“Fernando, why is that something I shouldn’t do? If anything, I feel sorry for not being able to accept your confession.”
“Why are you sorry?”
“What?”
In response to Fernando’s meaningful question, Etienne replied with a bewildered voice.
“You sacrificed everything to like me. Why are you apologizing when I turned away from that feeling?”
“What… are you talking about?”
Although Etienne didn’t understand Fernando’s words, a sense of unease made her heart race. Fernando seemed to know that she had liked him with all her heart.
“I knew your feelings but ignored them. How can you say you like me now when I even showed my feelings towards Hanna in front of you?”
“Fernando, what you’re saying now…”
“I saw you die.”
Fernando’s calmly spoken words fell onto Etienne’s anxious heart. Her heart was pounding so much that Etienne pressed her hand against her chest.
“I, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Even though she had returned to the past along with death, Etienne denied his words, not wanting to reveal her feelings for Fernando. It was all over already, and by not dragging Fernando into it, she could cut off her own feelings. She didn’t want to bring up those events again.
“Oh, right. I forgot I have a promise.”
“Etienne?”
“Let’s talk again next time.”
Uttering a noticeable lie, Etienne quickly said her goodbyes without looking at Fernando. She couldn’t face him right now. Etienne left without meeting his eyes.
Unable to escape Fernando’s quick pursuit, Etienne, who had been walking fast, stopped when her stomach became unbearable.
“Ugh.”
Leaning against the wall, she covered her mouth with both hands. Suppressing the heat rising in her esophagus, Etienne pounded her chest.
Pounding her chest to the point of pain, Etienne soon let out a rough breath and burst into laughter, seemingly empty.
“What’s wrong.”
How did he know?
She was the only one who had returned to the past, so how did Fernando know? How did he see what happened before her death?
Sliding down the wall as if slipping, Etienne sat down hesitantly. Her legs had already lost their strength, and the tears in her eyes made it difficult to see clearly.
“Ha, hahaha.”
Before climbing onto the gallows, she never imagined this would happen. Even though she couldn’t confess her feelings to him, she didn’t want to show such a pitiful and miserable appearance. However, it had all been revealed.
“Sob.”
As her laughter turned into a sob, Etienne covered her face with both hands.
“Now…”
How should she face Fernando?
How strange it would be to passionately gaze at him, saying he liked him when just a while ago, she felt differently about another man.
Wanting his attention but feeling uncomfortable now – how awkward it would be.
She couldn’t figure out where it had all gone wrong. Etienne, with her face buried in her hands, couldn’t get up for a long time.
“Is Etienne still not here?”
“Yes. After parting ways with Prince Hwang, we don’t know where she went,” replied Letin, the steward, to Serah’s inquiry. The sun had already set, and Etienne hadn’t appeared in the dark.
The escort knight who had accompanied her to the castle returned without finding her and went back to search for her, indicating an unusual situation.
“Why is the child, who is not usually like this, acting like this today?”
Etienne had now become a woman, having participated in the coming-of-age ceremony and having someone she loved. It felt odd today, as she was no longer a child.
Not returning from the castle, and her whereabouts being mysterious…
“I think we need to release the knights.”
As there was no husband in the mansion at the moment, Serah decided to make the decision in his place.
If they released the knights to find her, the situation could become more complicated. However, there was no time to think about that now. Just in case something happened to Etienne…
That was when it happened.
“Madam.”
Letin, the steward, called Serah without diverting his gaze from the main gate.
“Miss is coming.”
Serah hurriedly turned her head to look at the main gate. As Letin had mentioned, someone was approaching from a distance. Etienne was walking with an unsteady gait, looking as if she could collapse at any moment.
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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