Chapter 339 (2/2)

She felt drowsy. She felt a sense of extreme enervation. Closing her eyes that blurred gradually, she leaned on the fluffy carpet. A drop of tears rolled between the tightly closed eyelids.

Goodby, Rube and…Aristia.

I was sick and tired of everything. My first life was not my choice.

My second life was my choice, but I always wished I wasn’t the empress.

At some point, I wished I was not the duke’s daughter.

So, every night I went to sleep, I prayed that I could be sent back to the old me one day in my 19th year of life when I didn’t know anything, and that if that was impossible, I could be freed from the harsh reality and live freely.

Looking at the bottle in my hand, I asked myself, ‘Can you make me like that? Can you free me who has been exhausted and already ruined?’

“…My lady, lady? ”

“…”

“Lady?”

Jiun woke up when she heard a strange voice, and got up. The moment she blinked her blurry eyes, hot tears rolled off her wet eyelids.

She hurriedly bowed her head and wiped the tears. Even though a servant was serving her even after that day, she didn’t want to show her weakness in front of the old man, who could be called Marquis Monique’s right-hand.

“…Yes, please go ahead.”

“I heard that you seem to have a bad nightmare. So I came in, though I knew it was impolite…Are you alright? You look very pale. Can I call a doctor? ”

“No, thanks. You don’t have to care about me.”

Having said that firmly, she pretended to raise her body. The old man, who spent his whole life serving a great noble family, turned aside gently and said, “I’ll tell them to prepare breakfast for you then.”

The old man, who turned and walked away, was dressed up perfectly.

While looking at him for a moment, she sighed deeply. She knew he was taking care of her, but she felt uncomfortable for some reason. Perhaps it was because his neat attire often reminded her of Aristia, or she heard the conversation that day.

Was it because she had a nightmare, or was it because she saw face to face with the old man the first thing in the morning? She suddenly recalled what happened on that night half a year ago when she opened the transparent bottle and drank the drug in it.

After Aristia and Rublis came to see her and went back at night on the day, she drank it.

When she woke up in a drowsy state after sleeping, she was already in a strange place, not in the prison where she had been jailed. The one she met there was Marquis Monique, Lady Monique’s father.

When she shuddered with fear, he told her that the emperor ordered him to expel her from the empire without being caught by anybody. According to the order, she would not be allowed to return to the empire, but she would not need to worry about her livelihood because she would be offered a considerable sum of money in return for her saving Aristia. Then, she was ordered to leave for the border area immediately, escorted by somebody.

She remembered the moment when she flinched at his very cold voice in the past. Even before her return, Marquis Monique was one of the persons that she found very difficult to deal with. She felt so partly because of his blank expression, but all the more so because of his cold gaze at her.

When she came back home without saying anything, but went back to express gratitude for the last time, she got goosebumps when she overheard their conversation between him and the butler through the half-open door of his house.

<…Of course, sir. >

What made her feel more creepy was when she met his eyes when she was about to turn. She still couldn’t forget his look, who looked at her indifferently, as if he knew it already.

“Ha…”