A few raindrops began to fall, gradually becoming heavier until it poured down like a torrent. Thanks to this, the soil that was about to dry out started to become muddy again.
With each step, the muddy path sank beneath Duke Valige’s feet, slowing his pace as if he were carrying bags of sand.
“Damn.”
He spat out a low curse as he stretched his increasingly heavy legs.
Looking at the condition of the ground, if the rain continued to pour like this, the weakened ground collapsing was only a matter of time.
When Duke Valige looked up, he saw trees sporadically sprouting at the end of the steep path.
As he climbed following the stream flowing to the left, the terrain became progressively steeper, and fierce river water was surging beside it.
‘The cliff beside the river must be the most dangerous.’
Hyperion roots may be spread throughout the hills, but they won’t collapse all at once.
Perhaps, except for the end of the cliff connected to the Cuerpit River, other places might be supported by other rooted trees. So, Lina would be safe if she didn’t go there.
But if Lina were at the edge of the cliff.
The ominous assumption made Duke Valige’s heart grow impatient, so he quickened his pace a bit. Though he reached halfway up the hill, he could not see a single strand of hair of the person he was desperately looking for.
“Where the hell is she?”
Could the man have seen her wrong earlier? Or did they take different paths?
As time passed without progress, his whole body was consumed by an indefinable anxiety.
“Lina!”
In his frustration, he called out the maid’s name into the void, but there was no response. Only the sound of the heavy raindrops hitting the ground echoed in his ears.
‘Please.’
Anxiety made his limbs tingle.
If anything happened to Lina, he would live in a living hell until he met a wretched death.
Just as all the members of the Permanence family had done before.
His chest felt weighed down as if by a heavy stone. The damp, heavy clothes, or the burdened body, sharpened his nerves further.
At that, Duke Valige angrily stripped off the robe he was wearing. With a thud, the robe he was wearing rolled in the mud.
And he kept running. Until he saw the one he was looking for.
How much further had he run? Suddenly, Duke Valige reached the end of the steep path.
He noticed the gravestones indicating a cemetery to the right of the trees, but Lina’s figure was not seen there either.
‘Could it be.’
He turned his stiff neck to look to the left.
Where it connected to the Cuerpit River. The place that was highly likely to collapse soon.
As if to prove that his expectation was coming true, the water that had been pooling on the ground was eerily flowing down to the left.
“Damn it.”
He bit his lip and spat out a low curse. Duke Valige’s body, about to run to that place, suddenly stopped.
No more.
The barely remaining sanity held his ankle.
Wasn’t it the curse that he was looking for Lina? Because without her, he could not bear the pain.
Because that was how he could escape death.
‘But, why.’
Duke Valige clenched his fist, glaring at the void.
And.
Click.
He started to run, making a clattering noise, towards where Lina was.
Why were his feet moving on their own? That, too, was confusing.
‘That maid is just.’
Just a tool to survive in this damn situation.
That’s definitely what it was.
But his feet just wouldn’t stop. Emotions he couldn’t even understand himself were choking him. But one thing was clear.
He would not be able to bear a future where the child was not breathing by his side.
Terribly so.
He might regret it. This foolish choice of his.
But despite that, there was no longer any hesitation in his movement towards the cliff.
When Duke Valige reached the end of the hill, he faintly began to see Lina’s figure.
But the relief of finding her was brief. He realized she was standing precariously at the edge of the cliff.
“Lina!”
The Duke, his heart chilled, called out her name with all his might, but his voice was drowned by the heavy rain.
His step quickened, feeling urgency.
“Lina!”
This time, Lina seemed to hear his voice, turning to find the owner of it.
“Your Grace…?”
“It’s dangerous there, come here quickly!”
But Lina just stood still, as if she didn’t understand his words. In his anxiety, as Duke Valige was about to approach her closely, he realized that the trembling of the ground was not normal.
“It’s dangerous!”
No sooner had he warned her than the ground where Lina had been standing began to collapse.
‘No.’
Lina’s body fell into the river below without a moment to spare. And, at the same time, his heart crumbled.
“Lina!”
‘Please.’
He reached out desperately towards her as she gradually receded from his sight, but his slender fingers merely brushed past helplessly.
‘I don’t want to lose her.’
“Your Grace! Don’t do it!!”
Frantic voices calling the Duke came from afar. But as if he couldn’t hear anything, he didn’t stop his forward steps.
And when he realized that there was no longer anything to support him beneath his feet,
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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