Hiding My Identity From My Husband - Chapter 14

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 14

02. Why I Dislike You

Let me correct myself.
It wasn’t an act.
“It hurts so much…….”
I groaned and twisted my body. The blanket someone had tucked carefully around me crumpled in the process, but I had no mind to care about that.
Was it because it’d been so long since an injury like this?
Or had fatigue accumulated to this point?
I couldn’t say exactly why, but my entire body ached.
Muscle soreness wracked me as though someone had beaten me mercilessly for hours, and my fever burned so intensely that my mind swam in delirium.
“Nngh…….”
Thirsty.
I forced my heavy eyelids open and reached out my hand, thinking there might be water on the bedside table.
“Here.”
At that moment, someone pressed a cool glass of water into my palm.
I drank it down without even properly opening my eyes.
“Ah… I think I’ll live.”
“I wouldn’t say you look that well. You look like you’re about to die.”
At that response, I blinked several times.
Only one person would say something so tactless.
Mardi.
I kept my head on the pillow and turned only my eyes to look at him.
He sat in the chair beside the bed, looking just as immaculate as always.
“How long have you been here?”
“Quite some time now.”
“So you just arrived.”
“Why won’t you believe me?”
Mardi pouted and muttered something, but I ignored him. Instead, I gazed out the window. The sky beyond was pitch-dark.
“Still night, then. Did I sleep for half a day or so?”
I’d returned to my Residence in the afternoon, and now it was night, so a reasonable amount of time seemed to have passed.
“Charel.”
But something was off in Mardi’s voice. I turned to look at him again.
“Three days have gone by.”
“What?”
“You’ve slept for three days straight, groaning and whimpering the whole time.”
“……I did?”
“Yes. You did.”
No wonder my body felt even more sluggish!
Of course it would be stiff after lying in bed for three days!
Only then did I feel the lower back pain setting in, and I shook my head.
“Wait, why? Was I really in that much pain?”
“Yes.”
Mardi continued.
“According to the Physician, it seems you were suffering from overwork. Your body wasn’t in normal condition, and then you sustained an injury on top of that — apparently you couldn’t endure it.”
He looked down at me, tilting his head slightly.
“Had you been working that hard, Charel?”
Even when he speaks, this man…
“Being around you is the overwork, as far as I’m concerned.”
“My goodness. What a hurtful thing to say.”
Mardi laughed lightly and gave a slight shrug.
“Would you like something to eat?”
“No. I’d rather sleep a bit more.”
“Very well then. Rest is best, or so they say.”
Hearing the word overwork made my body feel heavier somehow.
I suppose I should rest a little longer.
With that thought, I tucked a pillow between my legs and turned onto my side.
But something’s odd.
Luu hasn’t left her post.
“Why aren’t you going?”
“Me?”
“Yes. I just told you I’m going to sleep. Shouldn’t you leave?”
At that, Luu stared at me fixedly.
As if she hadn’t heard what she’d just heard, or as if my words made no sense to her.
“What—what is it? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“If Charel were the kind of person who only slept, I would have left long ago.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“Charel. You know you scream in your sleep?”
“I do?!”
I jolted in surprise, my torso snapping upright. But Luu remained utterly unmoved.
“That’s right. You don’t just scream—you thrash about as well.”
Impossible.
“You’re lying.”
“Believe it or not as you wish. But I have a duty to remain at your side until you’ve fallen into a deep sleep.”
Luu crossed her long legs and replied coolly.
“That way, the servants won’t grow suspicious.”
…….
I was thoroughly flustered.
That I screamed while sleeping.
Could she be lying?
But I couldn’t fathom what advantage Luu would gain from such a deception.
“Then…….”
I asked carefully.
“What do you do when I scream?”
At that, a round smile played at the corners of Luu’s mouth—as if she were hiding something, or as if she meant to tease me.
“That is.”
Tilting her head slightly toward me, Luu grinned wickedly and spoke.
“A secret.”
This woman.
“You……! You’re really trying to mess with me……!”
That was when it happened.
The door swung open. Mardi burst into the room, a basin of water and towels in both hands.
“Oh, my heavens……!”
The moment Mardi saw me, she started, her shoulders jumping. She hastily set down what she was carrying and rushed toward us.
“No, mistress! If the young lady has woken, you should have said so! Why is everyone just standing here watching?!”
Mardi made a motion as if to strike Luu’s back, then seized my hand firmly.
“Young lady…… our young lady, how much you must have suffered…….”
Hmm?
“It must have been so difficult, so frightening. Our young lady shouldn’t have to endure such pain.”
Huh?
“This is no time to waste. I’ll fetch the physician at once. Just hold on, just a moment longer and stay awake! You understand?”
Without waiting for a response, Mardi rattled off her words and rushed from the room.
I stared blankly at the empty space she’d left behind, then turned my gaze to Luu.
“Is it just my imagination, or is Mardi acting more flustered than usual today?”
“It’s not your imagination.”
“Why, then?”
Luu crossed her legs the other way and blinked slowly.
“Well, she had to wash Charel at some point, didn’t she?”
“True.”
“It seems Mardi caught sight of your scars while bathing you.”
Without thinking, I wrapped my arms around myself.
My arms and back, my chest and belly, my legs—they were covered in countless scars. Most were blade wounds; a few were bullet wounds.
“Judging from that alone, she seems to have drawn her own conclusions about my past. That I must have done dangerous work to accumulate so much injury.”
Well, I couldn’t say I didn’t understand.
An ordinary person would be shocked to see my scars.
But was it really enough to cause her to make such a fuss? I couldn’t quite grasp it.
“So?”
I tilted my head, confused. “I understand that you inferred something about my past, but what’s the problem with that?”

“It means I’m concerned about Charel.”
……
My brow furrowed without meaning to. I couldn’t quite grasp what she was saying.
“Why?”
“Why, you ask?”
Mardi’s expression clouded further, and she posed the question back to me.
“You mean you don’t understand why I’d be concerned about Charel?”
“Right.”
I continued.
“It’s just a scar. It means the wound healed. It doesn’t hurt now. So why would you worry about it……?”
“I’m concerned about the past that gave her that scar. I grieve for what Charel has endured.”
I’d never heard such a thing before.
Grieve for my past?
Have I truly lived so harshly as to deserve someone’s pity?
……No.
What I’ve experienced hardly qualifies as hardship.
Even if I endured brutal training as a child and walked the line between life and death, even if I nearly perished more than once during missions, even if I must spend my entire life deceiving others……I cannot call that hardship.
If anything, I’ve lived comfortably thanks to Baeilor.
Did he not say so himself?

-Consider yourself fortunate that I deigned to take in someone as unremarkable as you. Live with that gratitude.

Yes. To be chosen by Baeilor was a stroke of fortune I’d never receive again in my life.
So I could never complain of hardship, nor did I have any need to.

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