Dining alone in the spacious dining room felt excessively quiet.
Edward took a few bites, then set down his fork. His mind was too preoccupied to have an appetite.
As he blankly stared at his untouched food, Paul, standing behind him, gently spoke up.
“Madam probably didn’t intentionally avoid replying. Don’t be too disheartened.”
Edward’s shoulders twitched with tension at the sound of his voice, but he soon spoke in a defeated tone.
“Did you hear? Asking if I am the kind of person who worries about such things?”
Edward leaned back against the chair.
“How could anyone understand why I’ve been tormented like this. After all I have done for someone else…”
He buried his face in his hands. Paul looked at him with pity.
“Madam didn’t mean it that way. She’s just not used to it.”
“What’s that. What exactly?”
Paul Johnson, instead of answering, coughed a few times. Then Edward threw a frustrated question.
“Are you saying the same thing? That I am the kind of person who can say such things?”
Edward’s eyes flashed fiercely. Paul, receiving that intense gaze, just raised his eyebrows. Though he said nothing, his gesture implied agreement.
“Don’t joke with me, Paul.”
Edward recalled the night of the incident.
Why had he driven home that dawn? He should have just let her go in and sleep comfortably, instead of worrying about him outside, looking so pitiful.
Why wouldn’t she ever listen to his words?
He felt both resentful and pained that his wife didn’t seem to care about his worries.
“……I worry about her so much.”
“Master.”
“Even if what you say is right, isn’t her reaction too much? We’re married, after all. It’s normal to be curious, to worry.”
“Master.”
“How can she always―”
How could she always.
Muttering, Edward suddenly stopped speaking.
A chill swept over his heart. The words he was repeating began to painfully resonate.
“Always, the words I’ve lived with.”
The words Louisa always used.
They were too familiar.
Worried because it was late, not sure if everything was okay, concerned if something might have happened.
He couldn’t forget them. He had heard them until just a few days ago.
Edward, not knowing what to do, lifted his hands and then dropped them, muttering.
“I, I am…….”
He was always too busy facing problems, angry at his wife who wouldn’t listen to him.
In that endless cycle, he had forgotten somewhere along the way.
What he thought was the same, was actually different events, different times.
How many times had she enclosed those words in her heart?
Expecting an answer that never came, how many times had she repeated sending her sorrow into the void?
‘How hard it must have been for you too. You too were like this….’
Did it hurt?
Edward stood up from his seat.
His throat was tight, making it impossible for him to continue eating.
Normally, Edward would have skipped breakfast and left the house early in the morning, but today, unusually, he was sitting in the dining room at the right time.
“……This is serious.”
Edward grimaced at the reflection of his face in the glass.
Swollen with tears shed over several hours, Edward’s eyes maintained an unrivaled puffiness.
Even at his best, his appearance was less than ideal, and now the refreshing look of his usually wide-open eyes was ruined. He felt very displeased.
He heard someone coming down the stairs. Edward, who had been holding cold cups against his eyes, hurriedly put them down.
“Ed?”
Louisa, coming down for breakfast, called out to him in a small, surprised voice. She glanced between the two cups in front of Edward and then said,
“You didn’t go to work today?”
“I can go a bit later for the time being.”
His wish was the same as Geoffrey’s, so it should be fine to go late. Probably.
He coughed awkwardly, diverting his eyes, and moved one of the water cups aside.
Louisa sat down and said,
“That’s good. It’s nice you can get some rest.”
“Yeah… that’s right.”
“It’s really been a long time since I’ve seen you eat breakfast.”
“I thought eating breakfast might be good.”
“That’s true. As long as it’s not too hard on your stomach.”
Louisa said cynically.
Edward usually refused breakfast, finding it burdensome.
He glanced at Louisa, then started a conversation.
“You were worried the other time, right? About that fire at our lab, the one that made the news.”
Edward casually brought it up, then quickly added something, remembering his wife had more than just one concern.
“Oh, that.”
“Yes. That matter was resolved well. There were some inquiries, but everything passed without any major issues, so you don’t need to worry.”
“That’s good to hear.”
Louisa nodded quietly. Edward waited for a moment for her to say something more.
But soon, unable to bear the growing silence, he spoke.
“I might be able to come home early today.”
“That’s nice. I understand.”
“Still, just in case, if I’m late… I’ll let you know.”
Louisa’s responses, which usually came easily, stopped.
After a pause, she resumed moving her hand, which had been frozen in mid-air, and said,
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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