The Fake Wife of the Strongest Husband Wants to Survive - Chapter 56

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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 56
I knew what he’d done, but there was no way to prove it.
What remained incomprehensible was why he’d targeted a mere countess instead of staging an elaborate scheme.
Simply because Owen’s wife was me?
The Emperor himself was the architect who’d bound Pesha into this political marriage, crushing her open refusal.
If Owen had weaknesses, the Emperor—the one person in the world who understood this best—knew that none of them cut as deep as Pesha did.
In the Imperial Palace, they’d dismissed the incident as a personal vendetta that had shattered the sacred Foundation Day Military Parade, expressing regret and calling it an unfortunate accident tied to Owen’s private affairs. The common people, however, saw it differently.
“He suffered grave wounds protecting his wife. Truly, a man of noble character.”
“The parade ended in chaos, yes, but isn’t a life more precious than ceremony? It’s a blessing the Countess came through unharmed.”
The people praised Owen for saving his wife with his own hands and turned their fury on the Imperial Palace for blaming the victim.
“The ruined parade hardly matters. If the Count hadn’t stepped in, what tragedy might have unfolded…….”
“Precisely. The Imperial Palace should be ashamed!”
Public opinion blazed into outrage directed at the would-be assassin and the Imperial Palace, which had callously placed blame elsewhere.
Through all of it, Owen remained motionless.
A pallid face, eyes shut tight, breathing slow and measured.
Save for the faint tremor that occasionally rippled through the bandage draped across his shoulder, there was no movement—an unsettling sight.
Pesha sat at the edge of the chair beside his bed, her hands clenched into fists in her lap.
It had been four days since the incident.
Owen, who’d lost consciousness from severe blood loss, still showed no signs of waking.
Janien, a plant whose fragrant leaves made it useful as an herb, had the property of increasing the blood within the body.
Pesha had instructed preparations be made beforehand, and with Owen’s remarkably swift recovery, the physicians had declared him past the critical point. Yet despite their words, Owen gave no indication of consciousness.
As the waiting stretched on, Pesha’s mind sank into a peculiar confusion.
Questions swirled through her thoughts—fear of the Emperor’s blade turning toward her, guilt weighing on her conscience regarding Owen.
Her clenched fists alternated between tightening and releasing as she turned over the same thought again and again.
‘Why me of all people?’
According to the original story, the bought Knight’s drawn blade should have been aimed at the Emperor.
That had been the trap the Emperor set to ensnare Owen.
But from the moment the blade turned toward Pesha, everything had spiraled differently.
Owen, without hesitation, wrapped himself around her.
Beneath the dress uniform soaked in blood, the searing warmth that had transferred through his body still seemed vivid on her skin.
‘The man who understands better than anyone how meaningless this marriage is would be him.’
So why had he thrown himself in front of a blade for a wife who was nothing but a thorn in his side?
Whatever the reason……it defied all imagining now.
The prediction that this man, driven mad by Leah someday, would kill ‘Pesha Raidel’ felt like pure fiction.
It was at that moment.
Owen’s fingertips twitched ever so slightly.
Pesha’s eyes widened and she caught her breath.
Then, after a long time, Owen’s eyelids—shut firmly closed—opened slowly and with difficulty.
The obsidian eyes that emerged were sharp and clear, hardly those of someone who’d lost so much blood and been unconscious for days.
His gaze drifted slowly before fixing directly on her face.
Then he opened his mouth, his voice hoarse and strained.
“Why does your face look like that?”
It was only then that Pesha realized her expression had contorted grotesquely.
“I’m not dead.”
He said it so calmly, as though he’d merely woken from a nap, that she was utterly speechless.
“I can see that myself.”
“Are you injured anywhere?”
With those words, Owen slowly pushed himself upright.
Refusing Pesha’s support, he sat up and scrutinized her from head to toe as though assessing her condition.
Pesha, incredulous at the sight, countered sharply.
“What are you worrying about in that state? It was you who nearly died!”
“I told you. I don’t die easily.”
“That’s not something you can dismiss so lightly. The physicians said there were several critical moments when—”
Pesha cut herself off mid-sentence.
Her voice had wavered.
Unwilling to expose her feelings, she forced herself to steady her breathing and turned her face away.
Owen watched her for a moment, then murmured softly.
“You’re unharmed. That’s enough.”
She wanted to ask him why he’d protected her then.
Nothing about this situation made sense; she couldn’t comprehend any of it.
The way he spoke made it sound as though we were a genuine couple, and I had to draw some line somehow—even if it meant reminding him that he’d settled for a political marriage partner, not someone worthy of his concern.
Without doing so, I feared I wouldn’t be able to stop my heart from lurching in that strange, unsettling way.
“I don’t know what calculation led you to save me, but I’m not worth that sacrifice. You—you know better than anyone what kind of relationship we have.”
The words finally spilled out.
Having broached a subject I’d never once mentioned until now, I felt my heart hammering against my ribs.
Owen, as always, did not answer immediately.
Instead, he slowly leaned back against the headboard of the bed and regarded her with calm, steady eyes.
“I wasn’t aware a husband needs a reason to save his wife.”
“In a normal marriage, perhaps. But we’re not normal.”
This marriage would end soon enough.
Every day, I counted the moments until its conclusion.
It was the only way to survive.
But what if this marriage wasn’t merely a game played to pass the time before the end?
What if, to the man who had suffered such grievous wounds to protect someone who was already planning to leave him, this marriage meant something else entirely?
The moment that thought crossed my mind, Owen let out a soft laugh.
“In what way are we special?”
“Even if you protect me, my father won’t—”
“I think you’re misunderstanding something.”
“What?”
Pesha lifted her head, flustered and hurrying her words.
“If I’d been calculating, this marriage would never have begun.”
Suddenly, a question took shape in her mind.
Though there had been an element of compulsion in the Emperor’s matchmaking, the official reason for this marriage was still a Victory Reward.
Even if Owen had refused, the Emperor would have found no grounds for complaint.
Yet Owen had accepted the marriage without hesitation.
Why?
While I stood there dazed, Owen pulled the bell cord to summon a maidservant.
“My wife appears tired. Take her to rest.”
“Yes. Madam, shall we go?”
As I was led from the sickroom by the maidservant’s hand, I could find no answer to the question that lingered in my mind.
Perhaps, I thought, that reason had never existed in the first place.

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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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