To You, So Noble and Vulgar (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 15
‘Why on earth did she change so much?’
Ariana should have worn a tacky dress, acted stubbornly, and made a scene by sobbing uncontrollably throughout the entire party.
Then Rachel would have blamed Ariana’s bloodline, muttering about the Eastern Marquis, and people would have whispered among themselves, comparing the well-mannered, seemingly refined Helena and Victoria with Ariana.
Someone might have even begun to question how Ariana was being treated, but their voices would have been exceedingly faint.
Yet things hadn’t gone that way—Ariana neither cried nor blushed in that situation.
‘What exactly went wrong today?’
Victoria glared at the maids kneeling before her.
‘They’re the problem. If they’d done their job properly, I wouldn’t be blamed at all.’
Victoria ordered her handmaidens.
“Give each of them fifty lashes and lock them in the East Tower.”
“Oh, Miss! Miss, please don’t! Please forgive us!”
“We tried our best! We’ll do better next time! Please forgive us!”
“Please spare our lives, Miss!”
The East Tower was a prison with no guards and no visitors.
A dreadful place where criminals who had severely harmed the Bronte family were locked away and abandoned.
The maids knew no one had ever entered that tower and come out alive.
But Victoria, as if she’d heard enough, went into her bedroom, and the maids were dragged away by servants summoned by the lady’s maid.
+++
Duke Jacob Bronte had been silent ever since the party ended.
Jacob, with his black hair and dark eyes, was tall and slender, giving off an intellectual and somewhat sensitive impression.
When expressionless, he appeared irritable, but when he smiled, gentle wrinkles formed at the corners of his eyes, creating a warm aura—and it was precisely that smile that had captivated Rachel.
Knowing this, Jacob had always smiled in front of Rachel, so seeing her husband with such a stern expression was something she hadn’t witnessed in a very long time.
Since she’d first met Jacob, she’d seen him wear such a grave expression only twice before.
Once when she learned she had to marry the Eastern Marquis, and again when she returned to Westerly with Ariana, the daughter she’d borne from that union.
And today, Jacob avoided even meeting Rachel’s eyes, his expression darker than ever before.
Noticing his mood, Rachel cautiously placed her hand on his arm.
“Jacob, you don’t need to take it so seriously.”
“Not take it seriously? Are you really saying that in earnest?”
Rachel flinched at the anger in his voice.
Though she’d lived fearlessly as the daughter of the Western Marquis, she was weak when it came to Jacob—the first man she’d ever loved and the one she would love until the end. She never wanted to earn his hatred.
“Didn’t you see the expressions everyone wore at the party earlier? Didn’t you hear what people were whispering about that girl? Rachel, it wasn’t just Westerly nobles there—there were also nobles from the capital. You can’t possibly silence all of them.”
“What need is there to silence them? Just leave them be. No matter what rumors they spread, it’ll only be gossip for a moment. New scandals will keep arising, and they’ll forget easily enough.”
Jacob let out a sigh.
“Rachel, what happened earlier isn’t something that’ll be forgotten so easily. That girl isn’t an ordinary noble young lady. She’s the daughter of Westerly’s princess and the Eastern Marquis, and now she’s the adopted daughter of the Duke of Bronte. Don’t you think society ladies adore such stories?”
“They do, they do, but…”
“They might forget for a while, but every time they see us, they’ll remember it all over again.”
Rachel watched helplessly as Jacob paced nervously around the room.
What had happened at the party felt like a nightmare—an impossible, horrifying nightmare. Of all times for this to occur, it had to be when nobles from the capital, especially those prominent in high society, were present.
‘Ariana…’
The Ariana in the greenhouse seemed like a completely different person from the one Rachel had raised all this time. It was as if some malevolent spirit had possessed her.
Her expression, her gaze, her posture, her tone—nothing about her felt like the Ariana Rachel knew.
Thinking back, she had seemed odd for the past few days already.
When she fell ill after eating spoiled food, and again when they met in the garden yesterday morning.
At the time, Rachel hadn’t taken those changes seriously.
She’d assumed Ariana was merely trying to act differently since nothing she did ever earned approval or affection.
After all, Rachel had thought, no matter how much Ariana changed, as long as she remained beneath Rachel, she couldn’t possibly harm the Bronte family.
But Ariana had dealt the Bronte family a heavy blow in just a single moment.
As Jacob had said, the nobles who attended the party today would recall Ariana’s incident every time the Bronte name was mentioned.
‘This can’t go on.’
Her father, the Western Marquis, had instructed Rachel to raise Ariana quietly. The Eastern Marquis had also ordered that Ariana, his own daughter, be raised out of everyone’s sight, as if forgotten.
Then, when the right moment came, they would find a suitable family and marry her off. The Western Marquis already had several prospective families in mind for Ariana’s marriage.
Among them, the Alprehi family was the most likely candidate.
Ingou Alprehi, a viscount who had earned a fortune selling weapons and bought his title.
‘Since Viscount Alprehi is known for his fondness of women, he’d probably be pleased with Ariana as long as her appearance is decent—even if some scandal follows her. After all, he’d gain a beautiful, young wife and connections to both the Western Marquis and Bronte families; a minor scandal wouldn’t make him refuse.’
Even after marriage, Rachel still feared her father, the Western Marquis. He was the kind of man who would sell his own children to get what he wanted.
‘If Ariana becomes useless, he might turn to Helena or Victoria instead. I can’t let them suffer the same fate as me.’
Rachel had been forced to marry a man she didn’t love, leaving behind the man she truly cherished, but she wished for her two daughters to grow up freely and marry whomever they chose.
She couldn’t allow the expectations her father placed on Ariana to shift onto Helena or Victoria.
A good idea came to her. It might seem harsh toward Ariana, but ultimately, this was Ariana’s own doing.
‘Ariana, if you hadn’t acted that way at the party, I wouldn’t have resorted to such measures. I intended to raise you gently and marry you off properly, yet you dared to defy me…’
She felt no guilt whatsoever.
For Helena and Victoria’s sake, she would do anything.
‘Ariana is still a bit young, but… stories can always be fabricated.’
Duchess Juliana Loventa had invited Ariana to this social season, but Rachel had no intention of taking Ariana to the capital.
If an incident occurred that made it utterly impossible for Ariana to go to the capital, Juliana would have no choice but to accept it. With luck, she might even come to believe the events at the party were part of Ariana’s own scheming due to her improper conduct.
Rachel gently stroked Jacob’s arm, his expression still heavy, and said,
“Don’t worry, Jacob. Ariana’s problem will be resolved soon. I’ll see to it myself.”
+++
“Uhhhh…”
“Huuuuu…”
The women’s sobs drifted down through the damp air.
The weeping that had begun yesterday had grown much quieter after a day, yet it now carried deeper sorrow, resentment, and fear.
Leaning against the cold wall with her eyes closed, Ariana listened to the maids’ cries.
Though hearing such weeping in the darkness should have been chilling, a strange smile lingered on Ariana’s lips.
‘Helena doesn’t know what her maids did, so it must have been Victoria who locked them up.’
Victoria had always maintained her image by treating even her hired staff with courtesy and kindness. The servants praised her, saying, “The youngest noble lady of Bronte is not only beautiful but also possesses a truly lovely heart.”
Yet Victoria’s beautiful heart was not sturdy enough to withstand even a slight provocation.
‘She’s still young.’
If this had happened a few years later, Victoria wouldn’t have reacted so emotionally.
No matter how skilled Victoria was at reading others and manipulating things from behind the scenes, she was still too inexperienced to remain calm in the face of sudden disaster.
Having been imprisoned since last night without a single sip of water, the maids’ voices were hoarse and cracked, unable to cry properly.
‘Yes, you must be frightened. But you’re together, and you’re in a place where light reaches, aren’t you?’
Unlike Ariana, who was locked in a windowless underground cell, the maids were confined in an upper-floor cell with windows. Rachel would likely release them by tonight or tomorrow at the latest.
After all, with the household already under scrutiny over Ariana’s alleged abuse, it would be difficult to cover up the simultaneous deaths of several maids.
Having lain on the hard, cold floor since yesterday, her body trembled with chills. The spot where Rachel had struck her throbbed and burned, causing cold sweat to bead on her skin.
Ariana wrapped her arms tightly around herself.
Though imprisonment was familiar, thirst remained difficult to bear. The fever made her even more parched.
‘It’s alright. This is nothing. The final moments were far worse. I can endure this much.’
Perhaps because she was in darkness, many emotions silently surfaced.
The strongest among them was the sorrow she thought she’d discarded upon her rebirth.
She wanted to cast aside negative feelings and walk calmly forward, focused only on what lay ahead—but no matter how much she’d turned back time, she was still human and couldn’t erase all her emotions.
She felt heartbroken and sad.
Her own plight seemed pitiful and wretched.
She’d merely been born, merely lived, merely wanted to survive—so why must she be treated this way?
Her eyes stung, and Ariana clenched her fists tightly.
‘Don’t cry. This isn’t worth tears. Crying over something like this won’t accomplish anything. Don’t waver. There’s no reason to. You knew this would happen. You’re only receiving the treatment you deserve, so there’s no reason to feel sorry for yourself.’
She steadied her weakening resolve, forcibly pulling her crumbling spirit back together.
She thought of Rachel, who had abandoned and trampled her; Helena, who had smiled while watching Ariana die; the pain of the rough rope cutting into her throat; and Victoria, who likely orchestrated it all from behind the scenes.
Most pitiful and regrettable of all was herself—for having trusted them.
Foolish Ariana, whose heart had been absurdly tender, yearning for affection and seeking recognition.
Thus, she had to make her heart even harder.
‘If I burst into tears over something as trivial as this, I’ll only end up repeating the same miserable life as before.’
To distract herself from the physical pain, Ariana tried to focus on other thoughts.
She considered how Rachel might act next and what new schemes Victoria might devise.
She struggled to escape the loneliness of being unacknowledged by anyone.
Just then, something dropped at Ariana’s feet.
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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I finally found the chapter corresponding to chapter 42 of the manhwa!
Here’s a mother who refutes the “instinctive motherhood” notion.