The Duke Stole Everything - Chapter 15
The more he recalled the situation from earlier, the more suspicious the words and actions of the soldier who was the squad leader seemed.
‘The reason for searching at night. Does it mean the goal is not to capture? A search with value equivalent to the lives of several people.’
Anxiously biting his lip, the man hoped that he was not the sole cause of that search.
‘It’s useless.’
There was nothing he could do except run while carrying the physically weak woman.
He didn’t know how to do anything else. He had no knowledge, no common sense, just the ability to speak eloquently.
‘Damn it.’
He despised his own incompetence.
“……”
Tap tap. Sharti’s careful index finger touched the man’s chin.
Snapping out of his thoughts, the man hesitated and looked at her.
Sharti spread her palm and waved it in front of him.
Looking at the words written on her small palm, strangely, his frustration eased a little.
“I have something to ask.”
“……”
“……you.”
Sharti nodded.
The man frowned while avoiding her gaze.
“If the bears hadn’t appeared just then, what were you planning to do? ……you?”
The wind blew.
His damp bangs, wet with body heat, swayed.
Sharti slapped his shoulder, which was still avoiding her eyes.
“……”
He shook his head.
The corners of Sharti’s mouth, hidden by her hood, lifted slightly.
“What?”
The man stopped walking in surprise.
He wouldn’t have known, but it was one of the herbs Sharti always carried when she went deep into the mountains.
“But then……”
“……”
The man was at a loss for words. He was unsure whether to marvel at her thorough preparation or sigh at her reckless courage.
However, his response was the same this time as well.
“How did you collect such herbs? ……you? Wouldn’t it have been dangerous for you too, doctor? ……you?”
“……”
When the man frowned, he looked somewhat fierce.
Hesitating for a moment, she quickly shook her head.
The man’s lips moved, but he didn’t say anything. In the end, it seemed presumptuous for him to say anything, since he owed his life and protection to her.
He just silently quickened his pace again.
The man supported Sharti, whose small frame felt almost weightless, more firmly.
‘……It seems she’s only afraid of people.’
The seemingly fearless Sharti had shown anxiety only towards people so far.
He hadn’t forgotten her reaction when her hood briefly slipped off, exposing her face.
‘This distance between us is just right.’
The man with keen night vision hurried along, moving in the direction Sharti pointed.
And finally, an old log cabin came into view.
“Is this it? ……you?”
The man set Sharti down.
Relieved to have safely arrived at the house, Sharti was about to lead him inside.
“Someone’s in the house.”
Just then, a shadow was visible through the light from inside the house.
[This is the timeline separator]Sharti immediately stopped walking and turned around in surprise, pulling the man with her.
Sharti hurriedly flung open the door of a long, narrow storage shed near the log cabin. As soon as the door opened, the man frowned.
Soon, the man turned to Sharti with a look of disbelief.
“……”
Sharti, her eyes tightly shut, moved as the man had expected.
“W-wait…!”
Sharti shoved the man into the shed alone.
Shh. Sharti urgently put a finger to her lips, then closed the shed door.
With a bang, the man’s facial muscles tensed as he was left alone in the darkness.
“Hmm? You’re back, Sha. Where have you been until now?”
Sharti turned slowly away from the shed, her face tense.
Bireta, with her hunched back and wrinkled face, was coming out of her house.
“Why the fermentation shed? Didn’t you say it needed to be left to age a bit longer?”
Sharti smiled awkwardly.
Only then did she realize the state of the herbs stored in the shed.
“……”
The man, unintentionally trapped in the fermentation shed, once again summoned his patience.
Sadly, his sense of smell that he had suspected was not damaged.
The man had to endure an even longer and more distant time than when he was hiding behind the rock.
‘But there was nowhere else to hide!’
She shouted the explanation that wouldn’t be conveyed inwardly, belatedly.
Sharti approached Bireta, hiding her urgent feelings.
She couldn’t let Bireta come near the shed.
The old woman clicked her tongue.
“I was worried because you suddenly ran out of the house right after I told you soldiers were coming, Sha.”
Actually, it was Bireta who had brought the news about the soldiers searching the mountain.
If it weren’t for Bireta, who came when Sharti returned home to pack her robe, she wouldn’t have been able to hide even the man, let alone the cave.
“Right. You went because of that cave, didn’t you? When I went by earlier, it had completely collapsed.”
Bireta tapped her bent back.
Relieved that the man’s existence hadn’t been discovered, Sharti smiled awkwardly.
“But Sha, child. What’s with that appearance? Did you run into the soldiers by any chance?”
At the concern hidden in the rough tone, Sharti waved her hand.
Bireta carefully examined Sharti’s condition.
“Hmm….. Your breathing isn’t disturbed. Well, I suppose. There’s no way the soldiers could have found you, Sha, in the middle of this night.”
As if proud, Bireta patted Sharti’s head under her hood. Sharti smiled broadly from within her hood.
Bireta’s touch, full of calluses, was still rough but affectionate.
“……”
And Bireta glanced towards the fermentation shed, avoiding Sharti’s eyes.
When Bireta’s eyes narrowed, Sharti diverted her attention.
“Of course. I went and came back safely. Those fools called this old woman all the way to that far place for nothing, so I squeezed out a hefty fee. Was the bread tasty?”
“Alright, alright.”
Bireta laughed, lightly brushing off Sharti’s nagging.
“Oh, right. On my way down from the mountain, I stopped by that mountain village, and if anyone comes looking for you, Sha, asking for help, you must firmly refuse.”
“……”
“Those inconsiderate bastards! Cutting the price! Making you work your ass off! Creating work out of nowhere! Talking endlessly! Aish! I’ll fry those shameless ones!”
Bireta’s wrinkled face became even more fierce.
Sharti’s expression became troubled. As a doctor, a rare profession in the mountain village, she often received requests for house calls from other villages.
The problem was that unlike the village where Bireta’s family stayed, other mountain villages were not welcoming to outsiders.
“Sha, don’t ever go there. Understand? Those without gratitude or even a thankful heart need to experience hardship to come to their senses!”
Bireta got heated, as if there had been a lot building up.
Sharti quickly nodded.
The longer the conversation went on, the more she felt like she could sense the man’s gaze from inside the shed.
“Alright, alright. If someone comes looking from there, let me know. Got it?”
At Sharti’s prompt answer, Bireta glanced towards the shed.
“Well then, I’ll be going now.”
As Sharti approached to see her off, Bireta shook her head.
“What danger could there be on a mountain path that even my grandson climbs for an old woman like me?”
As if refusing to be treated like an aged grandmother, Bireta left abruptly.
As soon as Bireta’s figure disappeared from view, Sharti immediately opened the shed door.
“……”
“……”
As soon as the door opened and he smelled the outside air, the man, who had been standing pale and stiff, staggered.
Sharti hurriedly approached to support his body.
Their eyes met – his cloudy blue-green eyes.
“J-just… l-let’s go inside……”
The man, who seemed to have a lot to say, looked visibly exhausted.
He had endured loneliness alone in the dark cave, and held his breath at Sharti’s touch while hiding behind the rock, but he had crumbled at the scent of Sharti’s special fermented herbs.
“……”
Sharti did her best to support the man as they headed towards the house.
Creeeeak….. As they opened the log cabin door and entered, a cozy atmosphere immediately enveloped the two of them.
Sharti pointed to a small, one-person sofa.
The sofa, covered with a blanket, looked soft.
“The smell will linger.”
The man was reluctant to sit due to the mud and the strong fermented herb smell all over his body.
Seeing the cozy interior so different from the cave, he didn’t want to dirty it.
Sharti wrote casually, as if the smell from the man’s body wasn’t that strong.
“……I’m more comfortable on the floor.”
The man stubbornly sat on the floor where there was no carpet.
Sharti left him be and headed to the bathroom, telling him to do as he pleased.
Left alone, the man looked around, taking in the interior of the log cabin.
“I can tell right away whose house this is.”
Bundles of herbs, papers with mixing formulas written on them, medical books, and medicine bottles could be seen all over the house.
It looked too cluttered to be a regular home, and was quite modest.
“……”
The man tried his best to position himself so that his filth wouldn’t stain anything. But given his large frame, it wasn’t very effective.
Sharti, who had washed her hands while filling the bathtub, saw this sight and couldn’t help but smile a little.
‘Good thing I bought those magic stones.’
She took out the two-week supply of magic stones she had successfully purchased and inserted them into the bathtub frame.
The magic stones gradually heated up and began to warm the bathtub. Sharti dissolved a few herbs and some herbal powder with aromatherapy effects into the bathwater.
When the water became lukewarm, Sharti removed the magic stones and beckoned to the man.
It was written communication through a piece of paper.
Now that they were back home, using paper and pencil was natural.
“……Alright.”
The man, who had naturally held out his palm first, withdrew his hand and nodded, hiding his disappointment.
Clack. After Sharti left, the man checked inside the bathtub. It was an herbal bath with a subtle scent of leaves.
He began to take off his mud-caked robe. Just as he was about to remove his pants…
Knock knock.
“……!”
The man stiffened at the knocking sound.
“Why… are you coming back in?”
The man frowned, swallowing his bewilderment as he saw Sharti enter the bathroom again.
After reading the note, the man’s expression became subtly disgruntled.
“……So you’re going to check that and then leave?”
Sharti calmly nodded.
The man put his hand to his forehead.
He was at a loss for how to raise this naive woman’s sense of caution.
In Sharti’s eyes, he was still just a patient, nothing more.
“My arms aren’t injured, so it’s not necessary. Nothing’s torn open, and I can wash myself just fine.”
Hiding his surge of emotions, the man quickly refused and turned his back to her completely.
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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