Orland had been intoxicated since last night.
He could not possibly face Charle’s anniversary sober.
Chirring─
As he poured the strong liquor into his glass, he took out a pendant he always carried with him. It was a necklace where a photo could be stored.
Click, as he opened the pendant holding the slot, Charle’s face, brightly smiling, appeared.
Her black hair, just like Tanashia, her eyes, a warm orange as if they were soaking up sunlight, were looking at Orland.
‘Charle…….’
Even after decades, the day he first met her was still vivid in his mind.
Charle was the nanny’s daughter. On a sunny summer day, her orange eyes, hiding behind the nanny’s skirt and secretly staring at him, still lingered in his heart.
─What’s your name?
─Good heavens! Charle! How could you speak so casually to the young master!
The nanny was hopping around as if it was a huge issue, but then Charle was only 5 years old, and Orland was 8.
The two who didn’t know much about social classes used formal titles when adults were around, but called each other by names when alone.
Charle was Orland’s childhood friend.
She existed in all of Orland’s memories because they had been together even before they hit puberty. When he looked back at his past, she was always there.
He watched her throughout her cute childhood, her waiflike adolescent years, and also when she blossomed into a dazzlingly beautiful woman.
At first, he thought she was just a friend.
There was no one who could talk to him as well as Charle, and no one who could make him happy like her, yet he hadn’t realized his feelings.
─I think I might get married.
It was not until the day she had her comingofage ceremony and said this to him.
─What?
─I’m already of marriageable age. My mom is going crazy about sending me off. I even met with the son of a general store in a big street a while ago.
It was a bolt from the blue.
Charle becomes someone else’s woman?
The thought of her living happily with another man, giving birth to children who look like the two of them, sent him into a state of complete panic.
Just like getting wet from a drizzle, it was Orland who fell in love first.
As soon as he realized his feelings, he took care of all the men who looked at Charle. He would secretly visit and intimidate them, and if that didn’t work, he didn’t hesitate to show off his power and status.
‘How dare you, my Charle…….’
Those were the days when he could not see anything out of fear that Charle might be taken away by someone else.
He was fretting over how to express his feelings, but it was Charle who came to him first.
─Stop it now, Orland.
─What are you talking about all of a sudden?
─I know you’ve been taking care of all the men I meet. If you’re worried I might have an unhappy married life, then it’s okay now.
─I…
─I appreciate your concern, but I will pioneer my life. I’m the one who chooses who to marry, and whether to marry or not.
Charle was not a woman who was swayed by anyone.
Like a pine tree that roots deep into the ground and grows, her mind was solid, and anyone would inevitably fall for her strong interior.
Orland did not do all that because he was worried that Charle might be unhappy. He knew that she would find her way to happiness in any situation.
The reason he behaved that way was solely for himself. He knew too well that he would be miserable without her, who was like sunshine.
─Charle, I have no intention of sending you to another man.
─What are you talking about all of a sudden?
─I like you. No, I love you.
The words that had been suppressed exploded out.
Her surprised expression when she received his confession is still vivid. And so was her face that immediately hardened.
─Don’t do that. This kind of joke, it’s not funny at all.
─This is not a joke…!
─Sir, please stop now. Do you think we can be together?
Neither Charle nor Orland were 5 and 8 years old anymore.
They knew too well what a class society was and how different their statuses were.
It was Charle who felt burdened by Orland, and it was he who kept confessing his love to her.
─Wait for me. I’ll become so strong that nobody can say anything about us.
─Orland!
─I promise. I won’t let anyone in the world separate us. Not even if it’s my father, my mother, or even God.
The reason he made the prestigious Brellof family grow into a powerhouse as it is today was solely to marry Charle with pride.
─Orlando, I know you have many suitors. Why do you choose me? My family is ordinary, my status is low… You might regret it later.
Charl’s words were wrong. He had never seen a woman as beautiful as her in his lifetime.
Undoubtedly, there was no one who made his heart flutter and made him feel like a boy again like her.
─Because I love you. Charl, I love you so much. I will cherish and love you like my life, even if I give everything I have.
He could never forget the moment when tears welled up in Charl’s orange eyes.
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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