Thump.
Someone grabbed my bag.
Instinctively, strength entered the hand that held the bag.
Just moments ago, I thought money was worthless, but indeed, being rich and unhappy was a hundred times, a thousand times better than being poor and miserable.
“Ugh!”
A painful scream echoed as I exerted a little force.
As I lifted the bag with one hand, a small body dangled from it, swaying back and forth. It was a skinny boy.
Whether he was an indefatigable boy or a child who didn’t know when to give up, he was hanging on, vigorously wriggling his legs to snatch the bag.
“Who is this ignorant woman with such strength!”
In response to the boy’s muttering, I lost my composure for a moment.
“What?! Woman?!”
I started shaking the bag up and down, unable to restrain myself.
“Who’s a woman! Who!”
“Ouch!”
The boy eventually tumbled onto the pavement. Despite feeling a bit sorry for the sight of the skinny figure rolling around, when the boy muttered again, that feeling vanished.
“Clearly looks like a woman.”
“I’m a young lady who isn’t even married. How do I look like a woman?!”
I pulled a twig from my hair and started poking the boy.
“Moreover! What’s wrong with being a woman! So what if I am! Huh? Is it wrong for a woman to be strong? Why mock a woman!”
“Ugh!”
When the twig pierced through the boy’s shabby clothes, I stopped poking.
Perhaps due to the newly acquired strength, it was challenging to control.
I glanced around nervously, afraid that the boy’s parents might rush in and accuse me of assault.
“Enough. Get lost.”
I cleared my throat and put on the sternest voice I could.
“If you get caught stealing again, I’ll make sure you’re in big trouble.”
However, instead of retreating modestly, the boy threw himself towards my bag again.
“It’s not over! It won’t go back without money.”
Seeing the boy’s eyes filled with venom, I became curious. What had driven this boy to such desperation?
“Why do you need money?”
“If there’s no money, our dad will be beaten again!”
“Beaten?”
I looked at the boy with curiosity. Having nowhere to go, and especially seeing a boy throwing himself to save his family, I couldn’t help but think of the people I had left behind.
“Alright!”
The boy glanced at me.
“What’s good about it!”
“I’m going to your house.”
I firmly held the boy’s wrist so he couldn’t run away.
“Guide me.”
Kilian clenched the blood-stained dress. In the pungent scent of blood, his sister’s fragrance faintly lingered.
“Let’s go back for today.”
When the servant cautiously spoke, Kilian’s jaw tightened sharply. The servant flinched for a moment, but steadfastly continued.
“The search dogs seem unable to find a direction, and staying longer seems futile.”
Ignoring the servant, Kilian took a step forward. As Kilian passed, the search dogs, who had been spinning in circles in place, whimpered in fear, tails tucked between their legs.
“If the dogs can’t find it, I’ll find it myself.”
The servant stared with dismay as Kilian disappeared deeper into the forest in an instant. The shadow cast by the swiftly setting sun stretched unusually long.
With each step, Kilian ventured further into the darkness.
Originally a cold-hearted young master, Kilian, after Lady Reyna disappeared, became a lifeless figure, devoid of any human warmth. Sometimes, looking at the face frozen like a shell without a single expression, it felt like seeing the face of a dead person, and there were moments when fear suddenly gripped me.
If it weren’t for Master Kongja tirelessly searching the mountains day and night, it would genuinely seem like Kilian had died.
No, perhaps Master Kilian himself didn’t know he had died.
As time passed, it became more and more certain.
Since the only thing that made Kilian somewhat humane had disappeared, he might as well be considered dead.
So, the servant couldn’t speak any more. He couldn’t bring himself to utter the well-known fact.
It was too late. No matter how much he searched, nothing would change. The only thing to hope for was to find the remains so that Lady Reyna could rest peacefully.
If he spoke those words, it seemed like the young master he knew would disappear forever.
The sighed servant quickly followed after Kilian.
“Let’s go together, Young Master.”
The place the boy led to was a narrow thatched house in the slums. As soon as I got closer, I could sense that something was wrong.
The door that should be closed was torn open and swayed, and the window was broken. Continuous screams echoed from inside.
“P-Please save me!”
As I stepped inside the broken door, a man hanging upside down from the ceiling, begging, came into view. A group that looked like thugs surrounded him, wielding extensions like predators surrounding prey.
“D-Money, by next week for sure. Ke-!”
When one thug punched the man’s stomach, he writhed like a fish caught, held upside down.
“You kept saying next week even last week. How long are you going to keep repeating the same thing? You… ”
The thug twisted his fist with a menacing expression.
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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