The Fake Wife of the Strongest Husband Wants to Survive - Chapter 34

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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 34
He tilted his head slightly and continued.
“Beryl is only treated as a noble gem when it’s green—that is, Emerald. Other colors, such as Aquamarine, Goshenite, or Heliodor, are relegated to cheap ornaments for commoners. Even if they’re skillfully cut, the nobility won’t wear them.”
Hearing this, half-forgotten details surfaced in her mind.
Having spent her childhood buried in Herbalism—which, as Io would say, was as far from luxury as one could get, like playing in dirt—she’d never paid it much attention. Yet it was certainly true that High Society recognized only a limited range of gems.
“The standards are remarkably conservative. The Upper Class considers only a handful of prescribed stones to be valuable; the rest are treated as inferior goods.”
Even the few accessories Pesha kept for appearances fell into that category.
“Diamond, Ruby, Sapphire, Emerald. Beyond these four…… wearing them to a formal Ball would only invite ridicule.”
Pesha looked down at the stone with a deflated expression.
The Aquamarine still gleamed with its pure, elegant blue.
‘Gems themselves are luxuries used for social display, I know, but to throw away or sell cheaply something as fine as this Beryl—it’s such a waste.’
Gem culture was a symbol of entrenched authority.
The fixed conviction ran deep: anything outside the approved standard was not a gem, no matter how beautiful.
But what if that could be changed?
Pesha, lost in thought, opened her mouth.
“Then I simply need to cut it beautifully enough that no one would dare mock it.”
The jeweler lifted his head in surprise.
“What? Madam, you intend to use this?”
“Yes. Cut it as beautifully as you possibly can. I have a use for it.”
* * *
“This is absolutely absurd!”
At Jane’s outcry piercing the peaceful afternoon, Owen briefly glanced up from his papers and raised an eyebrow.
He’d come to lodge the same complaint as two days before.
Already accustomed to this particular grievance, Owen found himself unmoved.
“My lord, will you truly stand by and do nothing?”
Owen picked up his documents again and replied flatly.
“What’s the problem this time?”
“Surely you heard before I did, my lord? The lady is scouring the entire Territory, gathering Jewel Crafters! And yet she claimed at first she meant to plant trees!”
Owen nodded lightly.
“I know.”
Jane was shocked by Owen’s calm demeanor.
“You know, and yet you do nothing? The talk of purifying the Territory, of planting trees—it’s all clearly a smokescreen! I don’t know what scheme she’s hatching with all these craftsmen gathered, but what if she meddles with our Territory’s primary exports—Emerald and Topaz? What then?”
Owen turned the page of his documents with indifference, responding dismissively.
“So her interests have expanded. It’s good that she’s taking on outside activities.”
Jane’s eyes squeezed shut in despair.
“That’s not something to take so lightly! Surely you haven’t forgotten that not only I, but Fulton also said the lady seemed suspicious?”
Even when Jane invoked Fulton’s name, Owen remained unmoved.
“You pestered him so much he just gave you some answer to get you off his back.”
At this, Jane struck his chest in frustration.
“Honestly, doesn’t it strike you as odd, my lord? That greedy, arrogant Duke Rydel would never willingly hand over his daughter. Surely the marriage was a pretext—the Emperor surely sent her as his spy to monitor Swap!”
Owen sorted through documents he’d reviewed and those remaining, nodding vaguely.
“Yes, naturally the Emperor would go so far as to arrange a marriage just to keep watch over a mercenary given some remote, harsh frontier.”
“You won’t believe a word I say, will you?”
His grievances laid bare, Jane declared that his lord was detestable and he’d offer no more loyal counsel, then slammed the door and stormed out.
If only he’d actually stay quiet.
The thought of him returning tomorrow to voice the same complaints was already giving Owen a headache.
Owen lifted his gaze for a moment, then set the documents down again and exhaled quietly.
He hadn’t truly dismissed Jane’s words entirely.
Deep in his chest, like a small thorn growing imperceptibly, those words caught at him from time to time.
Until now, Pesha Rydel had been someone he could never reach, no matter how far he stretched.
He’d thought it would remain that way for the rest of his life.
But now she lived under the same roof as him.
When he first heard that Duke Rydel had accepted the marriage between his daughter and Owen, he’d thought it was a joke—or perhaps some scheme of the Emperor’s.
He’d heard countless warnings: that a Duke would never yield his daughter so readily, that he was foolishly walking into a trap.
Yet he would have paid any price.
In this unremarkable life, there was but one thing he’d ever desperately wanted, and it was her alone.
He wanted to be with her, even if only for a time.
He wanted to be bound to her as family.
The problem was…… he couldn’t read Pesha’s intentions at all.
He knew that to have forced her into marriage under this pretense, then hope for her heart besides, would be shameless greed. And yet….
The more he saw her standing beside him, the more they spoke, the more they lived together, the more he wanted.
He wanted to know her better, to be someone good in her eyes.
He wanted Pesha’s genuine heart.
Even though she had flatly refused him when he’d been ordered to marry her.
As his thoughts deepened, he found himself unable to sit still in the Administrative Office.
He couldn’t concentrate on the documents.
“Sigh……”
Restless and agitated, he rose from his seat and stepped outside the Administrative Office, needing air.
As Owen made his way slowly toward the Garden, he spotted a cluster of people gathered in the distance.
Pesha stood at the center of them.
She stood shoulder to shoulder with soldiers, her expression grave as she spoke with them.
Owen observed her gentle violet eyes, her flushed cheeks, the slender curve of her exposed collarbone.
What on earth was going through that small head of hers?
As if her despondency from the forced Political Marriage to that detestable man had never existed, she’d been bustling about with eager little steps, and now she spoke of changing the Territory itself.
He couldn’t fathom what had prompted such a shift in her heart.
It was clear she was moving with some purpose, yet he couldn’t begin to guess which direction her thoughts had turned.
While it was endearing to see her working so diligently on her own, there was also an undeniable unease that gnawed at him.
The fear that she might suddenly vanish somewhere.
It was an irrational thought.
After all, she was bound to him for life now—her disappearing made no sense.
Yet despite all reason, he couldn’t shake the anxiety that Pesha might one day slip away from him.
Just a few more steps and he could reach her, but that short distance felt impossibly vast.
Without realizing it, Owen clenched his fists tight.
That was the moment he tried to shake off the dizzying thoughts.
“Ma’am!”
A young soldier came rushing over and bowed respectfully before Pesha.
From his face, Owen recognized him as one of the soldiers Rebecca often brought along on her duties.
Apparently Pesha had been given this soldier as a matter of convenience, so she could issue commands to the troops with ease.
Yet something about the soldier’s demeanor irritated him.
For someone merely reporting on work, his manner was far too familiar, too close.
Whatever the soldier said, Pesha broke into bright laughter.
That laughter cut sharply into Owen’s ears.
He could no longer remain still.
Moving almost unconsciously, he drifted naturally between them.
Owen spoke with as much indifference as he could muster.
“Sounds like quite an amusing story.”

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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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