The Price is Everything of Yours (76 Chapters Left to Complete) - Chapter 8
The instructor for Verlenian 3 was Lord Voltaire, a former diplomat, and his original main subject at the Academy had been international politics.
He raised an eyebrow upon seeing the two new students in his classroom but made no move to acknowledge them.
Neris did not care in the slightest about Lord Voltaire’s attitude. Megara, however, after flashing several charming smiles in an attempt to draw attention, seemed increasingly crestfallen as his indifference became evident.
Finally, when Lord Voltaire distributed a rather lengthy Verlenian text to the students, Megara began conversing coldly with Mahradi Ennim.
“Esquel ma tendros suain? (Does he dislike you?)”
Len, who had seemed about to examine the text, instead rested his chin on the desk with a bored expression and asked Neris. He was not speaking the Verlenian currently being taught in class, but the Sacred Tongue used only by clergy.
‘This person?’
Neris replied in the Sacred Tongue as well.
“Yo nensabe parent. (I don’t know.)”
Len’s eyes narrowed into crescent shapes. He found it amusing that a child could respond immediately in the Sacred Tongue.
Due to his unique upbringing, he had learned the Sacred Tongue from an early age, but for most nobles, memorizing just a couple of phrases in it was enough to be considered cultured.
From the very beginning, it had been this way—Neris was different from the other freshmen.
She knew things typically known only to upperclassmen, and even things upperclassmen themselves often didn’t know. Yet, despite her intelligence at such a young age, she displayed none of the arrogance one might expect. In fact, she was so genuinely capable that arrogance would have been unnecessary.
“Porquel tendros suain? (Then why does he dislike you?)”
He might as well not have asked at all. Neris was dumbfounded.
“Yo boz habeo dit, ‘yo nensabe parent.’ (I already told you I don’t know.)”
“Hmm.”
Though Len didn’t press further after Neris brushed him off, he kept staring at her. Neris ignored him and continued reading the text.
A short while later, Lord Voltaire gave instructions to the students in Verlenian. After observing whether they followed his directions, he unexpectedly asked a question in Imperial Tongue.
“Can anyone tell me what my first instruction meant?”
Several upperclassmen raised their hands. Lord Voltaire pointed to one of the boys.
“Arthur Pendland.”
Neris knew Arthur Pendland well. His father was the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and his mother hailed from Verlenian nobility—after graduation, he was destined to serve on the front lines of diplomacy with Verlen.
Arthur answered with clever phrasing.
“You asked us to briefly summarize the text you provided.”
Lord Voltaire gave no indication whether Arthur’s answer was right or wrong and instead turned his stern gaze elsewhere.
“Then let’s hear each of your answers. Who would like to speak first?”
Again, a few upperclassmen raised their hands—more than before. Lord Voltaire selected the hand in the lowest position.
“Megara Rikeandros.”
Megara seemed to regain a measure of confidence upon realizing Lord Voltaire knew her name. She adopted a falsely modest tone and spoke.
“Livingston Kinzey tried to improve Galia’s windmills but failed due to insufficient funds and was killed by local villagers.”
Lord Voltaire’s rigid face showed no change in expression. He turned his eyes from Megara and asked Neris in Verlenian,
“E ton, du ahisare pensla? (Do you think so too?)”
Most students, convinced Megara had answered perfectly, were too busy admiring her to care about Neris’s response.
But Len’s eyes sharpened, and Neris gave only a brief reply in smooth Verlenian.
“Ka depandra. (Perhaps that could be the case.)”
It wasn’t a good answer.
If she agreed, she should accept the statement plainly; if she disagreed, she should offer a different answer. Though most students were mature enough not to show open displeasure, they clearly found Neris’s behavior strange.
By now, more than half the class had concluded she must be exceptionally jealous—so much so that it made their eyebrows furrow.
“Doken? (Then what’s your answer?)”
Lord Voltaire pressed her without further reaction. Neris met his irritable gaze calmly and stated,
“Livingston, the ambassador dispatched to Galia, attempted to improve relations with local villagers through popular policies, but support from his home country was limited. When his allocated budget ran out, he was killed.”
“You’re wrong!”
Mahradi Ennim blurted out involuntarily, though some in the classroom nodded in agreement. Megara’s glare turned hostile.
Lord Voltaire gave a slight nod of his chin.
“Neris Trude. What was my first instruction?”
“You asked us to briefly explain the story in the text you provided.”
“Is your answer different in meaning from Arthur Pendland’s?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re a diplomat, Lord Voltaire.”
In Imperial Tongue, “summarize” implied strictly limiting oneself to the text’s contents, whereas “explain” allowed for logically inferred information. Verlenian lacked this distinction.
In ordinary circumstances, both answers would have carried the same meaning—but Neris had focused on the precise vocabulary Lord Voltaire had used.
The term he chose belonged to a category of diplomatic Verlenian words that required particular care in official contexts, so he must have intended a specific nuance.
After all, what use was a diplomat who only analyzed the information presented by the other side? Naturally, one had to offer their own interpretation—an “explanation.”
When a freshman from an obscure family pointed out a nuance even the diplomat’s own son had missed, Lord Voltaire smiled for the first time since entering the classroom that day. It was fleeting, but unmistakably a smile of satisfaction.
“Why do you study foreign languages?”
The students, now realizing Lord Voltaire wouldn’t simply correct a wrong answer on the spot but would publicly compare responses, dared not speak. When the lesson stalled, Arthur Pendland cautiously answered.
“To converse with people from other countries, isn’t that right?”
“That’s fundamentally correct, Arthur Pendland. But you’re nobles. If you truly wished to speak with foreigners, you could hire interpreters. Or you could use the common Lundic Tongue to communicate with nobles from any country on the continent. So why go to the trouble of learning another nation’s language?”
In the frozen silence of the classroom, Neris answered smoothly.
“To gain the upper hand in diplomacy.”
“Correct.”
Lord Voltaire’s eyes lit up as he looked at Neris. The students could tell he favored her.
Even in retirement, he remained an influential figure in diplomatic circles—should Neris ever desire a career in that field, she would undoubtedly have an easier start than her peers.
“You learn foreign languages for diplomacy. Never gloss over a single word. Analyze not just the surface information, but what that information means to you. Diplomacy fails when understanding is approximate. Neris Trude knows this—that’s why she’s in the same classroom as you.”
His final words shifted the classroom’s atmosphere significantly.
While Megara’s reputation for being “clever” had implied she overreached needlessly among children,
Lord Voltaire’s praise suggested Neris would be an asset to her classmates.
Knowing that favoring one student too openly might alienate the others, he carefully stopped just short of crossing that line.
‘He truly remains an excellent diplomat, even now.’
Neris smiled inwardly.
During her time as Crown Princess, her primary duty had been diplomacy. She’d even briefly studied under Lord Voltaire himself during a diplomatic dispute with Verlen.
That was why she’d enrolled in his class again—though she hadn’t expected Megara to follow.
“But, teacher.”
Megara had already raised her hand with a composed expression. In a voice deliberately sweetened with charm, she asked,
“Isn’t Neris’s interpretation itself incorrect?”
“That’s right.”
Mahradi Ennim quickly agreed and immediately launched into an accusation against Neris.
“She’s just a freshman from a rural village—it’s understandable she has shortcomings. But then she should take classes suited to her level! How can she steal upperclassmen’s time when she can’t even interpret simple words correctly?”
“What?”
For the first time since entering the classroom, Len sat up straight. Under his sharp gaze, Mahradi faltered but quickly steeled himself and glared back.
“What? It’s true, isn’t it?”
“Who was it just now who understood Verlenian diplomatic terminology?”
“I can’t believe that either. How would she know diplomatic terms? Even Arthur didn’t recognize them—maybe you taught her, Len Feyel, since you’re her partner.”
“Why would I teach her that?”
“Who knows? Maybe because no one wants to get close to you, so she flattered you a bit?”
Len’s eyes glinted coldly. A dangerously charming, almost devilish smile appeared on his youthful face—the telltale sign he was angry.
“That sounds more like something I should be saying to you.”
“What?”
Mahradi was less skilled. His flustered, flushed outburst struck others as awkwardly jarring.
Neris looked at Megara with an inscrutable expression, and Lord Voltaire observed her carefully with keen eyes.
“What do you mean by that?”
“If you can’t understand human speech, just forget it.”
“Hey, Len Feyel…!”
“Tus, arete. (Both of you, stop it.)”
Just as Mahradi was about to explode, Lord Voltaire intervened smoothly, shrugging nonchalantly. He then turned to Neris.
“Kernha du pensla a discure previen? (What do you think about this conversation?)”
“Ka nem me derange parang, sior. (It’s none of my concern, teacher.)”
At Neris’s composed reply, Mahradi looked ready to die of frustration, but Len appeared utterly unfazed, as if it were only natural.
In Len’s view, this matter belonged solely between himself and Mahradi—after all, Mahradi had seemed intent on targeting Len himself from the start.
“Mahradi Ennim, Len Feyel—you’ve both clearly forgotten this is class time. Come see me during lunch. And Neris Trude, come up front and explain why you interpreted the text as you did.”
“Yes.”
All eyes slowly turned to Neris as she walked calmly to the front of the classroom.
She was so accustomed to such attention that she showed none of the nervousness typical of a new student. Indeed, to onlookers, she seemed to be receiving praise she rightly deserved.
The enormous blackboard at the front was magically maintained, allowing even short individuals to write effortlessly using the instructor’s wand. Neris accepted the wand from Lord Voltaire, wrote several Verlenian words on the board, and annotated their Imperial Tongue meanings beside them.
“Nice handwriting.”
Arthur Pendland voiced his admiration louder than intended. When Mahradi Ennim shot him a resentful look, Arthur merely shrugged. What?
He’d only spoken his honest thought. Achieving such skilled, elegant calligraphy required years of dedicated practice—he himself was considered a fine hand, but not to this degree. Moreover, writing on a magical board was no simple task for a beginner.
Megara bit her lip upon seeing one of the words Neris had written.
‘Kanje: Ambassador.’
The word Megara had mistaken for a personal name and pronounced as “Kinzey” was, in Verlenian pronunciation, “Kanje”—a diplomatic term meaning “ambassador.” Indeed, the Imperial name “Kinzey” itself derived from this very word.
Furthermore, the term Megara had translated as “windmill” actually meant “a continuous flow within a defined scope.” While such a translation wasn’t entirely impossible, in this context, it was a complete mistranslation.
Male lead Asks for a Divorce Every Day
It’s not often you come across a plot like this in the female-dominant genre — make sure to check it out!
This is a novel I’m planning to reread as well.
The male lead is strong, skilled in martial arts, and not the usual fragile type you often see in matriarchal novels.
Meanwhile, the female lead is a scientist—rational and logical. Even when she falls for the male lead, she doesn’t let her emotions cloud her decisions.
If you push through the first few chapters, you’ll gradually find the story really intriguing.
It has a mix of mystery, detective elements, and romance.
The author’s writing style is like crafting a puzzle—except they deliberately leave out a few pieces, making it hard to predict what happens next, yet keeping you hooked.
In the end, everything will come together and be explained.
One-sentence summary: Wife, stop playing with beakers and look at me!
In a laboratory accident, research scientist Zhu Wansheng accidentally travels to a matriarchal world. The original owner of the body is an eighteen-year-old only daughter of a wealthy rouge merchant, already married with a handsome young man.
Zhu Wansheng grins: Nice! She always said she was heaven’s favorite granddaughter. After a life of toil in her previous life, she can enjoy blessings in this one.
However, her joy lasts no more than three seconds as bad news arrives: the original owner’s family is about to go bankrupt, and her husband wants a divorce.
Even worse, she’s stuck with a research system full of restrictions.
Zhu Wansheng: ? Is this the destiny of a research dog?
——
Faced with this mess, Zhu Wansheng pours herself a bowl of wine to drown her sorrows. In her drunken haze, her husband arrives.
His figure is imposing, holding a long sword, with a dignified air that captivates Zhu Wansheng.
Gu Yingqing, however, looks at the alcohol-reeking Zhu Wansheng with undisguised disgust and coldly asks, “Divorce or not?” The intoxicated Zhu Wansheng mumbles vaguely, “I think… it’s not… it’s not… impossible!”
——
The next day, after sobering up, Zhu Wansheng is full of energy, rolling up her sleeves ready to make a big move. As for yesterday? She has no memory of it.
Zhu Wansheng is ambitious; a research dog fears nothing!
Upgrading rouge, extracting fragrances, producing perfumes, researching lipsticks… all shall bow to the power of modern technology!
The original owner’s dying rouge shop is revitalized. Her mother is pleased and with a wave of her hand, passes on the family business to her. As she takes control and her experimental results gain popularity, it’s the pinnacle of her life…
——
But there are always those who can’t stand to see her doing well. Jealousy, scheming, assassination attempts – they want nothing less than her life.
The person who has always kept his distance from her suddenly holds her tightly in his arms, eyes full of concern.
She is unharmed, but he falls into a pool of blood…
Zhu Wansheng feels guilty, “I can grant you one wish.”
Gu Yingqing tentatively circles his arms around her, carefully resting his head in the crook of her neck, pleading softly, “I regret it. Can we not divorce?”
Zhu Wansheng: ? When did I agree to a divorce?
[Small Theater]
The newly developed rouge is beautifully packaged, and Zhu Wansheng is eager to try it.
Gu Yingqing suddenly appears: “My lady, may I apply it for you?”
Cool fingertips lightly brush her lips. His Adam’s apple bobs as he leans in for a light bite.
Zhu Wansheng: ?
Gu Yingqing: It smells so good, I wanted to taste it…
On a warm spring day, Zhu Wansheng tries a new perfume: “Spring Night.” Gu Yingqing corners her against a wall.
Warm breath lingers on her neck.
“My lady, from now on, may I test the fragrances for you?”
[Humorous female scientist vs scheming live-in son-in-law male lead]
[Touch the gear icon in the bottom right corner of the screen to move to the next chapter if you want.]
The male lead being so proud of his wife is honestly adorable, even when he gets jealous.
And the female lead is so elegant and beautiful—I can’t wait to see this scene illustrated
Haha, did the ML really just say that to the FL? He’s so cute when he gets a little jealous.
Can’t wait for next chapter
The ML is so considerate of his wife. He treats her with so much care and gentleness, even when she doesn’t say a word—he just understands her. He’s honestly so perfect, I can’t 😭
I really hope the FL can overcome these painful feelings soon. I can’t bear to watch her suffer this much. 💔