Sharti, trembling, pulled out a small pouch containing paralysis powder.
One chance. A risky gamble, only if the masked figure hadn’t killed Sharti with a thrown dagger at once when she opened the window.
“It would be faster for the intruder to kill me and escape elsewhere than for me to call people.”
Gulp. Dry saliva involuntarily went down her throat.
“…”
Whether accustomed to pain or not, the masked figure turned to Sharti with a threatening look as if about to kill her.
To the pair of bloodshot eyes staring at her with a fierce glare, Sharti’s eyes were about to close, gasping for breath.
” Now!”
As the masked figure closed the distance, attempting to swing the dagger, Sharti urgently sprayed paralysis powder.
And she shouted with all her might.
“Reeeeeen !”
In moments where life is threatened, various thoughts may come to mind.
Scream.
Shout for mercy.
Call for help.
Summon the grandmother.
Alert the mercenaries.
However, the brain under emergency lighting couldn’t follow rational judgment.
[Sha .]Instead, her brain had learned through previous experiences.
Unconsciously, she signaled the presence that she should seek when in danger.
That’s why.
In the moment when Sharti might have died, with her eyes closed, she thought of only one person.
The one who was more furious than anyone else for not being able to protect her from Dohdint.
“Sha!”
With a thud, the sound of something breaking echoed.
Simultaneously, a soft blanket covered Sharti’s head.
“Just a moment, keep your eyes closed. Block your ears too.”
Whether it was because he was gritting his teeth, his voice sounded more rigid than usual. Even so, Sharti found Ren’s voice oddly reassuring, and she quickly covered her ears.
Of course, it didn’t completely block out the sound.
Thud, thud . Thud! Thud thud thud!! The sound of relentless blows was heard like a drumbeat. Trying to divert her gaze from the violent scene, Sharti concentrated on her pounding heart.
Soon, Sharti felt a sense of someone approaching beyond the blanket.
“Are you hurt?”
“N-no, I’m not. Really.”
Sharti nodded her head. She wanted to reassure Ren by raising her head, but she was in her sleepwear without a hood, and there might be traces of sleepiness in her throat, so she responded with only her voice.
‘I might have bruised my neck.’
She could tell without checking her throat.
The voice, already resembling a frog’s croak, sounded a bit huskier.
As Sharti touched her neck area, Ren pulled her into an embrace along with the blanket.
“Ren?”
“…Fortunately, it’s okay.”
A slight tremor was felt in Ren’s slightly cracked voice.
Feeling that tremor conveyed through Ren’s embrace, Sharti finally realized that she was alive.
Her nose twitched, and Sharti bit her lips.
It’s quite a bitter and, not to mention, a pathetic fate.
How long has it been since Dohdint was removed, and she’s facing such a threat again?
“I’m sorry…”
A suppressed voice came out of Sharti’s mouth.
Once again, she dragged Ren into a threat. At this point, she had lost all dignity to face Ren.
“You must have been very surprised. Just talking nonsense.”
Ren responded to Sharti’s apology with a face that suggested it wasn’t worth answering.
“Rather than talking nonsense, you should get angry at times like this.”
“I didn’t talk nonsense…”
“In times like this, you should express your anger. Not talking nonsense.”
“I didn’t say anything nonsense…”
Trying to argue back, the choked Sharti, but Ren chuckled.
“Okay. Like that.”
Sharti was speechless.
To express anger, to whom?
‘Why do these things only happen to me? Is there any justice in complaining to the heavens?’
Sharti glanced at Ren and sniffled softly.
Ren pulled the blanket and caressed Sharti’s face.
“If the master is in danger, you should have rushed over. Instead of calling, you should have known and come running before. Consider this a warning for the future.”
As Sharti buried her face in the blanket, she looked up at Ren with a bewildered expression.
Like a humor attempting to lighten the mood, Ren’s intentions were undoubtedly sincere.
“Claims to be the master at every opportunity.”
Ren seemed to enjoy calling Sharti with a high-sounding title for herself and lowering his own.
Initially reluctant, Sharti had become accustomed to being treated like an assistant or a servant.
Perhaps due to Sharti’s deference to Ren, she was now less embarrassed.
“Still, you did well.”
Ren’s stiff expression slightly softened.
“You called me this time.”
“…….”
“Certainly, a slave is better than a patient.”
It meant that a slave who can be protected is better than a patient under protection.
Sharti let out a silent laugh at Ren’s proud face. There is no one else but Ren who would say that a slave is better.
Certainly, as Sharti listened to Ren’s voice, the tension built up in her body gradually eased.
“Weren’t you sleeping?”
“It seemed like you weren’t sleeping.”
Unlike her, who was confident in her hearing, Ren seemed to have heard her tossing and turning even with one wall between them.
Sharti secretly sighed with relief.
‘Thank goodness I didn’t say weird, soliloquy-like things.’
She decided that she should only think silently if Ren is close in the future.
“I’ve been waiting to give you a massage.”
“You waited; there’s no way I would ask Ren for a massage in the middle of the night.”
Moreover, Sharti thought Ren would be asleep, so she wouldn’t have called him, no matter how much her legs hurt.
Ren looked puzzled at Sharti’s evident surprise at this natural fact.
“I guess so.”
Ren acknowledged with indifference.
“So I waited.”
“Until I called you?”
“Sha, until your thoughts were organized.”
Ren released the arm that was embracing Sharti along with the blanket. As the pressure that wrapped around her, giving a sense of security, disappeared, Sharti strangely felt the cold.
Before Sharti could shiver, Ren quickly brought a robe and put the hood on her.
“Since your head must have been complicated since the daytime, it’ll be less awkward once it’s organized.”
Ren’s touch, which meticulously checked the robe, was somewhat rough.
“Then, I thought you’d look at me as usual by morning.”
“…….”
“Or, it would have been okay even if you left the room in frustration and bumped into me.”
Quite an accurate judgment.
Sharti rolled her eyes discreetly. It felt self-deprecating to think that Ren was simple enough to understand her so easily.
Then, suddenly, she realized something.
‘…I’ve gotten used to it.’
As they thought about each other, observed each other, and spent time together, just like Sharti, Ren had also become familiar with her.
[Where you’re going, Sha, because you’re there.]She recalled Ren’s words from last time.
Simultaneously, today, his smile that flowed with the wind also flickered in her mind.
The tingling in her chest at that moment made Sharti’s heart ticklish with the tremors that had always come from him.
“……Sha?”
Unconsciously, Sharti grabbed Ren’s hand.
The fragile fingers, not holding tightly, were just desperate.
‘It’s just a misunderstanding.’
Their gazes entwined in the darkness.
Uncertain and negating thoughts continued.
‘Don’t give it meaning.’
In the darkness, only Ren’s pupils were distinctly visible.
As if enchanted by the turquoise-colored pupils, Sharti slowly opened her mouth, ignoring the signals from her head.
And finally, Sharti asked.
“Ren, do you like me?”
Sharti couldn’t know what answer she wanted to hear.
But one thing she knew for sure.
“If I answer .”
Ren had no intention of avoiding the question.
“Can you handle it?”
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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