About Becoming My Ex-Husband's Mistress - Chapter 2

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 2. Marriage Covenant
The next day.
Upon waking, I buried my face in the pillow. I couldn’t bear to open my eyes to the dreadful past life that had come flooding back in its entirety.
‘So I was that suffocating, foolish Priscilla.’
I would have preferred a bleak ending where everyone simply perished.
Yet the conclusion was a happy ending.
After waiting two more years, Count Genoma donated all the inheritance he received—once Priscilla was declared dead after being reported missing—to the heroine Melissa.
And Melissa purchased the Temple with that fortune.
To cleanse her status and achieve love with Zerox, the male lead and king.
With the power she wielded, she further solidified the position of Count Genoma, her other lover.
The Temple proclaimed Melissa a saint, and around that time, King Zerox of Arde Kingdom found himself plagued by the emergence of Duke Wintum.
Duke Wintum.
Priscilla’s ex-husband, known to have died in the war against the Doerban Empire.
It was none other than Luderne Sellen.
Luderne had received a new house name, ‘Wintum,’ and the title of Grand Duke from the Emperor of the Doerban Empire.
This fact aroused public suspicion.
Luderne was known to be an illegitimate child of the Sellen Barony.
Yet his true bloodline differed greatly from what was known.
It was true that Luderne was illegitimate.
But his real parents were not the Baron and Baroness of Sellen.
His father was Fleit Doorban, Emperor of the Doerban Empire, and his mother was Hilda Arde, the late queen of Arde Kingdom.
The result of a reckless affair they had committed in drunkenness, hidden away in the Sellen Barony.
That was Luderne.
In other words, Luderne possessed the right of succession to both the throne of Arde Kingdom and the imperial throne of the Doerban Empire.
With this truth revealed, Luderne’s position grew by the day, and the Emperor of Doerban, remaining hidden from view, sought to naturally absorb and annex Arde Kingdom by exploiting his bloodline.
To counter this, King Zerox attempted to bring Luderne to his side and resolve the matter peacefully, but Luderne refused to bend to the king’s will.
In the novel, Luderne Wintum was a cold-hearted villain devoid of mercy.
Yet he possessed one weakness.
Before the heroine Melissa, he was nothing more than a gentle lamb.
Zerox decided to exploit this weakness.
Melissa conspired with Zerox to lure Luderne into her bedchamber.
How he spent that night with Melissa was not described in the novel. But the latter half of the story showed Luderne rendered powerless.
So much so that even the Emperor of the Doerban Empire abandoned him completely.
It was thanks to the machinations of Zerox and Count Genoma that succeeded.
Melissa fed poison to the now-powerless Luderne, and thus the villain who threatened the male lead’s position vanished from the world.
Afterward, Melissa lived happily ever after as the saint who brought peace to the kingdom, revered throughout her life and married to King Zerox.
All while keeping Count Genoma as her secret lover.
‘Where did it all go wrong?’
The inheritance my ex-husband left behind became Melissa’s strength, used to bring about his death.
If only I could return to that time, I would change it—the novel’s ending was hollow beyond measure.
Even learning everything belatedly couldn’t undo the injustice—time refused to flow backward.
The only thing I could attempt was to track down the author who wrote that book.
‘Sigh… First, I need to get to work.’
I exhaled heavily and pushed myself upright.
No matter how unjust my past life had been, my present mattered more.
Unlike that cesspool of a previous existence, I now lived as a reasonably successful makeup artist known as “Pree”—someone with genuine recognition in her field.
I’d finish work first, then send an email to the author.
‘Wasn’t the client I’m doing makeup for today competing in a supermodel competition?’
That’s when I tried to throw off the blanket and rise from bed.
Something felt wrong.
When I lifted my head, the window glowed crimson—the sunset was descending.
‘How long did I sleep?’
The question fled as quickly as it came, replaced by shock when I looked down at my clothes.
‘Did I ever wear something like this?’
A white negligée—not the rumpled t-shirt and shorts I usually slept in.
And cascading before my eyes was nothing less than shimmering golden hair.
I touched my face, then lifted my hand to examine it. My skin was pale and gaunt.
Beneath my hand, instead of the linoleum I expected, lay a worn woolen rug, and across the broader space stood what appeared to be a fireplace.
‘!’
Startled, I surveyed the entire room.
Everything my eyes touched felt foreign.
The wooden bed, the vanity, the door and wardrobe—all completely different from what I owned. They looked like medieval European antiques.
‘Where… am I?’
I descended from the bed and walked through the room until I stood before a mirror.
Reflected there was a blonde beauty—appearing to stand around 165 centimeters tall.
Though delicate in frame, her figure was strikingly beautiful, her skin luminously pale. Yet her eyes held no vitality, shadowed by exhaustion.
A blonde beauty with emerald-green eyes dulled by melancholy gazed back at me from the mirror.
When I touched my face, the beauty in the mirror mirrored the gesture.
‘Is this… me?’
Impossible as it seemed, I appeared to have possessed someone else’s body.
Yet her face wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to me—a strange, unsettling sensation.
After staring into the mirror for some time, I noticed a key pendant hanging around my neck.
‘This is… Priscilla’s key?’
Could it be mere coincidence that the novel I’d read yesterday came to mind?
‘Could it be… I’ve returned to my past life?’
Then came a knock, and the door swung open.
“Lady Priscilla, I’m coming in.”
Startled, I tensed at the sight of the visitor.
A maid of modest height but considerable build entered and bowed her head.
“Your father, the Viscount, and the Viscountess are waiting for you.”
“The master and the Viscount’s wife? A young lady, you say?”
I echoed her words in bewilderment, my hand instinctively rising to my throat. My voice sounded thin and fragile.
“Who exactly are they?”
At my follow-up question, the maid’s eyes widened before her brows furrowed slightly. She was looking at me as though I were strange.
The maid soon answered curtly.
“Count Genoma and the Bilsty Viscountess, Miss Melissa.”
My heart lurched violently.
Names from the novel itself were actually being spoken aloud.
“The m-master is Count Genoma…? Then this is the Count’s estate?”
My question only deepened the maid’s confusion.
“Yes.”
It felt as though my head had been struck by a hammer.
‘So I really have returned? To my past life…?’
A sudden doubt flickered through my tangled thoughts.
‘If I’ve regressed, to what point in time? From the way they’re calling me Priscilla, it seems to be before my marriage.’
While I stood frozen, trying to make sense of everything, the maid straightened and quickly opened the wardrobe.
Inside hung nothing but dresses in drab colors—grays, blacks, browns, and deep greens.
“This is no time for hesitation. You must hurry. What will you do if the Viscountess becomes angry?”
The Viscountess. Matilda Bilsty.
Once a servant in the Bilsty Viscounty, she had become the Viscountess, Melissa’s biological mother, and my stepmother—a woman of middle years with graying hair pinned in a brown bun.
“The Viscountess said today that green would be lovely. She says this color suits Miss Priscilla particularly well.”
The maid produced a drab green dress that descended all the way to the ankles.
Upon seeing it, I felt a wave of inner horror.
‘I’m supposed to wear this?’
In my previous life, people had always complimented my fashion sense.
I quickly examined the other dresses, but every gown in the wardrobe was similarly dreary. There were no alternatives.
Since I couldn’t very well go downstairs in my negligée just because I disliked the dress, I reluctantly put on what the maid offered.
The maid led me down to the Reception Room on the first floor.
“Viscountess, I have brought her.”
In the Reception Room, where sunset poured through the windows in abundance, sat Count Genoma, an elderly woman named Matilda with a long cigarette holder between her lips, and Melissa with her brown hair lovingly pinned up.
A middle-aged man in formal attire was also present.
“You’ve come down, Sellen Baroness. Or should I say, my lady now?”
Count Genoma, the murderer who had killed Priscilla, greeted me with a pleasant smile.
Based on the regression point, that time was still far away. Yet the moment I saw Count Genoma, my skin crawled with dread.
“Is something the matter, madam?”
Count Genoma asked as I instinctively stepped backward.
Matilda made no effort to hide her displeasure, clicking her tongue.
“She’s always been so strange like that. No wonder she couldn’t win anyone’s love, and her husband died so quickly.”
“Mother, please don’t say such things…. Do sit down, sister.”
It was Melissa, the virtuous heroine from “The Men of Saint Melissa,” who interjected, exhaling cigarette smoke as Matilda grumbled.
‘No, that’s not it.’
My thoughts shifted in an instant.
‘What do you mean kind? She keeps Count Genoma as her lover.’
Even as I thought such things, I found myself questioning what crime she’d actually committed. It was Count Genoma who killed Priscilla, not Melissa.
“Yes. Come and sit. The Notary Public has arrived.”
At Matilda’s words, the Notary Public rose and gave me a nod.
My heart pounded heavily in that moment. I remembered what time this was.
How I’d spent the entire day lying in bed, tormented by worry over this matter.
Matilda gestured with her eyes toward the table.
“I’ve brought the documents to be notarized. Sign them.”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————