When Sharti tightly shut her mouth, Ren felt disappointed.
It would be a lie to say he wasn’t surprised to hear Sharti’s voice for the first time.
But Ren wasn’t surprised because her voice sounded terrible.
It was the first time hearing ‘Sha’s’ voice.
It was her voice heard in reality, not imagination. He couldn’t help but be surprised.
“Ahem, I’ll go get what I left outside first.”
Ren changed the subject for now.
It didn’t seem like Sharti, who was avoiding eye contact, would believe him even if he spoke honestly.
Rather, thinking it might only create antipathy in her, Ren maintained boundaries again.
“I caught him.”
Thud. Ren said with a proud face as he threw the unconscious and bound Dodint onto the living room floor.
“I tied his hands and feet, and gagged his mouth too.”
“……”
Sharti, whose face had turned pale upon seeing Dodint, carefully took a step forward.
As she approached, his condition hidden by darkness began to come into view.
‘……Why is he naked?’
Dodint was in his underwear.
Sharti, who was examining him with a sour expression, tilted her head slightly.
Dodint’s face had changed in the meantime as well.
‘His face seems a bit, no, very swollen.’
There were also clear traces of blood that had flowed from his nose and mouth.
The state of Dodint’s teeth could also be glimpsed through the clothes stuffed in his mouth.
“……”
Sharti glanced at Ren.
Ren avoided her gaze, trying to gloss over his use of violence.
Sharti swallowed a small sigh and brought a magic stone to brighten the lighting.
As the darkness was driven away, the messy interior of the house became clearly visible.
Sharti rummaged through the bag she had just been packing luggage into and took out some ointment.
“Are you going to treat even a bastard like this as a patient?”
Ren asked, glaring fiercely at Dodint.
Sharti narrowed her eyes, glancing at Ren, and held out her hand.
Ren, who was about to reflexively hold out his palm, hurriedly rubbed his hands.
“Uh, it’s dirty. There’s dirt and rain on it.”
“……”
Sharti let out a small snort and grabbed his hand herself.
As expected, the skin on the back of his hand was scraped.
Ren made an embarrassed expression as his injured hand was discovered. But that wasn’t all.
‘You were cut by a knife.’
There was also a knife wound on Ren’s forearm from the blade Dodint had thrown.
Sharti suppressed her churning feelings and applied the ointment.
‘The wounds on your thigh and abdomen must have opened up too.’
Ren’s body was cold from going outside in thin clothing.
It was all because of her.
[I’m just a patient after all. Since I’m in a position to receive protection and help from you unilaterally, I suppose I have no right to ask or question.]Sharti mulled over the words he had said.
‘I’m just a doctor, and we’re both hiding our bodies. There’s no such thing as rights in this kind of relationship.’
If there was a loud noise from the bedroom, of course Ren should have kept quiet.
So why did Ren risk danger to chase after Dodint?
“What are you going to do now?”
Ren nodded towards her luggage bag.
“I caught him, so doesn’t that mean you don’t have to run away?”
As she was about to go look for a note to write to him, Ren held out his palm.
Since finding a note would require rummaging through the luggage bag again, and they had agreed to be careful from now on, Sharti compromised by opening her palm.
“He was the one who threatened and assaulted first though.”
Unlike Sharti, who was calmly accepting the situation objectively, Ren looked full of discontent.
He folded his arms and looked down at Dodint with murderous eyes.
“……I should have thrown him off a cliff or something.”
It wouldn’t have had to be high enough to kill him.
Ren’s eyes glinted coldly, as if he wanted to drag Dodint to find a cliff even now.
“Preparations?”
Sharti pointed to every corner of the house to Ren, who was looking at her quizzically.
Then she finally looked at Dodint.
“What?”
Sharti smiled faintly from inside her robe towards Ren, who was about to stop her immediately.
She was neither righteous, nor weak, nor stupid.
Hadn’t the powerless girl who lived kindly and innocently been burned to ashes?
“What should I do?”
Sharti revealed her plan to Ren, who seemed to have grasped the gist of it.
Ren laughed dryly, going from disbelief to feeling empty.
Her strategies were always reckless, but also the only breakthrough.
[This is the timeline separator]Tristan and the soldiers who were called to the old log cabin were at a loss for words at the sight before them.
The interior of the house in shambles as if a typhoon had swept through. The bedroom with broken doors and windows. And in front of it, one person glaring at the soldiers with bloodshot eyes.
“……Captain Dodint.”
The person with a face covered in all sorts of fungus and blisters was undoubtedly their captain, Dodint.
But his appearance was so shabby and dirty that half of the soldiers whispered in disbelief.
“Ugh, ugh, uuugh……”
Faced with his shocked subordinates, Dodint kept opening and closing his mouth, drooling.
No matter how hard he tried, all that came out of Dodint’s mouth were groans worse than an animal’s.
After confirming the scene before him several times, Tristan turned to look at Sharti.
They had rushed up the mountain when Sharti suddenly came to the inn, just as their departure was delayed until dawn while waiting for the typhoon to calm down.
“Doctor, so you’re saying this man, I mean the captain, no, this person threatened you?”
It was a voice of disbelief.
And for good reason – currently Dodint couldn’t even move a finger freely, let alone speak, despite his body being unrestrained.
Sharti calmly held out a note.
“A thief……”
“Well. He must have heard rumors about the doctor in the village with us too. So he wanted to get his wounds treated even if he had to hide.”
The soldiers all nodded their heads, criticizing Dodint’s shamelessness.
Sharti quietly took a deep breath.
If it weren’t for the notes, even lying would not have been easy.
“Is this because of the paralysis? Is there no antidote?”
Oh no. Tristan frowned, clicking his tongue as he glanced at Dodint.
It was true that Sharti had used several medicines on Dodint.
‘I used the paralysis powder quite strongly. Even after the paralysis wears off, the aftereffects will last quite a while.’
The paralysis powder she used was famous for having longer-lasting aftereffects the more it was detoxified.
Even with complete detoxification, there would be aftereffects of the tongue becoming stiff.
Dodint would have to pay the price for carelessly running his mouth for quite some time.
“Why are his joints like that……”
This was also somewhat true.
Dodint, who had been unconscious while bound, had a seizure as soon as he regained consciousness upon seeing Ren and tried to run away, only to collapse and twist his already aching joints even more.
“But still, for a woman alone……”
As expected, some soldiers expressed doubts, finding it too far-fetched.
No matter how many poisonous mushrooms he ate, Dodint was a captain with experience and skill.
He was not someone who would be caught off guard so easily as Sharti claimed.
‘There’s no choice.’
Just as Sharti was about to raise her hand slightly to give a signal, it happened.
“Doctor!”
“Sha!”
“……!”
Startled by voices that shouldn’t have been audible, Sharti turned her head to see Birena running up with Tein.
Moreover, behind the two, Bireta could be seen climbing the mountain while continuously patting her back.
Sharti gulped dryly.
“Doctor! Where is the bad person? Doctor, you must run away!”
“Sha, let me see. You said some XXXX broke into the house! Who is it! Where are they?! I won’t let that XXXX get away with this! How dare they sneak into the house like a thief?! Which XXXX is it?!”
As Birena raged with flashing eyes, the soldiers all shook their heads in unison.
Sharti awkwardly smiled while covering Tein’s ears.
It was difficult to meet Bireta’s eyes behind Birena.
“I heard the gist of it from Patricia.”
When the soldiers all climbed the mountain following Sharti who had come to the inn at dawn, Patricia, unable to contain her curiosity, had immediately gone to find Bireta.
Bireta, who was patting her curved back while leisurely looking around, spotted Dodint at a glance.
“So a soldier bastard who came to check on the village’s security dared to touch our child, is that right?”
Tristan reflexively nodded at Bireta’s overbearing aura.
As Bireta slowly moved, the soldiers hurriedly made way.
Walking up to Dodint, Bireta tilted her head this way and that.
“There were many rumors of vicious things hiding in the mountains and harming villagers, so I had told our child to prepare plenty of poisonous powder for self-defense……”
Dodint trembled at Bireta’s chilling gaze.
“It seems our child was too soft-hearted and only used paralysis powder.”
At the mention of poisonous powder, the soldiers’ murmurs briefly quieted.
It was only natural that Sharti, who was knowledgeable about herbs, would also know about poisonous plants.
As Bireta said, it was fortunate that Sharti was kind enough to use paralysis powder instead of a deadly poison.
Meanwhile, Dodint felt like he was suffocating.
No matter how much he tried to shout to his subordinates that they were being deceived, that it wasn’t true, that it was all lies, only groans came out.
Bireta watched Dodint’s silent struggle for a while, then turned to Tristan.
“So, do you have anything more to ask our child? Is it about compensation for the harm done to our child?”
“Well……”
In fact, Tristan was in an awkward situation too.
Dodint had committed a selfish and vile crime and fled. Of course, he should pay dearly for his crimes, but at the same time, he was still a frontier soldier and the captain of Tristan and the other soldiers.
Apart from wanting to consider it as heaven directly punishing Dodint and feeling satisfied, the status of Dodint and Sharti was involved.
“We need an accurate investigation of the circumstances, elder. We believe in the doctor’s response and innocence, but if we leave any suspicious points, the doctor may face hardship in the future.”
Tristan spoke carefully, vaguely guessing Sharti’s circumstances of living in hiding.
That was also something Bireta was cautious about.
That’s why she climbed the mountain with her granddaughter and grandson at this dawn to show her face in front of the imperial soldiers.
“So what are the points that are concerning?”
“There’s someone here!”
A soldier searching near the log cabin shouted.
Sharti squeezed her eyes shut.
All the soldiers and Bireta’s family stared at the suddenly appeared man.
“……Patient mister?”
Tein mumbled, tightly gripping the hem of Sharti’s robe.
The man brought by the soldier was Ren, with bandages wrapped around his face and body.
“He’s suspicious! Bandages on his face and body……”
“State your name. Are you a villager? What business do you have here?”
“……”
Instead of answering, Ren looked at Sharti. Sharti approached Ren while avoiding Bireta’s persistent gaze.
“Is this a man the doctor knows?”
“……Huh? But doctor, you said you lived alone……”
Tristan sent a suspicious look, alternating between Sharti and Ren.
It was an expected reaction.
As Ren was about to slightly grab Sharti’s sleeve, Birena, who had been exchanging glances with Tein, stepped forward boldly.
“He’s a slave!”
“He’s the slave mister!”
“Indeed. He’s our child’s slave.”
Bireta, who had been fondly looking at her granddaughter and grandson who shouted with clenched fists, looked at Sharti.
“Isn’t that right, Sha?”
As soon as her eyes met Bireta’s smiling gaze, Sharti realized.
Bireta already knew about Ren’s existence.
Sharti broke out in a cold sweat.
Meanwhile, Ren, who had suddenly become a slave, was overwhelmed with mixed feelings.
From a bear to a baby, then a patient. Now he had become a slave.
__________
Ex-husband Wants Reconciliation (Female-dominant)
One-line summary: Chasing the wife to the crematorium (making an effort to attract someone who has become indifferent), the female lead doesn’t look back, the second male lead takes the position.
Synopsis:
To repay the kindness of the older generation, Su Mu crossed into a female-dominated world and became a live-in daughter-in-law of the Yan family, single-handedly saving the Yan family from fire and water.
But her husband, Yan Jiyue, the eldest son of the Yan family, treated her with sarcasm and never showed her a good face.
He even had his eyes on another woman.
It wasn’t until after Su Mu’s death that this pampered and arrogant young master shed a few fake tears and pretended to want to die for love.
Su Mu expressed her disdain.
This life’s kindness was enough. If there was a next life, she would definitely kick Yan Jiyue away.
She also wanted to embrace Xie Yi, who had silently stayed by her side in her previous life and committed suicide by taking poison after her death.
Who knew that the heavens would be so kind as to allow her to be reborn, returning to the time when she had just married into the Yan family.
Su Mu glanced at the Yan eldest son, who still spoke coldly to her, and threw a divorce letter in front of him.
“Let’s divorce!”
—–
Yan Jiyue never imagined that he would be reborn. He happily went to find Su Mu, wanting to make up for the mistakes he had made in his ignorant youth.
Wasn’t the reason the heavens allowed him to be reborn to let him reconcile with Su Mu?
But when he pushed open the door to Su Mu’s room, the person lying on the bed was another man.
Su Mu’s personal attendant, Xie Yi.
Yan Jiyue hated him so much that his teeth itched. In front of Su Mu, Xie Yi was a gentle and considerate whisperer of sweet nothings, but in reality, he was vicious-hearted and deliberately sabotaged their husband and wife relationship.
In the previous life, it was he who secretly hid in Su Mu’s coffin and committed suicide, stealing a step ahead of him to be buried with Su Mu.
Yan Jiyue’s eyes were filled with hatred as he cursed, “What kind of thing are you? Your background is lowly, what right do you have to occupy Su Mu?”
Xie Yi looked at the sleeping Su Mu and no longer pretended to be a whisperer of sweet nothings.
He proudly stuck out his belly, “I have the right because my belly is capable of giving the Wife-master a daughter.”
[Reading Guide]
1. True divorce, chasing the wife to the crematorium, the female lead doesn’t look back, the male lead is Xie Yi.
2. The ex-husband did not cheat, he just realized too late and didn’t realize that he liked the female lead.