After a moment of silence, Thanatos opened his lips.
[The prisoners of Tartarus have no need to eat.]“…”
[Though they are always in a fatigued state from sleeping on stones that drain their energy, we don’t provide meals or anything like that unless hunger or thirst is part of their punishment.]Hearing his words, Persephone let out a nasal sound and bit her lip.
“Well, I’m not sure if I had a strange thought.”
[What did you imagine?]Rolling her eyes, she awkwardly raised the corners of her mouth.
“Don’t they usually push the prisoners to their limits in Tartarus?”
[What do you mean by that?]
“I mean, don’t they starve the prisoners in Tartarus as a matter of course? Regardless of what punishment they’re receiving.”
Thanatos’s eyes widened. As he looked at Persephone in astonishment, she waved her hands as if to say not to misunderstand.
“I thought Sisyphus was also wearing handcuffs connected to the rock, so I assumed he naturally wasn’t eating and was starving.”
[…]“So I thought if I gave him food, he would easily give in and become my worker.”
[So, you mean… you were trying to tame the prisoner with food?]“I suppose that’s what it amounts to, right?”
Persephone shrugged her shoulders.
“So the reason I wanted to give food to that liar wasn’t anything special. It’s just, well, payment for his work. And if I give him compensation, he’ll work for me again.”
[The ingredients you used for cooking were clearly those received from the goddess of the earth, right?]
“Yes, that’s right. I had very little to use, so I just used what I had. Why?”
[Didn’t you think it was too expensive a mouthful to give to a prisoner?]“Well… Not really. I was annoyed that he tried to deceive me, but now I don’t care since I got back at him nicely.”
Persephone tilted her head.
[…]Thanatos, who had been staring at her, dusted off his hands covered in bread crumbs.
[…Tartarus.]He muttered as if talking to himself.
[Although it appears to be a place where evil people are imprisoned at first glance, good and evil are not important criteria for selecting prisoners.]Although she wondered why he suddenly started talking about prisoner selection criteria.
‘Right and wrong are not the criteria for prisoners?’
Her eyelids opened wide at this statement that differed from common sense. She raised her voice in curiosity.
“Then what is the criterion?”
[Whether they committed sacrilege or not.]Persephone’s eyes blinked as if she didn’t understand what he meant.
Thanatos, who had been watching her, stood up from his seat. He stared at the small plot of land that Persephone – no, Sisyphus – had plowed.
[Sisyphus is calculating and uses too much cunning, but objectively speaking, he’s not an entirely bad character.]“Why is that?”
[He informed a nymph’s father where the nymph had gone, thinking the Sky King had abducted her.]Ah, right. In the myth Persephone originally knew, Sisyphus had informed the father that his daughter had been abducted by the Sky King.
The Sky King, being the abductor, came to dislike Sisyphus for revealing his misdeed, and thus sent Thanatos to kill him.
To that, Sisyphus had managed to stop Thanatos, who was acting on the Sky King’s orders – that was the content of the original text.
The world Persephone had entered seemed to be a little, or rather quite different.
Except for the fact that the Sky King wasn’t a jerk, the overall framework didn’t seem too different.
[Of course, he did demand compensation for telling the father his daughter’s whereabouts… but his real crime was trying to avoid death. There’s nothing else.]“Ah… I didn’t know that.”
Persephone nodded casually.
As her clear, light green gaze met Thanatos’s bone-white irises, she suddenly asked a question.
“But why are you telling me these facts? Is it to help me adjust better to the Underworld?”
[If it’s consideration, then yes, it is.]
Thanatos gently lowered his chin.
[I’m now telling you that Sisyphus isn’t as terribly bad a person as you might think.]“Oh…”
[If you want to use him as your worker, you’ll need to train him quite a bit, but he’ll be much better than other prisoners.]So the reason he told her about the selection criteria for Tartarus prisoners was to let her know that Sisyphus wasn’t a hopeless villain and that it would be okay to keep him around.
Persephone had also thought that only utterly wicked individuals were in Tartarus.
Even she agreed with Thanatos’s opinion that Sisyphus was relatively decent among them.
But at that moment, Thanatos spoke in a stern tone.
[However, I will report this matter to Lord Hades.]“No…!”
Startled, Persephone quickly pretended to wipe her eyes.
“I was just shedding tears of emotion!”
[You look like you’ve got sand in your eyes, where do you get off lying. At least wet your lips before you speak.]Persephone puffed up her cheeks sulkily for a moment, but then her eyes suddenly sparkled as if she had thought of something. She clasped her hands as if in prayer.
“Then… will you also tell Lord Hades about the work you did for me today?”
Seeing Persephone’s sparkling eyes, Thanatos frowned.
He realized what this sprout was up to. She was probably hoping that an order to cooperate with her would fall from Hades’s lips.
He shook his head.
[…I’ll think about it.]“You should tell him to be fair. You said you’d mention that I used Sisyphus as a worker.”
At that moment, a hint of a smile appeared on Thanatos’s previously cold expression.
[Ah, I did get something for nothing, I suppose. The salata dish inside the bread wasn’t cooked with fire, after all.]Persephone opened her mouth and became uncharacteristically serious. Her gaze sharpened, as if to pierce through Thanatos, who swallowed.
[What, why, what.]“You didn’t say that to make me laugh, did you?”
[Wasn’t it funny? My, how picky. My palate wasn’t picky, though.]Persephone whispered slightly to the back of Thanatos’s head.
“Pig…”
[What?]
Persephone’s head turned to the side, pretending not to know.
Thanatos, glaring at her, let out a breath. His body slowly seeped into the shadows.
[This is the timeline separator]The center of Hades’s palace.
A wobbling shadow crawled along the wall.
The ashen shade that had been advancing tilted slightly in front of the office of the Lord of the Underworld, and eventually spat out a man in black attire.
[…Phew.]Thanatos ruffled his bangs.
‘Am I a bit drained?’
He thought Persephone had only taken Sisyphus’s vitality, but it seemed his own energy was slightly depleted as well.
The image of the sprout handing him the peculiar bread floated into his tired mind.
“So the reason I wanted to give food to that liar wasn’t anything special. It’s just, well, payment for his work.”
The young goddess didn’t seem to know, but providing food in the Underworld carried quite a significant meaning to begin with.
The inhabitants of the Underworld, having been dead for a long time, found the very act of digesting food unfamiliar.
With their survival instincts extremely faint, they didn’t even derive pleasure from fine cuisine.
The only person who had eaten regularly like a living being was the Lord of the Underworld from decades ago. Even he no longer ate now.
So Persephone’s attempt to give Sisyphus a meal was…
‘It’s akin to providing “food” among the necessities of life, stimulating the long-forgotten hunger and desire for fine cuisine.’
Just as the food of the Underworld draws the people of the world above to the underground, it comes to have the meaning of ‘binding’.
Indeed, that fellow was far more frightening than she appeared. Though she probably didn’t know it herself, it was quite a demonic idea.
Thanatos knocked on the door of the office.
“Come in.”
Soon after, Hades’s neat voice was heard from inside the office.
Thanatos opened the door silently and entered.
[Lord Hades, I have a new matter to report.]“What is it?”
Thanatos, looking at the pile of papyrus in front of Hades, cautiously began.
[The goddess, Persephone, intends to use Sisyphus, a prisoner of Tartarus, as her worker.]Hades’s reed pen came to an abrupt stop.
His black eyes, furrowing his brows, raised slightly. Thanatos, gauging his superior’s mood, added:
“…A method to tame him?”
[She intends to feed him.]One of Hades’s eyebrows raised.
Thanatos hurriedly added:
[She plans to feed him fine cuisine to reawaken his sense of hunger and the pleasure of the tongue.]“…”
[It’s a very good method for educating a prisoner.]The God of Death decided to defend Persephone to some extent.
This was absolutely not because the bread and its contents that she had given him were delicious.
Just as the outline of the bread was becoming clearer in Thanatos’s mind.
“Thanatos.”
[Yes.]“What kind of fine cuisine was Persephone planning to give to the King of Corinth?”
[It was bread filled with salata, giving it a rich taste. It was quite filling.]At that moment, Hades’s gaze pierced straight through Thanatos.
“I suppose you ate that fine cuisine instead for some reason?”
[…]“…So you really did eat it.”
The focus in his superior’s eyes became blurry.
Thanatos turned his head like a puppy that had made a mistake.
“It wasn’t an empty saying that one’s behavior changes according to the mental age of their counterpart…”
Hades’s words, mixed with a sigh, pricked Thanatos’s conscience. He felt ashamed.
“…In the first place, there’s no way that child could use a prisoner as a worker, right, Thanatos?”
Thanatos lowered his gaze at Hades’s chilly words.
‘Hmm, I guess it’s not allowed after all.’
Well, since she’s not a deity belonging to the Underworld, it wouldn’t be right to arbitrarily take and use Sisyphus like a tool.
Just as Thanatos was about to nod in understanding.
“Though she may appear strong on the outside, she was quite a delicate child on the inside.”
[…Pardon?]
The end of Thanatos’s voice rose.
“Thanatos, you know this too, don’t you?”
Hades continued as if it were obvious.
“Persephone once tried to run away, not wanting to stay in the Underworld. That child would likely run away or avoid prisoners rather than try to use them.”
…Are you saying what I saw was a hallucination?
Cold Male Lead Became My Clingy Husband (Female-Dominant)
Feng Bai Su transmigrated into a matriarchal novel, becoming the sister of the female protagonist and the Seventh Princess of the Feng Ling Kingdom.
After working herself to death in her previous life, finally reincarnating as a princess, she only wanted to be a lazy fish who could eat, sleep, and play.
Until she met the male protagonist from the book, Wei Jing Mo, and he took a liking to her!
Wei Jing Mo is the top young man in Feng Ling City, talented in both appearance and ability, from a prestigious family, with a cold and otherworldly appearance, a figure like the bright moon in the hearts of noble ladies. It was thought that only the most powerful and talented noble lady in Feng Ling City would be worthy of such a brilliant young man. Who knew that this young gentleman would secretly admire the infamous Seventh Princess?
Short scene 1:
Feng Bai Su looked at the young man crying like a pear blossom in the rain before her, and couldn’t help but doubt her life.
Wasn’t the male lead described as a cold and otherworldly figure in the book?
Then who was this poor little thing crying with swollen red eyes and tear-stained face?
Short scene 2:
Wei Jing Mo stared intently at Feng Bai Su who was about to go out, wanting to say, “Be careful on the road.”
Before he could speak, Feng Bai Su suddenly bent down and bit his cheek.
Her peach blossom eyes were full of disdain: “Tsk! You’re so clingy!”
Wei Jing Mo: “…”
A talented fox spirit female lead with a flirtatious appearance but actually abstinent VS A cold-looking but actually naive and clingy little jealous male lead
