Once the crying started, it was uncontrollable. Tears, which she had barely managed to hold back, surged like a spring. From Ariadne’s eyes, tears flowed ceaselessly like clear spring water.
She hadn’t cried once in the week since learning of Arabella’s death, save for the immediate aftermath. She had been too busy dealing with various tasks. But now, hearing Alfonso’s tender voice, her pentup sorrow came rushing back.
“That’s… I…”
She whispered through her tears. Her words were mixed with sighs and sobs.
“I just wish it all ended. I wish that when I close my eyes, tomorrow won’t come…”
At the sound of Ariadne’s feeble sobbing, Prince Alfonso could not help but hold her in his embrace.
The unfamiliar scent of a winter wind that infiltrated the hood mixed with the simultaneous warmth. The cloak lined with mink fur covered Ariadne’s eyes.
Overcome by the warm body heat and the bittersweet scent, she broke down in tears. All selfcontrol had flown away.
Surrounded by the double protection of the fur cloak and Alfonso’s embrace, she cried her heart out without care for sound or expression. Alfonso simply held Ariadne in his arms, stroking her back.
His hand moved in rhythm with her sobs. Warm body heat, comfortable weight, the connection between two people.
As Ariadne’s crying subsided, Alfonso softly shared his thoughts.
“I often think about that too. Why we are alive.”
Time passes, even when someone dies. And as time goes on, people inevitably die. The end is always set. What use is there in mechanically filling the time in between?
“After all, people can’t live forever and die. Some argue that there’s a choice in death, but even those who don’t want to die will reach an end. The only choice is in when to die.”
He feared that she might become one of those people arguing for a choice in death.
“We are born, so let’s live diligently, be thankful for being alive, and try to be as happy as possible during that time. Even if life doesn’t go as planned, don’t be disappointed. Save the energy for disappointment and try to find the greatest happiness wherever you can.”
When Ariadne, who had been crying for a while, stopped and pulled her head out of the cloak, Alfonso wiped her tears with the edge of the cloak. Her slightly revealed front teeth looked like a rabbit’s.
He knew he shouldn’t. There are lines in the world that you cannot cross back once crossed.
But there are times when you look back on the distant past and realize that you couldn’t act differently then. Moments when the world’s options narrow down to one. This was that moment.
Alfonso couldn’t resist anymore and leaned in to cover Ariadne’s parted lips with his.
“…..!”
Their silent lips met. An unfamiliar heat spread from the point of contact to her cheeks, from her cheeks to her throat, and from there to her entire body. Ariadne was surprised and opened her mouth, and Alfonso did not miss that opportunity.
The first thing Alfonso found were her cute rabbit teeth. Ariadne’s white front teeth were smooth like candy and contrary to the expectation of being cold, they were as sweet as candy.
“Uh….”
The woman, short of breath, let out a low moan. The man half opened his lips, allowing her to inhale, before plunging back in between her slightly parted lips.
The sweet body fragrance that had deeply imprinted in his mind when he once entered her room now stimulated Alfonso’s sense of smell. He inhaled that craved but unattainable scent over and over again.
The kiss of the man who had traveled half of the nation just to see her was persistent and fierce. And she didn’t avoid it.
Alfonso delved his hand into the hair at the back of her head, and Ariadne clung to his neck, enduring his onslaught of affection.
The pose of being held and holding was the same as when he had wiped her tears with a purple ceremonial cloak at the debutante ball, but many things were different from then.
The heat was different, the desperation was different, and the vanity of untouchable love was overflowing.
Unlike Alfonso’s cloak that was just pretty and clean that day, the cloak he was wearing today was full of signs such as ice pieces sticking and then melting into water, or remnants of frozen grass stuck during the winter.
After enough time for the soup to cool down in the cold room, Alfonso slowly parted his lips.
“……Haah……”
“Uh huh……”
The contact was dreamlike, and there was nothing left after it ended. Only a long strand of saliva, reddened lips, and a risen body temperature could prove what had just happened.
He looked into her deep emerald eyes. He hoped to see hope blossom within the despair that resided there.
“Don’t even think about dying.”
Alfonso raised his hand to stroke Ariadne’s disheveled hair.
It was similar to when Ariadne brushed Alfonso’s hair behind his ear at the fountain of the queen’s palace, but his hand movement was stronger and deeper. The girl’s neatly tied black hair flowed down like a waterfall.
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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