Yu Li unconsciously pressed her palm against her chest.
Her heart throbbed as if pierced by an awl.
However, she quickly regained her composure. She couldn’t afford to show any weakness in front of Min Woo.
“That’s nice.”
Yu Li spoke in as calm a tone as she could manage, touching the screen of the phone.
“His girlfriend is pretty. They look good together.”
It wasn’t a lie. The woman in the photo shone like a jewel, her smile enchanting enough to captivate anyone. She complemented Je Ho, drawing everyone’s attention.
“Her name is Claire, she’s an ex-girlfriend of Je Ho who he dated for quite a while. I thought they had broken up, but it seems they’ve been in touch.”
“Ah, I see.”
Yu Li looked at the photo expressionlessly. In every image, Claire stayed close to Je Ho. Had he gone to attend a charity party under the guise of urgent business?
The party, hosted by global corporations in Silicon Valley, seemed quite grand. After scrolling through all the photos, Yu Li handed the phone back to Min Woo with one hand while picking up her coffee cup with the other.
“If you’re done, can you leave now?”
Min Woo stared intently at Yu Li’s face, trying to discern if she was shaken. Yu Li blinked her dry eyes slowly, sipping her coffee. Her expression betrayed no turmoil.
“Alright.”
Min Woo stood up, pocketing his phone. He felt somewhat relieved knowing that Yu Li wasn’t deeply involved with Je Ho yet. Reports had indicated that the person accompanying Je Ho to the Gangneung villa wasn’t Yu Li, but some unidentified man.
“I’ll leave for now. But this isn’t the end.”
Min Woo left, promising a next time. Shortly after his departure, Yu Ri appeared on the terrace, looking worried.
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah, of course.”
Yu Li smiled faintly, trying to appear unaffected.
“…Um.”
Yu Ri seemed to want to say something, but eventually, she went back inside without a word. Yu Li stared at the garden, mechanically bringing the coffee cup to her lips.
Min Woo’s words about Je Ho and Claire kept echoing in her ears. Her hard-won emotional stability was gradually crumbling. Yu Li bit her lower lip and closed her eyes.
The initial agreement was to meet casually, without future plans. Whatever Je Ho did or whoever he met abroad had nothing to do with her.
Even knowing he was safely with his ex-girlfriend, she had no right to complain. Yet, she couldn’t help feeling bitter.
“Huh.”
A hollow laugh escaped her.
It’s not even funny.
The moment she saw Je Ho’s photo, relief that he was safe came before jealousy. She laughed at herself for being relieved over such a trivial matter.
“Let’s not think about the future and just meet comfortably. In fact, it’s a difficult relationship for us to be in, isn’t it?”
Yes, it was definitely something I said. One must take responsibility for their own words.
Yet, foolishly, tears came. Yu Li rubbed her tear-streaked cheeks with her palm. Tears were all that came, not heartache.
Just from seeing a photo, she desperately missed him.
It’s a relationship with no future, a relationship destined to end once he returns to America, and yet, she’s already so shaken by a brief separation. What was she to do?
Yu Li brought the coffee cup to her lips while checking the text messages she had sent to him on her phone. They still showed as ‘unread’. The bitterness of the cold coffee filled her mouth. Silently looking at her phone, Yu Li got up and went inside the house.
It must be because the air outside on the terrace is cold. That’s all.
“Really? Are you sure?”
After Je Ho finished explaining everything, Woo Kyul raised his voice in disbelief.
“Yeah, I have the audio files in my hand.”
“Hah, that’s unbelievable.”
Leaning against the glass railing of the balcony, Je Ho looked down at the bright lights below. The party was nearing its end.
“But when I think about it, it seems too big for Min Woo to have orchestrated alone. A coward like him.”
Je Ho listened to Woo Kyul’s words while bringing a glass of wine to his lips, only to set it down again without drinking. It was Woo Kyul’s next words that stopped him.
“Are you still going to continue seeing Yu Li, given the situation?”
It was a question he had refrained from asking himself, now coming from Woo Kyul’s mouth.
“What will you do if it turns out that Assemblyman Chae is really behind all this?”
The audio files hidden by his father revealed the presence of a stronger force behind Min Woo. As Woo Kyul said, it was beyond Min Woo’s capabilities to orchestrate something of this scale on his own. There seemed to be some involvement of Assemblyman Chae, though to what extent was unclear.
“I already warned you.”
“You’ll get hurt badly. I clearly warned you.”
Assemblyman Chae had warned both Je Ho and Chairman Kwon. It sounded less like a threat and more like a caution about the consequences.
“Yu Li has nothing to do with this.”
“But what will happen when Yu Li finds out everything? How do you think she’ll react?”
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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