Ariadne and Alfonso were walking inside the mazelike garden in an awkward silence.
Ariadne was leading with quick steps, but she had no destination. She was just circling around in the mazelike garden.
Alfonso noticed that Ariadne wasn’t going anywhere in particular, but patiently followed her three steps behind.
“Ari…”
After a long walk, Alfonso could not bear the awkward silence and broke it first.
“Lariessa is the second daughter of Duke Balroa. As Cesare said, she visited San Carlo as part of the political marriage process.”
Ariadne, who turned around, didn’t answer. A hellish silence fell for a moment. But Alfonso didn’t back down and courageously called her name again.
“Ari.”
The lady with her back turned did not even flinch.
Outwardly, Ariadne seemed to be maintaining her calm, but inside, uncontrollable emotions were whirling like a stormy sea.
‘‘Lariessa’!’
Ariadne found herself feeling intense jealousy over the fact that Alfonso had called his strategic marriage partner not ‘Duke Balroa’s daughter,’ not even ‘Duchess Lariessa,’ but simply ‘Lariessa.’
She bit her lip in embarrassment. That’s okay. She could do that.
‘Emotion is a luxury, emotion is a luxury.’
Ariadne repeated over and over. She was not going to love anyone.
In her past life, her love for Cesare became the chain that swallowed her life. She wouldn’t repeat the same mistake in this life.
Prince Alfonso was nothing more than a tool. There should be no love for him, no dedication to him. She didn’t have the luxury of that. Everything other than survival was secondary.
“Alfonso.”
At Ariadne’s answer, Alfonso straightened his posture.
“Yeah, talk. I’m listening.”
He hesitated for a moment, then cautiously added.
“Are you angry that I didn’t tell you about Duchess Lariessa in advance…?”
It took a great deal of courage to face and acknowledge the fact that one’s actions might have offended others. It was as if Alfonso had boldly taken a big step forward in the relationship.
But Ariadne, who was focused on protecting herself with a shell, took Alfonso’s courage as a cowardly pretense.
“Alfonso, why would I be angry about that? Aren’t we good friends?”
As Ariadne turned around to face Alfonso, she hid her expression perfectly behind an enamel mask. In that state, she answered in the most nonchalant voice she could muster.
“Congratulations on your arranged marriage with the lovely lady. You’re going to be the soninlaw of the Balloa Grand Duke.”
Alfonso was left speechless.
He wanted to tell her. The Grand Duchess Lariessa is a bit odd, do you know what she did today? I don’t really want to marry her.
If they knew the personality of the Grand Duchess Lariessa, would they still give him this marriage?
However, her porcupinelike hard spikes were strongly pushing him away. Were my feelings, just my own thoughts? Was it my illusion that we were looking at the same place together? Do you not want me?
The person who approached him special for the first time in his life was saying that he was not special to her now. Alfonso had always been in the opposite situation. A handsome appearance, a gentle personality, excellent achievements, and a noble position, the socalled ‘Golden Prince’.
People whose names he didn’t even know chanted his name, thirsted for his gaze, and wanted his love. Many people crossed the line. On the other hand, his favors, no matter how trivial, were never rejected.
So, Alfonso had never even imagined such a situation.
Alfonso forgot to speak and just stared at her. Is the virtue of this time to respect her will by stepping back like a gentleman, or….
Alfonso clenched his fist.
[This is the time separator]The more Isabella thought, the more her anger surged. Something was terribly wrong. It was certain that Ariadne was using some special method.
With Ariadne sucking honey with both hands full of rice cakes, and her being happy with just picking up a bracelet, this could never happen.
“That cunning girl must be up to her fox tricks!”
Did she make a vulgar physical attack? She must have done it. Ariadne had nothing but her body to show off, and there was no other way to explain this abnormal situation but a physical attack.
‘Alfonso and Count Cesare have no interest in me, who is so pretty and cute, but they are hanging on to ugly Ariadne!’
It could never happen in fair competition. It was certain that there was a conspiracy Isabella didn’t know about.
Isabella was angry at herself who preciously picked up and held the bracelet that Ariadne, who she considered so insignificant that she wouldn’t even realize if she lost, took for granted. This bracelet, should I break it and throw it away….
That was when it happened.
“Ah! Ah!”
“Hmm, stay still.”
A strange sticky moan reached Isabella’s ears, who was enraged. It was a man and a woman’s voice.
‘What’s this?’
Isabella suppressed her footsteps and approached the source of the sound.
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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