“This is… something’s wrong.”
“…?”
The child who got on the carriage said with a sullen expression while gulping down motion sickness medicine. Siren, who was sitting next to him, turned to look at the child with a puzzled face.
Aeli put her hand on the child’s shoulder, saying she hoped they wouldn’t have to engage in another chase with the carriage.
−Adi, I’m sorry you can’t play more even though you want to. Instead, let’s go to the capital and come back later, okay?
Right after finishing the conversation with Lutis, Aeli went back to the child and said they had to go to the capital today.
“…..”
He had been in that state ever since. Aeli smiled awkwardly and broke out in a cold sweat.
‘Really… there was no other way.’
They didn’t even get in the carriage until after dinner because he kept lying down saying he couldn’t go like this.
Although she expected this kind of reaction.
Even so, looking at the child who kept drooping his eyebrows with a gloomy face was a more painful task than she had thought.
Aeli blinked her eyes rapidly and tried to open her mouth again.
“I…”
She would have done so if it weren’t for the child muttering in a depressed tone.
The child held a rabbit doll dressed in matching clothes in one arm and gripped the fabric near Siren’s forearm with the other, muttering.
“I… only played a little bit more.”
−……
“And, they said to go to the patisserie and eat cake again…”
−……
“Saying not to go out for a week after getting hurt… Hmph.”
The child said with a deep sigh.
Pointedly glancing at Lutis sitting across from him, then glancing at Aeli next to him.
The child stuck out his lower lip, drooping his shoulders. He looked so sulky that the tip of his nose and upper lip almost stuck together.
The child, who had bowed his head deeply, swung his short legs back and forth, not reaching the floor of the carriage.
“I played only three days−”
“…..”
“Ah… no, it’s been four days. So I can play a little more…”
The child, who had been grumbling for a long time even after the carriage started, opened his eyes sharply when no one answered.
Then he said he was going to sleep and lay down just like that.
“…..”
“…..”
“…..”
The child lay face down on the carriage seat, burying his head in a way that anyone could tell he was upset.
“…Adi, you’ll suffocate−”
“…Gasp, huff!”
The child, who lifted his reddened face after not going far, panted for breath.
Siren, who was about to ask the child if he was suffocating, awkwardly withdrew his arm.
“…..”
−……
“Hmph…”
Aeli felt wronged by the brazen gaze looking at her as if she had done it on purpose even though the child had buried his face of his own accord.
‘…No, who told him to lie down like that.’
It was when she looked down at the child with that thought.
Grab.
“…?”
Lutis, who got up from his seat, picked up the child who was lying face down on the carriage seat and sat him on his lap.
The child looked at Lutis with wide eyes at the sudden situation of being lifted up.
The child opened his mouth and looked up at Lutis.
“…Abba?”
“If you make such a fuss, the effect of the medicine will wear off quickly even if you took it. We’ll have to take the warp gate later, so it would be good to save your energy.”
“…!”
The child, who had been gloomy at the news of having to leave the estate and return to the capital, made a belatedly shocked face as if he hadn’t thought that far.
The child asked Lutis, his pupils trembling finely.
“That… can’t we not take that and go…”
“We wouldn’t arrive at the capital until it starts snowing.”
“…..”
“By the way, I didn’t pack much luggage with the idea of taking the gate. If we keep going by carriage, we might be wearing animal skins in about a month.”
“That… doesn’t seem right.”
The child, who seemed to be thinking deeply about something, soon shuddered with disgust and sat on Lutis’s lap, trembling.
Considering that they were already riding in a carriage with all kinds of magic cast on it such as temperature control magic and shock absorption magic, such a reaction was undoubtedly an exaggeration.
‘Of course, the talk about animal skins and such are all lies.’
It was true that it would take a long time if they went by carriage, but it wasn’t impossible to resupply as there weren’t no villages at all along the way.
It was a deliberately made-up story by Lutis to divert the child’s attention, but Aeli chose to remain silent in the fact that it actually succeeded.
The child, who had been blinking his eyes rapidly as if in trouble, called Lutis.
“…Abba, give me snacks.”
“If the medicine wears off, you’ll get motion sickness.”
“But I have to stay awake until we get to the gate. And if I sleep, it’s okay.”
“…..”
“I’ll sleep before I get motion sick. Give it to me…”
The child complained that he hadn’t eaten the snacks before bed yet because they had left in a hurry after dinner.
After glaring at each other for a while.
Lutis soon shook his head slightly and took out a bag of cookies from his inner pocket.
Aeli opened her eyes wide in surprise as Lutis took out a tiny cookie the size of Aeli’s thumb and put it in the child’s hand.
−No, he’ll definitely have a hard time later if you give him this−
Lutis, who furtively glanced at Aeli avoiding Siren’s gaze, blinked slowly.
At the signal as if saying he had a plan so watch and see, Aeli narrowed her eyes.
After staying like that for a while.
“…Huh?”
Lutis put one cookie in the child’s hand and passed the rest of the bag containing the cookies to Siren.
Siren, who unknowingly received the bag of cookies, alternately looked at the cookies in his hand and Lutis across from him in bewilderment.
Lutis nodded his head. It meant they were his now, so eat them.
“Why… why did you give it all to Siren?!”
“That’s informal speech, so say it again.”
“Why− why did you give it all to Siren!”
“That’s because you already received your portion.”
“…..”
At Lutis’s words, the child looked down at the half-eaten cookie crumb with a dumbfounded face, opening his mouth.
The child, who had been sending a blank gaze for a while, unable to speak from shock, leaned his body against Lutis’s upper body with a crestfallen face.
Sitting in a hunched posture, he put his arm on Lutis’s shoulder and rested his forehead on it, feeling frustrated. Aeli was about to burst into laughter, twisting the corners of her mouth at that moment.
Siren, who had been staring at the cookie bag in his palm without even thinking of opening the packaging, slowly opened his mouth.
“But I… shouldn’t eat this kind of thing right now.”
“…Ah.”
“…Ah?!”
Lutis and the child responded similarly to Siren’s words.
Although it was the same word, the tone was clearly different, so Siren rolled his pupils around in embarrassment.
Lutis grabbed the shoulder of the child who was trying to get off his lap and move next to Siren, and said.
“One will be fine.”
“…..”
“…If you really don’t want to, just hold it so the child can’t eat it. I’ll have them make new ones when we arrive at the mansion.”
“Then, are you going to throw away the cookies?”
“They’ll get soggy over time, so we’ll have to.”
“Ah− throwing them away is too ungraaa, teful to the people who made them. If you’re going to throw them away anyway, give them to−”
“You can’t.”
“Ugh…”
The child shook his clenched fists up and down as if frustrated at Lutis’s resolute words.
Aeli looked at Lutis and the child and turned her head.
“…..”
Unlike the hectic opposite side, Siren was incomparably quiet. For a moment, Aeli felt as if a curtain had been drawn between them.
Recalling something, staring at the child and Lutis, and then lowering his head to fiddle with the cookie bag in his hand, Aeli closed her mouth at the sight of Siren.
“Abba is a fool, a idiot, and a selfish ajussi who only thinks about himself…”
“…What?”
“…..”
−……
She felt like she was somehow floating alone.
[This is the timeline separator]On a separate note.
“Ugh, blehh…”
The child, who was vulnerable to gate sickness, made a pale face as he set foot in the capital mansion again.
From the moment he took the first gate, his face turned green, and when he took the next gate, he finally had a moment of contemplation on the floor, checking what he had eaten at dawn.
Because of that, he drank two bottles of motion sickness medicine before getting back in the carriage, but…
“I… just leave me here… and go…”
“…..”
His condition didn’t improve much until he returned to the mansion.
Aeli was bending her waist halfway, looking after the child who was almost lying down in the middle of the mansion’s central hall.
Lutis quietly watched the scene, shook his head, and picked up the child. He called the head butler and told him to assign a room to Siren.
“…In this state, we can’t enter the palace right away. We’ll rest for a bit and enter the palace in the afternoon, so prepare a messenger to deliver a letter to the imperial palace in advance.”
“Yes, I understand.”
Lutis, who decided to enter the palace late in the afternoon on the pretext of changing clothes, moved his steps.
Since he told them to prepare the messenger in advance, Aeli expected him to leave the child to the servant and stop by the office to write the letter first, but Lutis went to the child’s room first.
Lutis laid the child on the bed in his room and covered him with a blanket, stroking the child’s forehead.
“We have to enter the palace in the afternoon, so sleep for a while and wake up. I have something to tell you, so I’ll wake you up in a bit, but you’ll feel better after sleeping and waking up.”
“Mmm…”
Perhaps it was because his stomach felt a little settled when Lutis’s cool hand touched his skin.
The child grabbed Lutis’s hand with a thin layer of bandage in between and rubbed it against his cheek.
Judging by the fact that his eyes were already half closed, it didn’t seem like a conscious action.
[This is the timeline separator]“I greet the brightest sun of the empire.”
“I… uh… greet, you.”
And it was afternoon again when the sun had gone down quite a bit.
Aeli looked around next to Lutis and opened her mouth wide in horror, looking at the child greeting.
The Male lead Always Seduces Her with His Beauty (Matriarchy)
Xin Jiao Zhou is the leader of the world’s premier sect. She has just experienced betrayal from all sides, was poisoned in an assassination attempt, and faced death squad attacks while the poison was taking effect. After finally clearing out the scum from her sect, she was drugged again while trying to detoxify.
After waking up from a night of unconsciousness, she gained a “beautiful and kind-hearted” husband.
Xin Jiao Zhou: “???”
He fell ill.
She came to see him, bringing breakfast.
As she put down the breakfast and was about to leave, his hand slipped while holding the spoon. “Clank!”
She turned around upon hearing the noise.
He looked up at her, his eyebrows drooping: “My hand… has no strength.”
“Shall I… feed you?” she asked tentatively.
He opened his mouth cheerfully: “Ah—”
Thinking she was drowning, he jumped in without hesitation to save her, but nearly drowned himself. In the end, it was she who swam over to rescue him, giving him air underwater.
After emerging from the water, his ear tips turned red. He lightly brushed his cheek, tucking his sideburns behind his ear, revealing delicate, pink-tinged ear tips. He lowered his gaze, too embarrassed to look at her.
Xin Jiao Zhou: He’s truly beautiful, kind-hearted, and adorable.
A certain someone when disciplining subordinates behind the scenes: “If they don’t obey, just kill them.”
What’s that? She might already have someone she cares about in her heart? A certain someone: Find out who it is, kill them, and then there won’t be anyone.
What? She met a man by the riverside? What? That man even hurt her? A certain someone: Whichever hand hurt her, chop off his entire arm.
Love at first sight without realizing it, gradually falling in love, slowly getting closer…
Family and national grudges, schemes and desires, good and evil, crime and punishment, she and he face the future together, seeking justice with passion!
A naturally dark female lead who could accidentally destroy the world but is actually an honest person VS a weak, pitiful, and helpless but skilled fighter, beautiful white-cut black male lead
My heart is not of stone, how steadfast is your love? — Tao Yuanming “Imitating the Ancients (No. 3)”
— Reading Guide —
Cold female lead & dramatic black lotus with hidden yandere traits male lead
