Before Amy could fully regain her senses, she felt the cold, damp air clinging to her skin. A horrifying yet familiar sensation crawled up her spine. Involuntarily, her eyes snapped open, only to meet the malicious gaze of Lady Esmain.
At that moment, Amy realized. Ah, this is a dream of my past life, that time.
“You’re the witch who manipulated and played with the Crown Prince, aren’t you?” Lady Esmain hissed, her eyes gleaming fiercely.
“It’s a misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding? The Crown Prince himself said he was waiting for you,” Amy murmured under her breath.
“Stupid, I told him not to say anything…”
“What did you say just now?”
Amy pretended not to hear and diverted the conversation.
“It was just a childish infatuation. Haven’t you been seeing him a lot recently?”
Her soothing tone made Lady Esmain arrogantly lift her chin.
“Yes, I have. And unless something unexpected happens, I will be the Crown Princess.”
“But why me…”
“I find you irritating. I can’t stand the thought of living in the same palace as a woman favored by him.”
Amy couldn’t believe her ears – such cold words were actually a relief!
“I will gladly leave.”
“Who said I’d let you leave on your own terms?”
At her command, Amy’s feet were cruelly shattered. Enduring the pain, Amy groaned when suddenly, a foolish goat-like voice came from behind.
“Is this her?”
“Baron Dorian, what brings you here?”
Amy recognized the voice as Lady Esmain’s younger brother, the future Duke Dorian, known for his small, petty nature and obsession with bizarre ancient superstitions, causing a financial drain on their estate.
He also had a secret fondness for Amy since childhood, often approaching her at gatherings.
His grin while looking at Amy made her already battered face feel even more crushed.
“Sister, isn’t she the one?”
“What are you talking about?”
“She’s the maid I told you about, the one who caught my eye.”
Amidst the terrible pain, Amy felt dizzy. Me, catching your eye?
Lady Esmain dismissed her brother’s claims with contempt.
“What nonsense, you fool.”
Enraged as only a prideful yet incompetent man can be, Baron Dorian exploded into a sibling fight right in front of Amy’s cell.
Caught in deep contemplation, Amy pondered whether to falsely agree with Dorian’s claim and crush her conscience, or stand firm and face death.
But before she could decide, their fight ended, seemingly with Lady Esmain victorious. Turning to the defeated Baron, whose face now resembled a more moronic wild boar, Amy belatedly decided it was better to face death.
Amy couldn’t forgive a man for being poor, but being ugly was unforgivable.
Lady Esmain, fluttering her fan, said,
“The Crown Prince said you toyed with his heart.”
‘!’
Amy cursed internally. That utterly foolish man!
“I’ve never done anything to deserve such a grave accusation.”
Resolved to die gracefully, she replied with cultivated grace. But her refinement shattered when Lady Esmain sneered back.
“Did you think I didn’t orchestrate this? The order came from the Empress, but with the Crown Prince’s tacit consent. They both wanted you punished.”
‘!’
Amy felt a surge of injustice and rage, as if she were about to spit blood.
After all the blood, sweat, and tears I put into making that heartless man shine a bit, he repays me with betrayal? Accusations? Punishments?
Lady Esmain glared at me with eyes full of malice.
“You had a secret meeting with His Highness during last spring’s banquet, didn’t you? And then, when I confronted you at the Crown Prince’s palace the next day, what did you say? ‘Stop harassing a living person’?”
“I’m still seeing you harass a living person. Guess it’s your hobby now,” I retorted, feeling utterly defeated. Of course, I hadn’t had any secret meeting with the Crown Prince at the spring banquet.
Perhaps he was secretly meeting someone else. Puzzled that there was something I didn’t know, I quickly sifted through my memories. Around that time, the Crown Prince did behave suspiciously.
Assuming his behavior was due to being scolded by the Empress, I generously gave him a day off.
Such a traitorous dog, selling me out just to cover up his affair with another lover.
In agony, I cried out.
“I served loyally, hoping he would become a great Emperor (and secure my prosperous future)!”
I even neglected the Second Prince, who used to follow me around, focusing only on the Crown Prince’s wellbeing and progress. I remembered a brass hairpin the Second Prince once put in my hair as a child, which still hung in my disheveled locks.
“If only I had stuck with the Second Prince.”
But it was too late to regret now.
Thinking of the Second Prince, my heart fluttered.
He was indeed peculiar. I swear I never treated him well or showed him affection. Yet, he would always run to greet me cheerfully.
I knew he had grown up lonely and deprived after losing his mother, the Empress. But I thought it had nothing to do with me and shamelessly reciprocated his greetings. Did he appreciate my indifference?
Then it struck me.
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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