Thud!
Ariadne stumbled. The arrogant maid was taken aback by Ariadne’s momentum.
“Did I not ask your affiliation?”
At the dignity shrouded in the lowpitched voice and attitude uncharacteristic for a fifteenyearold girl, the maid watched Ariadne, her spirit dampened.
“Ah, no, it’s not that. I thought there would be no need for you to know about my humble position……”
“Affiliation.”
The maid finally murmured with a crawling voice.
“I’m a maid on the second floor, serving Miss Isabella……”
Ariadne scanned the maid from head to toe. She was a maid with flaming red hair, short and plump, looking a year or two older than the current Ariadne.
“Name.”
“Miss……”
The redhead maid began to cry. However, under Ariadne’s stern gaze, she quickly bowed her head and gave her name.
“My name is Maletta……”
“I’ll be watching you.”
To the redhead maid who bowed her head like a reed, Ariadne added one more word.
“Behave properly.”
At her words, the maid Maletta, with her head bowed, hastily bowed deeply and ran out of the room.
[This is the time separator]Ariadne changed into a modest indoor dress from her ragged clothes and followed the maid to the residence of Cardinal de Mare.
The place where Ariadne was called to was not the study of Cardinal de Mare, but his private reception room. While he didn’t allow anyone into his study, family members were occasionally permitted in the reception room.
Knock knock.
“Your Eminence, I have brought Miss Ariadne.”
The maid knocked on the door almost servilely and announced Ariadne’s arrival to the Cardinal.
She remembered standing in this spot in her previous life, facing the golden painted baby angel, her face pale with fear.
Back then, just the sight of it made her shrink, but in this life, Ariadne didn’t blink an eye. Nine years of life as a social leader had made her accustomed to luxury.
Through the door opened by the servant, Ariadne walked in confidently. She entered softly, maintaining perfect court manners, and bowed deeply.
“Are you keeping well? As a sinner, I am overjoyed to see Your Eminence after such a long time.”
Cardinal de Mare looked at Ariadne, raising his left eyebrow in surprise.
He was a smallstatured man in his 50s.
He had a ratlike look. His small features, thin bone structure, and narrow shoulders resembled Isabella, but a 50yearold man with feminine features wasn’t handsome but insignificant.
Instead, his shining deep green eyes represented his formidable character.
“You’ve worked hard coming a long way. You must have had little opportunity to study growing up in Bergamo, but I’m glad you’ve grown well.”
‘Thank you for even pretending to care.’
Ariadne hid her inner thoughts and responded in a melodious tone.
“I’ll study harder and learn more to honor our family’s name and to make my parents and siblings proud……”
“That’s right. You shouldn’t be ashamed.”
A woman in her 40s cut off Ariadne’s words. It was Lucrezia.
“A woman’s virtue does not lie in studying and learning, but in serving and obeying her parents and siblings in her youth, and her husband in old age.”
Unlike Isabella’s mother, she was a woman with high cheekbones and a long face. But her amber hair and sapphire eyes were exactly like her daughter’s. Her impression was somewhat nervous.
With her raised eyes, she gave Ariadne a warning.
“Live quietly, like a proper girl.”
She was dressed in a dress of Porto Republic style. It was a daring style that exposed most of her chest, covering it only with a thin layer of lace.
Her trembling, white skin was quite sensual for her age, but she didn’t seem like an exemplary mistress of a great house.
‘There was a time when I thought being like that woman was the right example of a noblewoman.’
Having accumulated all sorts of social experiences and returning 10 years back, she was so vulgar that it was embarrassing to call her a noble.
‘What should I call the mental state of someone who instructs others to act indecently to men while wearing such a dress?’
Ariadne tried her best to smile childishly so that the thoughts rolling around in her head would not be revealed.
“Yes, Madam. I will try to be a good child following your instructions.”
Cardinal de Mare raised the ends of his eyebrows.
“Madam?”
However, that raised gaze was not directed at Ariadne, but at Lucrezia.
It was customary in the Etruscan Kingdom for the illegitimate children, unless they were separately registered, to address their stepmother as if she were their biological mother.
It was virtuous for an illegitimate child to be as filial as legitimate children, and it was the virtue of a gracious lady not to discriminate between her own children and illegitimate children.
However, an illegitimate child could not call their stepmother ‘mother’ without her permission.
Lucrezia forced a smile to please her husband, and accepted Ariadne’s greeting.
“You should call me ‘mother,’ not ‘madam.’ We can do it well.”
She couldn’t hide her distaste, but her new child and old husband didn’t care.
Male lead fell into her trap — and shattered when she walked away
This is also on my reread list!
This one is a slow burn, but when it burns, it burns hard.
Definitely worth a read, y’all!
The story follows a thousand-year-old seductive spirit who, on a bet, sets out to charm the male lead—a once-promising but unfortunate cultivator.
But just when she succeeds in making him fall for her, she heartlessly leaves, driving him to madness.
Determined to find her at all costs, he captures her, keeping her by his side no matter what, even if she hates him.
I love this kind of trope—I enjoy watching the male lead suffer in agony.
The ending drags a bit with unnecessary filler, but that’s fine.
As long as I enjoy the beginning, I’m good.
Intro
As an enchantress, Su Heng possesses captivating eyes and charming beauty, easily manipulating the joys and sorrows of living beings at her fingertips.
But to enchant a god, making him taste the bitterness of love’s separation, long-lasting resentment, unattainable desires, and inability to let go…
Do you dare?
Su Heng assists a divine lord in his cultivation, aiming to make him experience all the sufferings of love, so that he can attain the Great Dao.
Only after being chased down from the heavens by the divine lord, confined and completely possessed by him, does she realize how successful she has been.
The once gentle and polite youth has transformed into someone she no longer recognizes.
[Touch the gear icon in the bottom right corner of the screen to move to the next chapter if you want.]
