In the ink-like darkness of the dawn, the mansion, where everyone was asleep, was silent.
Following the butler, Jackal walked along the long corridor.
As he looked at the back of the butler, the image of Ariel came to his mind, and his chest tightened.
When the scent of the perfume reached his nose, he averted his gaze.
‘Nothing has changed from before.’
Belarus Townhouse. Even in the darkness, this place seemed to have changed little from when Ariel lived here.
Just like Jackal’s time stopped twenty years ago, the time here might have stopped at that moment too. As Jackal’s thoughts reached that point, his eyes sank deeply.
Gradually, the fleeting moment erased the small emotions that appeared on his face. Button, who had been walking ahead, stopped.
He glanced at Jackal who followed him and knocked very lightly.
“My lord, we have arrived.”
As the firmly closed office door opened, the Belarus Duke, sitting at the central table, came into view.
“You’ve come.”
Button left, and Jackal took a seat opposite where he was sitting.
Until he took his seat, Dmitry’s icy gaze followed Jackal like an ice-covered river. As if he could grab and devour him at any moment, with a fierce look.
“I thought you were dead, but you’ve been breathing and alive so openly.”
Jackal lowered his head to Dmitry’s resentment that dug deep into his heart.
‘How can you live when you couldn’t protect Ariel?’ is what Dmitry’s gaze seemed to convey.
It was reasonable because Dmitry believed that Jackal died on the same day as Ariel, protecting her. He believed that Jackal died while protecting Ariel.
“Why. Have you come back now to devour my only granddaughter?”
“…No.”
In response to Dmitry’s continued question, Jackal shook his head firmly.
He had not returned to push Leia into misery.
The Duke stared at Jackal. As if trying to grasp his inner thoughts from his eyes, Dmitry, who had been searching with the eyes of exploration, released the fist-clenched arm.
“Although you say so, it seems like you’ve been hovering around my granddaughter.”
“…….”
“If you thought of breathing, you should have hidden it tightly.”
Dmitry’s thin gaze, like a thread, touched Jackal’s clothes.
Except for the bare mask, he was covering his entire body with black clothes.
He, who was supposed to be the leader of the Assassins’ Guild, looked quite different from what he knew twenty years ago.
‘He doesn’t even know that he is a double agent for the Empress’s Assassins’ Guild.’
To entrust Ariel’s protection to such a person.
‘Moreover, being the leader of the Assassins’ Guild…’
It wasn’t easy, especially when the person who killed the Empress was right in front of him. Dmitry’s mouth dried up at the thought of Akia’s birth mother, the one who killed the Empress.
“It’s unlike the leader of the Assassins’ Guild to get caught like this. You, who assassinated the Empress without leaving a trace, had meticulousness.”
When the story of the Empress came up, Jackal’s clenched hand trembled slightly.
“Seeing Leia, it seems like there’s newfound affection. Dern.”
And Jackal, who had consistently bowed his head, raised his head.
Dmitry’s straight gaze that met his in the air. When the intense green eyes reminiscent of Ariel pierced fiercely, a crack appeared in Jackal’s eyes.
Jackal silently left the mansion.
He realized that there was no one around, and he exhaled the breath he had been holding.
His face, which had never shown even the slightest emotion in front of Dmitry, painfully contorted.
[Don’t ever reveal yourself in front of Leia and me again.] […….] [Leia, who has lived as an orphan all her life, has finally found happiness. I’m telling you not to break that unhappiness. As you’ve done so far, live as if you were dead. That’s the only atonement you can make for your daughter.]The Duke warned him not to show himself in front of Leia again.
And Jackal had no choice but to agree with the Duke’s intention.
“Yes, that’s correct.”
When he attempted the abduction of Ariel, a woman from a prestigious family, and the elopement with Yavan, and ultimately lost his wife who fled with him, he regretted deeply.
“Ari, I didn’t mean to take you away….”
If she hadn’t left with him, he regretted wondering if she would have lived a comfortable life under the protection of the Belarus Duke by now.
If that had happened, Leia and the child would have been happier meeting a stable father.
The death of his beloved wife, and the fact that his precious daughter had to grow up as an orphan more valuable than life itself, all of it was due to his incompetence.
Moreover, now his existence might become an obstacle to Leia. Jackal didn’t want to burden Leia with his unhappiness as much as possible.
“I won’t repeat the same mistake this time.”
Absolutely, he wouldn’t reveal his existence to Leia.
“Yes, it’s about time.”
His daughter found after more than a decade.
It was a brief moment, but he was satisfied just to be able to watch Leia from afar like this.
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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