The famous upscale restaurant’s front street was bustling with elegantly dressed people. From the restaurant, the glow of the lights was more beautiful than the smell of the food.
People who had finished their meal were smiling happily. I felt I could never smile like that.
I walked past them aimlessly.
I was proud of how tough and nasty I had become. The only thing I believed in, the only thing that kept me alive, had its limits.
I hated that people thought of my mother as a prostitute. It wasn’t because of the humiliation I felt, I swear.
I had heard such words more than once or twice when I was young. Such insults were naturally attached to a woman who had a child without a father.
But this was different. The words spat to provoke me, and the words spread on the premise of truth, were incomparable.
I couldn’t allow my mother to suffer such humiliation. I couldn’t make her feel sorry for leaving me so irresponsibly and cruelly if I wanted to continue to hate her.
The count was also a problem. Although the nobles’ criticism wasn’t a talking point, it was different if the party was Count Roar. He was clean and upright, respected by the nobles.
If rumors spread that he had gotten a child from a cheap prostitute, it could even break the emperor’s trust.
Even if I graduated from the academy ignoring all this, the countess would be waiting for me. I didn’t doubt her words that she would block my way with all her might.
In the end, all my efforts were nothing from the beginning.
When did the countess start thinking like that? Had she been quietly watching me, not sleeping well for months, studying, waiting until the very last moment?
“Damn it. May lightning strike me dead…”
“What did you just say?”
Suddenly, a low angry voice of a man sounded.
I slightly lifted the hood and saw a noble of my age before me.
Only then did I take in the sight before me.
Black hair, tall stature, a finelooking young man, holding the wrist of a common woman who was frightened.
Just my luck that I had come between them, cursing.
I didn’t know why such a young noble was wandering alone, but I was too tired to explain that I hadn’t cursed at him.
Moreover, looking at the situation, it seemed I could continue to curse.
God had sent a villain before my eyes, providing an opportunity to unleash the anger and helplessness gnawing at my bones.
The woman whose wrist was grabbed whimpered and spoke.
“I don’t know why you’re doing this all of a sudden. Please let me go, young master. I beg you!”
And he teased a strange woman in the street looking so fine.
Such people enter the academy and gnaw at the empire’s future. It was none of my concern now.
It was none of my concern, but I couldn’t help the boiling rage that felt like it was about to explode.
I was so reckless that I thought the count would help me even if I got into trouble. There were few in the empire who could outdo the count in prestige.
In an utterly broken state of mind, I snapped.
“Are you curious what I just said?”
The young man’s handsome, thick eyebrows furrowed on one side.
The moment I saw him, I realized I had risen in status. The village chief’s son who tormented me in childhood looked like a rag, but the villain before me now was a different class.
His manner of speaking was utterly distasteful, though.
“Mind your own business and be on your way.”
“I love my neighbor as myself, you see. So it doesn’t seem like someone else’s business. Hey, are you alright?”
The woman whimpered and answered.
“I was just passing by…!”
“Let go of that hand and talk?”
“I know what you’re thinking and you’re brave. I’ll forgive the rude words you just said, so leave now.”
The reason I exploded was because of the words ‘leave now.’
Damn these nobles!
Around me, the density of these noble brats was too high. How could anyone breathe in this?
“That damn hand of yours…”
“…What?”
The man’s eyes widened as much as a lamp.
“Do your parents know you’re acting like this on the street?”
“Now…”
When I opened my mouth to give him a good lashing for the first time in a while, the woman knocked his wrist away and ran. It was really like the wind.
The man yelled at me.
“You lost her!”
“…!”
I jumped at the man’s yell, and my hood fell off as a result. I quickly put it back on.
Then a knight appeared on the path the woman had run down and blocked her. She bumped into him and grabbed his arm, and a money bag fell from her arms.
It was clearly a noble’s money bag.
“Gasp…!”
I swear, at that moment, my jaw fell off and then reattached itself. The curses I had held inside erupted all at once, but I couldn’t say a word.
So, this nobleman caught a pickpocket, and the pickpocket was using my sympathy to avoid the situation.
After treating such a person as an ally, my life, already in ruins, was shattered…
The man turned to me with a smug smile as if to say he had done well.
I had no choice.
I have to run away.
His desperate shout quickly faded as I started to run.
“Stop there!”
(This is a time separator.)
Turns Out He’s Been Secretly in Love with Me
One-line summary: He acts like he doesn’t like her but is actually playing hard to get.
Synopsis:
Xu Muzhou like her. He has liked her for a very long time, and through repeated schemes, he finally closed the distance with her.
But this is still far from enough.
He wants to be the one who stands out among her many suitors, to fight for her attention, and to make her take the initiative to pursue him.
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