To Those For Whom Even Regret Is A Luxury (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 15
That night.
Edward, who had been invited to a card game among noble gentlemen, was in a good mood.
Only heads or heirs of the most prestigious families had been invited to this gathering.
There, Edward met Marquis Lainer and greeted him warmly.
“Good evening, Your Grace. Fancy meeting you here!”
“Oh, Count Lopez. I heard tomorrow marks the first rehearsal for the Saint Verdikto Festival opera—should you really be here?”
Marquis Lainer was a fair-faced young man with a gentle demeanor.
Yet behind his seemingly mild eyes gleamed a sharp, calculating gaze.
“Haha. Why not? I’ve finished composing the piece; it’s up to the performers to bring it to life.”
“Hmm.”
Lainer’s unblinking stare fixed upon Edward, who inwardly clicked his tongue.
‘He’s showing off like some self-righteous investor.’
Edward knew well that, despite his pleasant appearance, Marquis Lainer was more calculating than anyone else.
After all, wasn’t he practically the only noble with close ties to Dante Hagenberg? Only someone with nerves of steel could keep company with such a bloodthirsty killer.
Just as Edward raised his wine glass to mask his discomfort—
“You’re well aware, Count, that this opera represents a crucial opportunity.”
“…Of course, Your Grace. I’m giving it my all.”
“Perhaps it would be better to restage *The Sacred Taboo* than premiere some half-baked production.”
“Huh? *The Sacred Taboo*…?”
Edward blinked in surprise, baffled by the sudden remark.
*The Sacred Taboo* was indeed the flagship opera of Lopez Opera House, but it hadn’t been staged in quite some time.
And the signature aria of that opera was…
“Ah, I happened to hear a reinterpretation of ‘On Ownership’ just moments ago.”
“What? A reinterpretation of ‘On Ownership’?”
“Oh? You hadn’t heard? The quality was so exceptional I assumed Count Lopez himself had arranged it.”
“Oh… I see.”
Edward forced a calm reply, though inwardly he ground his teeth in fury.
‘Who dares tamper with my composition?’
While street performances or tavern renditions were usually tolerated, rearrangements were a different matter entirely.
‘Arrogant bastard! Whoever you are, once I catch you, I’ll crush you so thoroughly you’ll never play again—’
“I realize it’s impolite to say this, but honestly, I found the reinterpretation even more striking than the original.”
Edward froze like stone at Marquis Lainer’s casually tossed remark.
“…Excuse me?”
“Oh, of course, the original was magnificent—but the flute part toward the end, well… it felt like an unnecessary embellishment that could’ve been omitted.”
Edward’s face paled instantly.
That flute passage in the latter half didn’t exist in the true “original” score.
It was something Edward had added later—absent from Ariana’s initial draft.
In fact, it was one of the few purely original compositions Edward had ever produced.
“But they stripped all that away and inserted a longer interlude instead. At first I found it odd since it was longer than usual, yet as I listened, it moved me deeply.”
“…”
“How about tracking down that performer and collaborating? Staging a new version would surely draw crowds.”
Edward clenched his fists so hard they nearly shattered.
‘What does a money-grubbing fool like you know about art? Embellishment? Damn it!’
He longed to grab Marquis Lainer by the collar right then and there.
The marquis’s condescending words left Edward seething with deep humiliation.
‘Dammit… Just let the opera house succeed a little more.’
Then he wouldn’t have to care about Marquis Lainer or Marquis Pedegrin—or anyone else’s opinion.
For the sake of the day he could freely express his artistic vision, he had to endure this.
Gritting his teeth, Edward swallowed another gulp of liquor, burning with silent rage.
* * *
Duke Hagenberg spotted in public with a young beauty!
Duke’s first official romantic relationship confirmed?!
Who is the mysterious woman beside the Duke?!
“What is this?!”
Elena shrieked and threw the newspaper across the room.
After trembling violently for a moment, she sharply yelled,
“Ugh, damn it…! Bring that back!”
“Yes, my lady!”
A maid hastily returned the very paper Elena had just hurled into her outstretched hand.
Elena’s eyes widened again in shock as she took in the headline.
The Duke and his secret lover, caught in an unabashed display of affection in paradise…
“Just who the hell is this woman?!”
Elena glared furiously at the newspaper, her body shaking.
Had it merely been another gossip column, she would’ve dismissed it as pathetic tabloid nonsense.
After all, rumors about the Duke’s romantic entanglements were hardly new.
But unlike past rumors, this scandal came with evidence.
A newspaper had captured a photograph of Dante with the woman.
And not just any photo—it was shockingly intimate.
“Ughh…”
Elena stared furiously at the picture, as if she could burn a hole through it.
The image was blurry, and the woman’s face was completely hidden beneath a thick cloak.
Moreover, Dante’s large frame obscured most of her, revealing only a sliver of her form.
Yet even in that poor-quality photo, it was painfully clear the couple was engaged in a blatantly passionate affair—
so explicit it made Elena’s cheeks burn just looking at it.
When she recognized Dante’s profile—kissing the woman perched atop a piano—Elena flung the paper away again.
“This can’t be! He’s never done anything like this before!”
Rumors were already widespread that Dante summoned singers to his bedroom nightly.
But that was different from a love affair.
Dante never summoned the same woman twice.
So Elena had never cared.
She’d simply assumed that, like any capable man, he needed someone to warm his bed each night.
And a “virtuous” woman, after all, should understand such matters with grace.
‘Besides, everyone’s been saying the Crown Princess herself is constantly trailing after him.’
If it were the Princess, Elena wouldn’t have felt a shred of jealousy.
The Princess was simply beyond comparison—like a tree one shouldn’t even glance at if they knew they could never climb it.
But this was entirely different.
‘So he’s finally playing lover with one of those singers?’
Elena’s lips trembled. She couldn’t make sense of it at all.
‘If that’s how it is… then why did he…’
Why did he ignore *me*?
Elena bit her lip hard enough to hurt.
There was a secret most people didn’t know.
Dante had once been a regular audience member at Lopez Opera House.
Though he always concealed his face—perhaps to hide his identity—Elena, standing on stage, had recognized him.
How could she not recognize that smoldering gaze, burning like an ember alone in the darkness of the theater?
‘He’s here to see me.’
The moment she spotted his face three nights in a row, Elena was convinced, her heart racing.
Dante came for her singing.
That he always took the front seat, that his intense eyes never left her as she performed—these things confirmed it.
She knew he was a dangerous man.
A killer who’d felled hundreds, even thousands on the battlefield.
But to her, even those fearsome rumors seemed like mere ornaments.
Of course, she never seriously intended to get involved with a man who toyed with just any singer.
Yet the idea of securing for herself the very man whom countless dignified, refined ladies only dared to admire from afar seemed… amusing.
…And she was curious, too, how Ariana would react if that happened.
So she reached out.
“Everyone should attend the after-party tomorrow. His Grace the Duke is expected to join.”
After the opera run ended, Elena sent invitations to partner with her at the after-party, smiling as she wrote.
To the men who’d been spellbound by Elena, visiting the opera house daily, this invitation was worth fighting for.
“Oh my! Duke Hagenberg himself—is that really true?”
“Yes. As my partner.”
The wide-eyed reactions of the ladies were endlessly entertaining.
At the time, the newly returned Duke was famously known to refuse all public social events.
Consequently, even more guests attended the party the next day—
most of them women.
And Dante didn’t show up.
There wasn’t even a polite letter explaining his absence.
He had simply, clearly, and utterly ignored her.
“…Ha.”
Remembering that humiliation, Elena bit down hard on her lip.
“Ugh, so annoying! Ugh… Aaagh!”
“You’re being awfully loud, Elena.”
Ariana entered the dining room, her voice calm and measured.
Elena whipped around to face her—and instantly frowned.
Ariana looked dreadful.
Dark circles under her eyes, slightly hollowed cheeks, and skin so pale it was nearly translucent.
She looked like a ghost.
“Good heavens, sister. Is that any way for a lady to appear?”
Elena covered her mouth with one hand, sighing pityingly.
“Stayed up all night again, didn’t you? Insomnia is the enemy of beauty. Don’t you know that?”
Among the servants pulling night shifts, a strange rumor had begun circulating:
Miss Ariana hardly slept at all. Music could be heard from her room, night and dawn without pause.
Elena dismissed it as ridiculous affectation.
Edward was the main composer anyway—why was Ariana making such a fuss as if she were the star? Their wedding was barely a month away; that should’ve been her priority.
‘And *she’s* supposed to become a marchioness…’
Elena glanced sideways at her sister.
In beauty and in every virtue befitting a lady, *she* was far more suited to be a marchioness.
‘…If only it weren’t for that wretched status.’
If only she’d had that infuriating sister and mother—or better yet, if her own mother had been born into a lower noble house.
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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