp pain he felt from his fist was telling him something.
This was not a dream, but reality.
Meanwhile, outside the palace, Lawrence, who had been anxiously waiting for Bellige for a long time, paced around restlessly.
“Could something be wrong?”
Restless, Lawrence moved his feet here and there in his anxious state.
He used to be displeased with the Duchess. Everything about her, from her common birth to her unclear status, seemed like a burden to the Marquis.
But after observing her for the past few months, he trusted her more than anyone because he knew that she, too, had genuine feelings for the Marquis.
“But back then…”
Lawrence recalled the sight of Lina rejecting Bellige a few days ago. Unlike usual, she firmly pushed the Marquis away with a cold and solid demeanor.
Was her words and actions on that day genuine?
‘If she wasn’t blackmailed by the Second Prince…’
Remembering the events in Festivus made Lawrence furrow his brow. He didn’t want to see the Marquis like he did back then.
Frustrated by the unpredictable situation, Lawrence sighed.
Unable to endlessly wait for the Marquis outside, he decided to move his footsteps.
In his familiar eyes, barely visible in the pouring rain, he recognized one person.
“Marquis…!”
The man who looked like a drowned rat, coming without an umbrella in this heavy rain, was undoubtedly his master.
In response, Lawrence, with an astonished expression, hurriedly approached him.
“Marquis, what on earth…”
Lawrence, who was about to ask what had happened, sealed his lips upon seeing Bellige’s face. There was no need for words; it was clear from his expression that something significant had occurred.
In the end, the worst situation had unfolded.
Lawrence, who had been silently staring at the Marquis’s face, placed an umbrella over his head.
“…Please, Marquis. It’s cold out.”
And the only thing he could do was shield the Marquis from getting any wetter under the umbrella.
Inside the carriage heading to the mansion, Bellige, looking out the window with a dry expression, brought up memories of his father, even his face blurred.
His father, Felix Fermanness, could not be described as affectionate.
He, as the head of the Fermanness family, was rational, strong, and upright.
Though he seemed somewhat cold, Bellige could feel that he cared for him and his mother.
It was just that his father, due to his blunt personality, couldn’t express himself well.
Bellige loved such a father and was proud of him like any other son. However, when he turned seven, his father, a man as strong as the Iron Duke, began to crumble.
“Bring the medicine, quickly…!”
Marquis Fermanness went mad due to the curse.
It was a story everyone was talking about.
From some point, his father couldn’t sleep properly without medicine, and there were many days when he lost his sanity.
His father, who had always been dignified, was gradually going mad.
One day, he left the world with his mother due to a sudden carriage accident. The funeral of his parents, who faced their fate when he was only eight.
He suddenly remembered the shock when he saw his father’s face lying in the coffin.
‘At that time, my father…’
But what kind of face his father had at that time was as vague as the fog by the riverside.
It was when he was furrowing his brows and recalling past memories that the coach arrived.
“We’ve arrived, Marquis.”
The carriage, having arrived at its destination, came to a halt with a creaking sound. Bellige, who stood up from his seat, stepped out of the carriage.
However, an unexpected figure was waiting for him.
“Marquis.”
“…Cullen?”
As if welcoming him, Cullen, the steward responsible for protecting the territory, greeted the Marquis.
“I have something to report to you, Marquis.”
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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