Melia, oblivious to his mood, greeted him with a polite smile.
“Hello, Duke. Nice to see you again.”
“Well, we meet again. What brings you here? I heard the priest’s duties are quite demanding.”
Herdin responded to Melia’s words with a suitable reply, intentionally gauging Blair’s reaction.
“Oh, it’s a rare holiday, and I came to see the children but ended up meeting the Duchess. It seemed like you needed help, so I pitched in.”
“It’s grateful to have someone take over my share of the work.”
“Oh, no. I’m doing it because I like to.”
However, Blair, with an expression that couldn’t be read for courtesy or emotion, silently observed their conversation. As if the unwelcome guest in this conversation was not Melia but herself.
Herdin, who had kept his gaze fixed on Blair even while talking to Melia, finally took Blair’s hand first.
“Well, we have some work, so let’s go.”
Blair was pulled away by him without a chance to exchange greetings with Melia.
“Ah…”
As they distanced themselves, Melia’s face showed a hint of regret and at the same time, a sense of pity.
“…Indeed, she doesn’t seem to smile by the Duchess’s side.”
A pitiful person.
You must be happy.
‘I have to save her.’
From that hellish strategic marriage.
The two people who left the orphanage headed to the temple annex.
Most of the nobles of the Ardell Empire are buried in their own territories.
However, as nobles often reside in the townhouses of the system, it is not easy to visit the family’s grave on specific days.
For such individuals, the temple created an annex called the Soul Pavilion to enshrine their souls.
From the temple’s perspective, it was an opportunity to receive donations, and from the nobles’ perspective, it was a good thing as they could visit the deceased nearby.
The building created for this purpose was diligently guarded by the holy knights.
Although there were no corpses here, it was a place to enshrine the deceased, so security was strict to maintain a solemn atmosphere.
“Please come inside, both of you.”
A holy knight who verified their identities guided them into the annex.
After climbing the stairs of the annex a few times, they reached the room where the ancestors of the Duke of Delmark were enshrined. In front of it, the family crest was drawn.
After the guiding knight stepped back, the two entered the room. There were portraits of the past Dukes of Delmark in the room.
As Blair was about to enter the room, he suddenly faced their portraits and hesitated.
‘Is it okay for me to be here?’
In his past life, it was so natural for him to be by Herdin’s side, but this time, such thoughts came to him.
I will leave this house soon.
Is it unnecessarily disturbing for him to have time to talk with his parents?
Blair looked at Herdin’s back as he walked ahead and cautiously opened his mouth.
“Herdin.”
At her call, he turned around.
“I’ll wait outside for a moment.”
“Why?”
“…In case you feel uncomfortable.”
Herdin silently glanced at Blair.
His fake wife used to distance herself like this during crucial moments. He didn’t like that.
“What could a husband not showing himself to his wife look like.”
Approaching briskly, Herdin took Blair’s hand and brought him toward her. Blair obediently followed that touch and stood by her side.
Standing in front of the portraits, holding hands, they unintentionally looked like a genuine couple, evoking a sense of guilt as if deceiving the ancestors of the Duke. However, the hand that held Blair’s showed no intention of letting go; it was firm.
Blair glanced up at Herdin standing next to him.
His expression, looking for the place where his parents’ souls were enshrined, was intensely indifferent. It seemed like he was someone searching for a stranger’s grave rather than a place where his parents’ souls were enshrined.
But Blair knew.
Despite pretending not to care about the stories of his parents’ accident coming from others’ mouths, he remembered the boy who escaped the banquet hall and suffered alone.
How much pain did that boy endure to become the person he is now?
He once even loved that loneliness, thinking he could fill that emptiness himself.
But now he understands that it was an arrogant hope.
“Let’s go now.”
The two who had been standing there for a while left the mortuary after their final prayers for the deceased.
At that moment, someone appeared walking down the corridor. Blair, recognizing him, widened his eyes.
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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