The one who burst into the meeting hall was Dietrich Calypso. Marquis Tailo, startled, could only tremble his lips.
“Y-Your Grace, why….”
“Did I come somewhere I shouldn’t have?”
Dietrich tilted his head slightly, his expression blank. His indifferent gaze swept across the faces of the ministers who avoided meeting his eyes.
“You just called me ‘Your Grace,’ didn’t you. Marquis?”
Dietrich stepped into the meeting room. With each step, the sword at his waist reflected off the chandelier above, casting sharp glimmers of light.
Though clearly sheathed, it seemed as if Dietrich could draw his blade at any moment and drench the room in blood.
“…K-Kalipso Duke… Your Grace.”
Marquis Tailo ultimately backed down. After all, Dietrich’s title was Duke, and he held absolute control over the military authority of the imperial palace.
Even if the title of Duke was merely an empty honor bestowed by the Three Dukes as a gesture of goodwill, the fact remained unchanged that Dietrich was the Commander of the Imperial Knights.
“You must be busy. Why has Your Grace come to this meeting?”
Though fearful of Dietrich, the ministers did not hide their discomfort. After all, Dietrich was their greatest enemy—someone they needed to eliminate above all others.
Dietrich hated beating around the bush. He stated his reason for coming straight away.
“I wanted to hear your opinions regarding the woman who attempted to assassinate the Emperor.”
Dietrich casually took a seat at the highest position in the meeting hall. His movement was smooth, as natural as flowing water.
“How can we possibly allow such a woman to live openly? This is clearly an act of betrayal against the imperial family.”
One of the ministers loudly voiced his opinion.
His words were a veiled criticism of Dietrich’s actions—shifting blame onto Dietrich for sparing Celia, attempting to trap him in a difficult position.
Dietrich’s gaze turned sharply toward the minister who had spoken.
“The betrayal is what you are doing right now.”
The ministers were stunned by Dietrich’s blunt words.
“W-What did you just say?”
“I was the one who arranged the late Emperor’s funeral rites, and I was the one who imprisoned the woman who attacked him.”
Dietrich paused briefly, scanning each minister’s face. The ministers in the room were like snakes desperate to devour him.
Not a single one among them was different. Had the Three Dukes not been backing them, Dietrich would have long ago killed every one of these obstacles to his plans.
Still, these men knew how to cling to power. Looking indifferently at their thick-faced expressions, Dietrich’s lips parted.
“What exactly have the ministers accomplished?”
“!”
The ministers’ jaws trembled with indignation.
“You claim to want our opinions, yet you insult us so?”
“…Opinions?”
Dietrich let out a dry chuckle, one side of his lips curling upward while his eyes remained cold and unamused.
“Since when has a stab with a knife been called an ‘opinion’?”
Struck at their weakest point, the ministers feigned looking elsewhere to avoid Dietrich’s gaze.
Dietrich found them pitiful. They would slander him wildly behind his back, yet the moment he stood before them, they became mute as if struck dumb.
“I’ve heard rumors outside the palace demanding the release of Brillion’s Angel. As a subject of the crown, I simply cannot ignore such words.”
“!”
The ministers’ eyes trembled violently. Dietrich’s words meant he intended to keep Celia alive.
Marquis Tailo stepped forward.
“Are you saying you will openly cover up the crime of the woman who assassinated the Emperor?”
“…Crime?”
Dietrich looked down at the marquis with a dry, emotionless stare.
“If there is any crime, it lies with those who seek to profit from the Emperor’s death. Who knows? Perhaps, as the rumors outside the palace suggest, someone within the palace used that woman to assassinate the Emperor.”
“Your Grace! Are you accusing me?”
“I didn’t name anyone, Marquis.”
Dietrich rose from his seat. The marquis’s face, flushed red with anger, came into Dietrich’s line of sight.
“I’ll take my leave now.”
Without hesitation, Dietrich left the meeting hall. Behind him, the room filled with the ministers’ curses and insults.
[This is the timeline separator]It had already been two days since Celia had last received food.
Dietrich, occupied with the Emperor’s funeral rites, hadn’t had even a moment’s rest.
Even as he worked, Celia weighed heavily on his mind. She wouldn’t starve to death in two days, but the underground prison made it difficult to distinguish night from day.
For a prisoner, two days could feel like a week.
He had gone straight to the meeting hall after the funeral to publicly declare that he would not kill Celia.
Outside the palace, countless men adored her. Men who had seen her even once, or who had previously courted her, were doing everything in their power to save her.
Dietrich found them strange. How could they love that woman—the so-called Angel of Brillion—so deeply?
—Didn’t you know? That’s all nonsense made up by fools.
Yet Celia herself seemed to dislike the men who loved her. At times, a flicker of contempt crossed her face.
And truthfully, even to Dietrich’s eyes, those men who clung desperately to unrequited love did seem pitiful, just as she had said.
‘Well. That works in my favor.’
Thanks to that, he might soon be able to extract Celia from prison.
Dietrich planned to keep her by his side in exchange for freeing her, using her abilities whenever he needed them.
‘She must be irritable after going without food.’
Without delay, Dietrich gathered freshly baked bread, a rich soup filled generously with meat, fresh fruit, and drinking water, and headed straight to the underground prison where Celia was held.
“….”
But the moment he entered the prison, he sensed something ominous.
Dietrich quickened his pace. Prisoners huddled inside their cells stretched their hands toward the delicious scent of food.
“F-Food… hungry… w-water…”
But the instant they saw the face of the one carrying the food, the prisoners froze in place. Ignoring them as if they were invisible, Dietrich walked toward the cell where Celia was kept.
As he ventured deeper into the prison, the stench was replaced by the scent of hyacinths—something he had smelled before.
‘That woman’s ability. Why would she use it while alone…?’
There was no reason. Someone must have broken in while he was away preparing the Emperor’s funeral.
Dietrich was now running. Dark thoughts flooded his mind.
He hadn’t visited the prison at all for two days due to the funeral. Even with strict control, there might be foolish men who believed they could act as long as they weren’t caught.
Those whose curiosity overpowered their reason were always prone to reckless acts.
When Dietrich reached the deepest part of the prison, the air was thick with the overwhelming scent of hyacinths. Mixed within it was the metallic stench of blood.
Clatter.
Dietrich set the food tray on the ground and searched for Celia. His sharp gaze fell upon a half-open cell and a man inside.
Recognizing who the man was, Dietrich felt as if his breath had been cut off.
The man, sitting frozen with a dazed look and his lower body exposed, was one of Dietrich’s own personal knights.
How could one of his own knights commit such an act? And while he was away, no less.
Dietrich was truly enraged. He violently grabbed the knight by the shoulder and hurled him out of the cell. The man collapsed lifelessly, like a marionette with its strings cut.
Dietrich turned to Celia. She was crouched in the corner of the wall, breathing heavily.
Blood was smeared thickly across the cell floor and around her mouth—she must have coughed up blood.
Celia, eyes closed, clutched tightly at her uniform, struggling to hold onto her fading consciousness. Dietrich approached her as she labored for breath.
“Who are you?”
Celia, still wary, intensified the hyacinth scent. It grew so strong that Dietrich narrowed his brows against the suffocating fragrance.
Suddenly, a cough—“Cough!”—and blood sprayed from Celia’s mouth, staining Dietrich’s collar.
Dietrich looked down at Celia, who was vomiting blood, with an indescribable expression.
“…It’s me.”
At the sound of Dietrich’s voice, the hyacinth scent that filled the prison vanished completely. Celia forced her drooping eyelids open again and again, trying to confirm it was truly him.
His handsome face came into her blurry vision.
Seeing an expression that seemed almost pitying, a faint, bitter laugh escaped through Celia’s lips.
Was it because she felt foolish for feeling relief at seeing him? Or was it simply that the situation itself seemed absurd?
She had paralyzed the man’s senses with the hyacinth scent. If she had strangled him, the knight would have died without resistance.
She had deliberately spared his life—because she wanted Dietrich to witness the scene with his own eyes.
If she had killed the knight, Dietrich would never trust her again. Even though she was the victim, he might have turned her into the accused.
So she took a gamble. Would Dietrich trust her—or would he believe his own long-serving knight, now exposed and half-naked?
Celia’s eyes began to flutter shut. She had waited too long for Dietrich, whose arrival was uncertain. Having eaten nothing for two days, she now felt bitterly resentful toward him.
Still, he had come. He had abandoned his own knight and come to her. Celia wasn’t naive—she knew Dietrich intended to use her.
And so, she had decided to use him in return. Whether it was pity, sympathy, or anything else—she didn’t care.
‘So this… this is self-defense.’
Celia clutched at Dietrich’s collar and stammered weakly.
“My life… was yours, wasn’t it?”
“….”
“You’re… late….”
It was an incredibly faint voice. Instead of pulling away the hand clutching his collar, Dietrich simply looked down at her in silence.
Celia’s eyelids slowly closed. The hand gripping his sleeve fell limply to the ground.
Ex-husband Wants Reconciliation
One-line summary: Chasing the wife to the crematorium (making an effort to attract someone who has become indifferent), the female lead doesn’t look back, the second male lead takes the position.
Intro:
To repay the kindness of the older generation, Su Mu crossed into a female-dominated world and became a live-in daughter-in-law of the Yan family, single-handedly saving the Yan family from fire and water.
But her husband, Yan Jiyue, the eldest son of the Yan family, treated her with sarcasm and never showed her a good face.
It wasn’t until after Su Mu’s death that this pampered and arrogant young master shed a few fake tears and pretended to want to die for love.
This life’s kindness was enough. If there was a next life, she would definitely kick Yan Jiyue away.
Who knew that the heavens would be so kind as to allow her to be reborn, returning to the time when she had just married into the Yan family.
Su Mu glanced at the Yan eldest son, who still spoke coldly to her, and threw a divorce letter in front of him.
“Let’s divorce!”
***
Yan Jiyue never imagined that he would be reborn. He happily went to find Su Mu, wanting to make up for the mistakes he had made in his ignorant youth.
Wasn’t the reason the heavens allowed him to be reborn to let him reconcile with Su Mu?
But when he pushed open the door to Su Mu’s room, the person lying on the bed was another man.
Su Mu’s personal attendant, Xie Yi.
Yan Jiyue hated him so much that his teeth itched. In front of Su Mu, Xie Yi was a gentle and considerate whisperer of sweet nothings, but in reality, he was vicious-hearted and deliberately sabotaged their husband and wife relationship.
In the previous life, it was he who secretly hid in Su Mu’s coffin and committed suicide, stealing a step ahead of him to be buried with Su Mu.
Yan Jiyue’s eyes were filled with hatred as he cursed, “What kind of thing are you? Your background is lowly, what right do you have to occupy Su Mu?”
Xie Yi looked at the sleeping Su Mu and no longer pretended to be a whisperer of sweet nothings.
He proudly stuck out his belly, “I have the right because my belly is capable of giving the Wife-master a daughter.”
***
Yan Jiyue was consumed with jealousy. He spread rumors that Xie Yi had once been branded with the mark of a “harlot” on his chest.
But on the night Xie Yi cut off the flesh bearing that mark, Su Mu suddenly realized something was amiss.
“How did you know the exact moment I was poisoned? And why did you show up a month early?”
Xie Yi remained silent, blood from his wound soaking through his robes. His sapphire eyes brimmed with anguish – or was it just a flawless act?
Between a once-arrogant husband now seeking redemption, and a gentle soul willing to die for her – who truly held the darkest secrets? And could it be that Su Mu and Yan Jiyue weren’t the only ones given a second chance at life…?
[Reading Guide]
1. True divorce, chasing the wife to the crematorium, the female lead doesn’t look back, the male lead is Xie Yi.
2. The ex-husband did not cheat, he just realized too late and didn’t realize that he liked the female lead.
_____
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