Unaware of his own feelings, Hadal seemed to be quite fond of the stoat. It looked like he had fallen for it.
“……I’ll have to remove things like mousetraps then. Understood.”
The steward hesitated for a moment before bowing his head.
‘He’ll realize soon enough.’
After Hadal left, I couldn’t fall into a deep sleep and kept tossing and turning.
‘Ugh, uncomfortable.’
The cushion was soft, but somehow incredibly uncomfortable.
‘It lacks warmth. And coziness.’
Thinking of this, I involuntarily recalled the thrill I felt when I slightly licked his hand earlier. I shook my head vigorously.
‘No! As good as it feels, that’s not right.’
Licking someone’s skin.
‘…But the amount of mana entering my body when I licked was definitely different.’
Knowing the warmth of that touch, nothing else felt satisfying. Finally, in frustration, I scratched the cushion again.
‘Argh! This is so annoying!’
After trying to sleep, waking up from the cold, feeling sad, and repeating this several times, a heavy voice reached my ears as I was half-asleep. Hadal had returned.
‘My heater!’
Excited, I sat up to look at him. But then,
“I’ll raise it a bit more before skinning it, so make sure it doesn’t get hurt.”
What?!
Shocked by his unexpected words, I froze like ice.
‘Skin me? I thought that was off the table. He’s still planning to do that?’
And he was planning to raise me to increase the size of the fur before killing me.
‘Forget guarding the room for sweets! I need to escape before he skins me.’
Realizing Hadal’s true intentions, my eyes flickered in panic. Then, the sound of his footsteps approached.
‘Eek!’
Afraid he would decide to skin me right then if our eyes met, I quickly curled up and pretended to be asleep.
The footsteps slowed around me, then scattered toward the direction of the bathroom. Relieved that Hadal had moved away, I sighed.
‘Phew, I was needlessly tense.’
I thought I had become quite familiar with Hadal, but hearing such words left me unsettled.
‘Ugh, even the sweets I ate earlier look suspicious.’
Perhaps he fed me high-calorie sweets to fatten me up quickly.
‘Sob, to Hadal’s eyes, I am just a mere stoat.’
I couldn’t blame Hadal. After all, expecting him to treat me like a human was just wishful thinking. He was merely treating me like an ordinary stoat.
‘Still, it hurts.’
It was sad when I woke up alone in the forest in an animal’s body, but meeting Hadal brought even more heartache.
I was sobbing quietly to myself when I heard footsteps approaching. I quickly buried my face in the cushion, pretending to be asleep.
The door opened, and a middle-aged man dressed in a neat dress uniform entered. He appeared to be the steward of the castle.
And what he brought with him was…
‘Food?!’
The warm, enticing aroma wafted from the cart he pushed in.
‘Breakfast! It’s morning, and time for breakfast!’
Eating in the room, it seemed. Good for me. I could tear into the bread as much as I wanted without anyone finding it odd.
‘What’s on the menu? What should I eat? What will be tasty?’
As I was excitedly wondering about the food, I realized something alarming.
‘Oh no.’
The steward, noticing my tail thumping the cushion in excitement, was watching me with narrowed eyes. Startled, I buried my head in the cushion again.
‘Is he estimating the value of my fur?’
I could almost imagine him scurrying off to Hadal and saying, ‘It’s grown enough to be skinned.’ In an attempt to appear as small as possible, I curled up tightly.
The steward, after watching me for a while, sighed heavily and muttered,
“……Just an ordinary stoat.”
Then, he murmured seriously,
“Could it be a magical creature disguising itself as the Duke? It’s unlike His Grace, who isn’t known for his soft nature, to keep a creature like a stoat.”
I wanted to protest at that.
‘How is that soft?’
Didn’t he hear the talk about skinning me?
I thought the skinning talk was forgotten, but who knew he was planning long-term.
Soon after, Hadal, with his wet hair, walked in, and the steward left the room, leaving the breakfast behind.
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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