Duke Valige looked deep into the robe being worn by Lina and asked,
“Who are you?”
Though summer was ending, the weather was still too hot to be wearing a robe.
Moreover, she had hurriedly grabbed a winter robe on her way out. Anyone could see that it was an odd behavior.
Unable to say anything to his question of who she was, she only moved her lips slightly, and the Duke said as he moved closer to her,
“I asked who you are.”
Her heart sank to the floor with a ‘thud’ and then sprang back up.
A face without any expression. A cold voice. There was even a strange chill in the air.
‘That night. What if the magic spell had gone wrong?’
Anxiety tingling at the tips of her feet muddled her head. As if her mouth was full of grass, Lina couldn’t respond, and Valige commanded,
“Lift your head.”
Would this be the feeling of a cornered mouse? There was no way out.
“It’s okay. There’s no way the magic went wrong that day.”
Clasping her trembling hands, she reassured herself several times. Then, at last, Lina reached out to the hood covering her head.
The moment her pale face was revealed as the hood was feebly pulled back, Alex, who had been silently watching, blocked the view.
“Oh, so this fellow recognizes a beautiful woman even as a male?”
The Duke couldn’t see her face because of the prince who had suddenly shielded Lina’s body.
A playful act by mischievous Alex broke the strange tension that had been hanging in the air.
“I mean, she’s a female.”
“Then let’s say her beauty is so magnificent that even a female would fall for it.”
Alex turned around and replaced the hood on Lina’s head, then winked at her with one eye.
Valige glanced at Alex’s back but could only catch a glimpse of the woman’s silver hair, hidden by his body.
“Is she someone you know?”
“Well, shall we say I’m getting to know her?”
Valige shook his head at Alex’s vague answer, looking bored, and called for Thunder.
“Then stay at this woman’s house tonight.”
The Duke said decisively as he climbed onto his horse and muttered, clearly ready to leave. Watching Valige prepare to depart, Alex scratched the back of his head and looked at Lina.
“I was going to take you, but what to do, sorry about this?”
Lina waved her hand at the prince’s face, mixed with regret and apology. Being escorted by the prince was a refusal on her part.
“No, thank you very much for helping me earlier, Your Highness.”
Expressing her gratitude with noble courtesy, Alex kissed her hand.
“I hope we meet again someday, Lady.”
With the decorum befitting addressing a noble lady, Alex soon left with the Duke.
“Whew.”
Lina collapsed to the ground as soon as they were out of sight.
“Now I’m even involved with the royalty.”
The thought of quitting the mansion was reinforced at that moment.
[This is the time separator]Returning to the mansion, Valige exhaled as if he had a headache from the sudden appearance of the prince.
‘But it seemed familiar somewhere.’
The transparent silver hair behind Alex flickered in front of his eyes. He was pondering whether he had ever seen such clear silver hair before when a knock on the door pulled him out of his thoughts.
“Duke, it’s Lawrence.”
“Come in.”
Valige, who was fastening the cufflinks on his shirt, asked without even glancing.
“Lina?”
“……Not yet.”
“She hasn’t been found yet?”
Listening to Lawrence’s words, Valige asked in a voice no different from usual. But for some reason, the air around them felt as if it had frozen.
“……Yes.”
Lawrence swallowed dryly and answered quietly. He, too, was on the verge of going mad.
Piercing the stern security to find the traces of a maid who had evaporated from the mansion was no easy task.
“She can’t just be an ordinary maid, disappearing without leaving a trace like this.”
Lawrence held out a bundle of papers to Duke Valige with confident eyes.
“What is this?”
The Duke, who had been chuckling over the papers presented to him, asked.
“It’s an additional report about a maid named Lina.”
“An additional report?”
The Duke, who hadn’t shown any particular interest, brightened his eyes at the name of Lina.
Duke Valige’s complexion gradually darkened as he immediately snatched up the documents Lawrence was pushing and began to skim them.
“Is all of this true?”
“Yes. It’s just too strange that only the maid has a different hair color when both her parents have brown hair. I looked into it a bit more deeply. But then…”
Before Lawrence could finish his report, the Duke muttered.
“The Lina who lived at the Earl Anthony’s place is already living somewhere else?”
“……Yes.”
Duke Valige exhaled a frustrated breath as if in disbelief and put down the report. The paper contained information about the ‘real Lina’ who had been living at Earl Anthony’s place.
“The Lina you’re looking for, Duke. No. That maid, whose name isn’t even certain, has entered the mansion disguised.”
“A scheme.”
A sigh escaped from Valige’s mouth.
It was all a lie. The father, who was said to be a coachman, and the mother, who was said to be a maid, too.
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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