Dmitri fell into a deep abyss after learning that Lea was not his granddaughter. To him, who had lived alone for a long time, Lea was a ray of light and hope.
He had resolved to provide Lea with everything he couldn’t give to his futilely departed daughter.
However, with the news of Ariel’s child’s death, all of his hopes were shattered. Simultaneously, endless despair and profound loneliness engulfed him.
It all happened in the blink of an eye. His own body collapsed so hopelessly. Then, he dreamed.
Of the happy times spent with young Ariel.
The child running towards him with tempting red hair flowing.
The lovely face of the child chattering with an affectionate voice.
Now, Dmitry’s eyes were moist with longing for things he could never meet again. The melody of the missed music box resonated in his ears.
“This sound…”
The music box, made with Ariel’s favorite tune. Dmitry had crafted it as a gift on Ariel’s tenth birthday.
Ariel, who cherished the meticulously crafted music box more than any other gift, became Dmitry’s irreplaceable connection to his daughter after her death.
It became an item he cleaned every day and held dear enough to keep it by his side. However.
“The key to the music box is undoubtedly…”
It was crafted to be opened with the necklace given by the Duchess.
And because Ariel left with the necklace, Dmitry couldn’t open the music box again.
“But why…”
Why could he now hear the missed melody after over twenty years? Was it time for him to die, or was it something else, perhaps a dream?
As Dmitry continued to contemplate various conjectures in his dream, the melody that lingered in his ears along with the sound of the music box lid covering was abruptly cut off.
“Could it be…”
Only then did the Duke’s eyes open, realizing that all of this was real. Then, he slowly turned his head towards the source of the sound.
A child who resembled his deceased daughter looked at him with shaking eyes. Ariel’s child was said to have died immediately after birth.
Though it was certain, why?
“…Lea?”
Startled by the sudden voice, Lea’s shoulders trembled.
“I-I’m sorry. It’s all because of me…”
Dmitri slowly shifted his gaze to the music box she was holding. Finally, his eyes caught the necklace that came into Lea’s hands.
“That necklace…”
A key-shaped necklace with a red ruby. It was the necklace that Ariel had taken with her when she left the mansion a long time ago.
“Oh, this…”
Lea, who had swallowed her dry saliva, absentmindedly fidgeted with the necklace.
“I’ve had this since I was left in front of the orphanage. So, I thought of it as a gift from my parents…”
Lea, too, seemed to have sensed something strange. Her voice as she continued to talk to Dmitry trembled.
She was the one who, as if possessed, had put the necklace into the music box’s keyhole.
“Why is my necklace the key to the music box?”
Everything was confusing to her. The woman in the frame who looked like her. The necklace she had considered her parents’ memento.
There was one answer to all of these things.
“Could it be.”
All the events that had taken place in the mansion passed through Dmitry’s mind like a ghostly apparition.
The butler, Barton, who had been overly kind to her. And the servants who always seemed to be whispering whenever she passed by.
And finally, Duke Belarus, who treated her with affection like a granddaughter.
“Am I related to this mansion?”
For instance, as the daughter of the deceased Duchess.
Now that she thought about it, Lea’s hands were trembling violently.
Thirty years of life in South Korea. And the 22 years she had lived here, believing she was a heaven-sent orphan.
She believed that in her life, there were no family members other than the orphanage residents.
Though there were countless days when she longed for the warmth of parents and family… Instead of chasing empty dreams, she chose to adapt to reality.
“Could I really gain a family?”
Lea’s eyes, staring at the marble floor, shook incessantly. She had believed she gained a family, but what if she was abandoned again?
“If I foolishly hoped and end up disappointed…”
As if Dmitry could read Lea’s thoughts, he held her trembling hand.
“Lea.”
“…Duke.”
When Lea lifted her gaze, she saw the Duke’s eyes filled with longing.
Yes, Duke Belarus had been looking at her with that same gaze since they first met.
“It seems your mother is like my deceased daughter.”
Meeting someone he hadn’t seen in a very long time, there was joy, love, longing, and sadness. All these emotions were mixed in his poignant gaze.
“And you are my granddaughter.”
As the Duke uttered those words, a teardrop formed in the corners of his eyes.
[Land forsaken by God. Will spring come to the arid Bealitzkal.] [Duke Belarus and Duke Heidern, aiming for their second heyday. The bell tolls heralding a new era.]Ilay’s slender fingers flipped through the newspaper. Every time the sound of flipping paper reached them, Rodrigo Viscount standing in front became tense.
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.”
[Touch the gear icon in the bottom right corner of the screen to move to the next chapter if you want.]
