“You shouldn’t have loved me from the beginning.”
Tall stature, black hair, and even those deep, cold eyes looking at her.
Now that I think about it, his appearance in my memory is exactly the same.
“Do you think such words have any meaning now?”
Resban tilted his head slightly and drew closer to Esika.
Esika raised her hand and placed it on Resban’s cheek.
His cheek was colder than Esika’s palm, and soft.
A straight, handsome face and eyes that followed her.
“Esika.”
Resban called her name.
And he took her hand on his cheek and pressed it to his lips.
Esika flinched unconsciously at the sensation of his soft lips, but Resban still held onto that hand and showed a faint smile.
Then he said to her.
“I can see you. What you’re thinking…”
“…”
“And that now is truly the time when I can be useful to you.”
Esika shook her head and withdrew her hand.
But Resban leaned forward to meet Esika’s eyes.
The woman who once seemed stronger than anyone was now afraid.
He thought this didn’t suit Esika.
“Use me.”
Resban’s low voice was heard.
“I don’t want to.”
“You want revenge, don’t you? Against the one who killed your person.”
“Revenge doesn’t discriminate. It also took away someone precious to me.”
Dokyoung, you.
But Resban chuckled.
“That’s because you lacked power.”
His voice piercing her heart.
Stinging yet soothing like comfort.
“I told you, I can see you. You’re the type who can’t sleep soundly unless you repay.”
Once, the lives she had cherished disappeared due to the Empress Dowager’s schemes.
All her precious people died.
She was left with nothing.
“For me to sleep comfortably by your side…”
“…”
Resban tilted his head slightly and whispered in her ear.
“I must first fulfill what you desire. I’m saying I’ll gladly become the sword of punishment.”
Esika’s eyes wavered.
“You’ll use me to enter the Imperial Palace. I’ll possess you as I’ve desperately wanted and protect you, so we’ll make a rather fitting pair.”
Then his low voice was heard.
“If I meet you in the next life, I will not hesitate to take your hand then.”
“I will be your next husband, Esika.”
His gaze was clear.
**
It was just the place name Hasetsu, and the afterimage of a silver-haired girl that always brushed past in dreams.
The scent of freesia lingering at the tip of his nose and the lonely smile at the corner of his mouth remained like an indelible afterimage.
This inexplicable longing, emptiness, and anger were released through the sword.
All the sword instructors praised Resban when he returned to the Imperial Palace.
They said he had a genius talent, and it was true.
Every trajectory of swinging the sword felt like writing each stroke of a character.
Will I ever know the reality of this afterimage and dream?
Did the girl really die? If so, what is my reason for living?
Harboring uncomfortable emotions he didn’t want to imagine, the lives of enemies faded with one stroke of his trajectory.
The war didn’t end with external enemies.
He cut down countless internal enemies as well.
If there were silver-haired prisoners, he would examine their faces, but what always remained was disappointment.
“I have not found a woman more fascinating than war.”
He would say this whenever the Emperor and officials tried to create connections with women.
It was true.
If there was only one woman more fascinating than war, it should have been that woman who grew with each passing year in the remnants of his dream.
From the beginning, there was only one thing he desired.
The moment he met her again, he realized it wasn’t a dream.
Whoever she knew him as, it didn’t matter.
As if engraved on his soul, Resban felt parched when he saw her. An intense thirst arose.
Desire is never satisfied unless possessed.
Even if that man called Dokyoung, whom she muttered about in her fever when injured, had let her go, Resban had no intention of doing so.
Rejection was never an option from the start.
The corner of Resban’s mouth lifted slightly as he gazed at the white butterfly perched on his fingertip.
“Your Highness the Crown Prince, the date for the Second Prince’s celebration has been set.”
A servant approached Resban, who was admiring the garden scenery, and reported.
Brayton, his half-brother and the current Empress’s son.
His marriage partner is the daughter of Duke Heinz.
She was a woman who had once been introduced to Resban for marriage as well.
“His Majesty… ordered to inform Your Highness first.”
The servant spoke apologetically.
There was only one reason why the Emperor ordered this news to be delivered to the Crown Prince first.
A criticism: Your brother has found a match, what are you doing?
The Crown Prince has a duty to continue the imperial bloodline.
“…And…”
The servant seemed not to have finished speaking and looked more cautious.
As Resban exuded a chilling aura, he hastily bowed his head and continued.
“The former Duchess Klaus is in a private audience with him.”
**
The aging Emperor sat on the throne, and Esika stood before him with her head slightly bowed, waiting for the Emperor’s words.
“…”
Esika’s mind was complex.
She hadn’t even given an answer to Resban’s proposal yet, and now a private audience with the Emperor.
Could the Emperor know something?
“The Marnel cheese cake.”
But the words that came out of the Emperor’s mouth were unexpected.
“Count Riheim recommended it, and when I tried it, it was an exceptional taste.”
Esika looked at the Emperor at the sudden praise.
A face with many wrinkles, eyebrows not particularly furrowed.
“…I’m glad it suited Your Majesty’s taste.”
No matter how delicious the cheese cake made by Hemos was, it couldn’t compare to the skills of the Imperial Palace’s chefs and bakers.
Each territory would offer the highest quality tribute, and even among Marnel cheeses, the finest products would be used.
Yet, out of nowhere, praise for the cake.
“Twenty years ago, when enemies trampled the Imperial Palace, I fled following my subordinates.”
“…”
The Emperor sighed as if thinking of the distant past.
“When hiding in a dilapidated hut, a certain marchioness made me a Marnel cheese cake to erase my worries… it was the most delicious cake I’ve ever eaten.”
Indeed, precious food eaten during difficult times is never forgotten.
Esika had such an experience when she was a spirit.
“But it tasted just like that, except for being slightly sweeter.”
Listening to the Emperor’s story, Esika smiled faintly after a moment and said.
“Whenever Your Majesty wishes, I will send our company’s head pastry chef to make the cake directly. He is skilled, so he can recreate any taste you describe well. Perhaps you might even taste exactly the same Marnel cheese cake as back then.”
At those words, the Emperor asked Esika.
“Ho ho, if you send me your head pastry chef, who will make the cakes? Won’t that be troublesome for you?”
“From the smallest cup to the spoon, everything is made according to the head pastry chef’s recipe, so our company’s cakes always taste the same. And if my pastry chef makes bread for Your Majesty.”
Esika continued in a pleasant voice.
“I gain one more promotional phrase for our Merhin Marnel cake. That it’s made by the pastry chef responsible for His Majesty the Emperor’s desserts, so it’s not a loss for me.”
“Hmm…”
The Emperor opened his mouth and stared at Esika for a moment.
It’s not something an ordinary person can do, discussing loss and gain in front of the Emperor.
From the start of the private audience, it was felt that she was no ordinary woman.
Usually, people tremble or can’t even make eye contact, but she showed no fear at all.
“Truly…”
Bold. And confident.
Unfounded confidence is recklessness, but Esika Klaus seemed to have reasons for that confidence.
Is the source of confidence her excellent business acumen, or is there something more hidden within?
When investigating young Esika Klaus, she was an unremarkable girl insufficient to stand beside the Crown Prince.
“…You amuse me.”
At the Emperor’s words, Esika smiled faintly as if honored.
“I’m grateful that you’re satisfied.”
Her demeanor wasn’t exactly the precise Imperial Palace etiquette, but it had a unique dignity, as if seeing the etiquette of a foreign royal family.
It’s incomparable to the fake royal Riona Klaus.
The thought occurred that Klaus truly lost a fine woman and ruined himself.
However, this could be an opportunity for someone who has returned from afar.
“Then lend me your head pastry chef.”
“Yes, I’ll do that. I’ll send him right away tomorrow.”
“And since you’re here anyway, let’s set a date.”
“Yes, if you tell me, I’ll immediately inform the head pastry chef…”
The Emperor interrupted Esika’s words.
“Didn’t you say you’d send the head pastry chef tomorrow? I’m talking about a different date.”
At the Emperor’s words, Esika twitched her eyebrows.
She couldn’t understand what he was saying.
“Since the divorce proceedings are finalized, there should be no problem with remarriage.”
“…”
“We should set it earlier than the Second Prince’s wedding date. Resban is the Crown Prince after all.”
Esika blinked.
Even with the heart of an absolute master, her mind went blank at this moment.
The Emperor said to her.
“I have no intention of stopping the Crown Prince.”
He was too old, and the Crown Prince had long passed the usual marriageable age.
If not Esika, he had proven painfully in every moment of his life that he would never marry.
Thus, after much deliberation, the Emperor decided to settle it when he could.
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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