My Ex-Husband Came Back Crazy - Chapter 70

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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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Chapter 70
Chapter 7. Origins (10)
She was nineteen, and it was early autumn.
Outside the Capital, at a public forum hosted by the Imperial court.
It was a debate meant for bearded old men, but Celia, who had only recently come of age, had been invited to observe and followed her father there.
Celia was irritable that day.
‘Old men. They call it a noble forum! I thought I’d stumbled into some gathering where young officials showed off their newest mistresses.’
But that wasn’t the only reason.
Her father, Edmund, couldn’t contain his rage toward House of Windmere, and the household had become treacherous ground.
Word had just come that the budget for river maintenance in Brickwell lands had been cut, and it was House of Windmere that had proposed it to the Emperor.
“I’m irritated. I want to go home.”
Though she had come of age, she remained unchanged.
Boring, tedious affairs still made her skin crawl.
“It’s because of Father—Evandor’s been strange lately too. And Liam… why do the physicians keep taking money?”
Her footsteps dragged like a bird beaten by rain, lacking strength. The interior of the Assembly Hall was all stone pillars and arched ceilings.
Her footfalls echoed slowly across the marble floor.
It was then that she spotted him—when people had gathered in their own groups and those left behind were forgotten.
“Lucius Windmere.”
In a corner where she would normally have settled.
Lucius, who sat there, lifted his head.
His dry eyes bore a faint shadow beneath them. Though Celia was dressed as neatly as always, she felt a private shock at something parched in his appearance.
Though she didn’t show it.
“The river maintenance budget. Your father opposed it in the assembly, didn’t he?”
Celia confronted him directly.
Up to this point, it was as it always was. Perhaps half of it was theatrical.
A performance for her father, who had allowed his anger to make the household look terrible. Let me rage at Lucius Windmere, insult him, and perhaps that flattery will help you recover your mood.
But if there was something different, it was in Lucius’s response.
“Hah……”
The man who she thought would exchange a few words and be done instead suddenly covered his face with his hand and shook his head.
“You came to blame me for that?”
Between his fingers, frozen green eyes gleamed.
“Celia. You’re still rude and vulgar.”
Celia, focused on his change, immediately tightened her throat. It didn’t take long for harsh words to tumble past her lips.
“Rude? Look for rudeness in your father, Lucius. The one who fawns before His Majesty, destroys another’s household, and hides in the shadows pretending to know nothing—I have nothing to say to that sort of man.”
At her cutting words, he narrowed his eyes. Fatigue now clung to those blue eyes that were normally clear.
“If the only reason you came to find me is out of hostility toward our house—”
Lucius’s voice dropped low.
“Don’t come again. Even looking at your face exhausts me.”
Celia bit her lip. Her full red lip immediately drained of color.
The laughter of those who had finished their talks, the sound of carriage wheels, the distant ring of bells—yet in her ears, only his voice lingered.
“Exhausted? That’s what I should be saying. Is it my lot to placate your father like a child throwing a tantrum over stolen candy, given how obsessed he is with my family?”
Click.
Her heel came down precisely between his feet.
“Lucius Windmere. Do I look like I came to you trying to be pleasant and make conversation? I came to warn you. Learn from your father’s lesson—don’t let private feelings create blunders in public affairs.”
The moment Celia finished speaking with affected elegance, Lucius’s cheeks puffed out. The veneer of composure that had always covered him peeled away, and what lay hidden beneath was exposed like raw skin in an instant.
“That scheming mouth of yours won’t shut, will it?”
Then a grip that felt somehow brutal seized her wrist.
“Come with me.”
He moved, pulling her along. Celia thrashed as if seized by the collar, but Lucius merely glanced at her movements a few times, as one might watch butterfly wings.
“Lucius!!”
“…….”
Past the side entrance of the Assembly Hall, they headed into a stone courtyard where barely a shadow of another person lingered.
The late-summer wind swept low, and sunlight dragged their shadows long across the courtyard walls.
“You…… Ugh!”
Her heel scraped roughly against the stone floor.
“It hurts—let go!”
Only after dragging her deep inside did Lucius finally stop.
Once he’d caught his breath, he loosened his grip and slowly released her wrist.
For a moment, only the sound of their breathing passed between them.
“What are you doing?!”
Celia, belatedly coming to her senses, grasped the arm that had been seized.
Her shoulders trembled violently. He narrowed his eyes for a moment, then looked at her wrist, which had flushed a light red, and opened his mouth as if to say something before closing it again.
“……Celia Brickwell.”
His voice as he spoke her name was lower than before.
Something had eroded within him, and exhaustion seeped through in the end.
“Let’s not entangle ourselves again.”
Celia’s eyes, which had been brimming with things to say, widened.
“What are you talking about?”
“We ruin each other. You know that.”
“Anyone would think I’m the one who’s ever wanted to be tangled with you.”
His sudden words were enough to startle her.
“Now that you’ve come of age, you want to pretend to be grown?”
“Consider it that way.”
“……What?”
He took a step back.
As the distance widened, an inexplicable rupture cut through the air.
“I don’t even have it in me to accept you anymore.”
Not a shout, but a quiet statement that cut deeper.
“I don’t want to waste any more time on these pointless feelings.”
What was he even saying?
It was the first time in her life she’d felt so gutted, so hollow.
His hand slowly clenched into a fist and then released again. It was a gesture close to resignation, but it was a part of him Celia—her lips churning as they were—could not perceive.
“If you have nothing more to say, I’m leaving.”
For some reason, everything felt hollow to Celia.
Fighting she was used to.
Hating, trying to win—these too.
But never before had words trampled her pride so directly.
‘I’m so angry I could scream.’
She should grab him right now and slap his face—
While she groped for words through the tangle of her thoughts, the silhouette standing in the sunlight receded.
Even then, Celia’s lips never quite parted, and her feet remained rooted to the spot as if glued there.
And only a short while later, before word of their marriage reached them, Lucius did exactly as he said.
As if she had never existed from the beginning.
He erased her from his world.
***
Why had Lucius had her things?
And why had he kept them stored away?
Pulled back from her reverie, Celia reached a clean conclusion.
‘He must have just shoved the traces of his investigation into that drawer.’
The Brooch—well, he probably found it by chance or something like that.
It was a tidy conclusion. She felt no inclination to think there was any other intention.
What manner of people had they been in the past? Even if mountains grew harbors or carriages rode over seas, they were a pair who could never accept each other.
“Ah, I think I’m winning.”
And more than anything, now she needed to focus elsewhere.
Lucius laid down Cards, and Celia quietly picked up her cup.
Damn this.
“I didn’t think I could win. I must be lucky.”
If luck alone won card games this consistently, casinos would have gone bankrupt long ago!
This was already the seventh hand. Celia had won five times, Lucius twice.
Looking at it this way, it seemed her plan was proceeding smoothly, but the reality was different.
Whenever Lucius lost, he quickly drank and denied her any chance to question him.
‘This won’t do.’
Celia said as she shuffled the Cards anew.
“Both our cups are empty. Pour us fresh ones.”
“Which shall I choose?”
“The lowest proof. So you don’t get drunk again like last time.”
“…….”
Lucius’s guilty hand became more cautious.
Celia, catching a glimpse of his disappointed expression, wore a satisfied look. On the next hand, she would definitely extract an answer.
And without incident, this time too Celia claimed victory.
“A drink? Or an answer?”
“I’ll answer.”
She laughed sharply.
The small amount of drink had made her spirits soar.
“Lucius, you……”

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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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