The Male Lead Is Going Mad Searching for His Dead Wife, and I’m That Wife - Chapter 4

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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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The male lead goes mad searching for his dead wife, and that wife is me. Episode 004
After eating the potatoes, I felt my strength return. People really do need to fill their stomachs first.
On top of that, I got a little salt from a kind maid. All things considered, today’s luck isn’t so bad.
“Humming, I came into the room and neatly arranged the potatoes. They should keep well here. Thankfully, the weather’s cool, so that’s a huge relief.”
Then my gaze fell on my filthy clothes.
Now that my stomach’s full, I seem to notice other things.
Hmm. Every outfit I brought with me is a gaudy dress, so this is the only thing I can wear to bed.
Hygiene is the first rule of survival. Doing laundry in a dress is a bit ridiculous, isn’t it? It’s also absurd that the only belongings the Emperor allowed me to bring are these flashy dresses.
Are they expecting me to live off the dresses?
“I’ll make time to sell them.”
But survival laundry comes first.
I tucked a laundry basket stuffed with my favorite pajamas and towels under my arm and headed for the Laundry Area behind the castle. The gaudy dress clung to my legs and dragged at every step.
The maids had been gathered at the washing area, chattering away, but the moment they spotted me, they clammed up. I lowered myself into a crouch a little apart from them, moving with practiced ease.
“Here goes.”
I upended the basket, spilling the laundry out, and plunged my hands into the cold water. My fingertips stung until they ached, but I picked up the soap and started scrubbing.
Scrub, scrub. Rub, rub.
The sound of fabric being rubbed against the washboard rang out briskly.
Back at the orphanage, there was once a time we couldn’t even pay the electric bill, so we couldn’t use the washing machine.
I suddenly remembered how we all used to gather and do the laundry together. Those days were fun, though. They say misery shared is misery halved.
Even that misery sometimes made us happy. Because we got to be together.
The maids stole glances at me. Their stares were laced with astonishment.
What, you’ve never seen a princess doing laundry before?
Just then.
Pitter-patter.
Raindrops began to fall. In an instant, the drizzle thickened into a downpour.
“Eek! It’s raining!”
“Get inside! You’ll all get soaked!”
Shrieking, the maids snatched up their laundry and fled into the building. The Laundry Area emptied in the blink of an eye.
Except for me.
The maids glanced back at me once, but none of them bothered to look after me.
I gazed up at the sky, then at the dress I had just finished soaping, and thought.
Perfect timing.
The air in this world is completely unpolluted. Think how clean the rain falling from the sky is.
The sky had burst open like a giant high-capacity shower. This is my chance.
I spread the dress with both hands and flipped it over a few times beneath the falling rain. The soap suds were quickly washed away by the heavy downpour.
Yes, this is it.
“This is what labor-saving really looks like, isn’t it?”
Excited, I rinsed the remaining laundry in the rainwater too. Having been pummeled by the rain, the fibers seemed to grow even softer.
Alone in the rain, I slowly trod on, wrung out, and shook the laundry. Since I was soaked anyway, I figured I might as well take my time about it.
Tomorrow night, I’ll be able to sleep in fresh, dry pajamas.

And Lucian witnessed the whole scene. He had been hurrying back after training, caught out by the rain.
He stopped dead in the middle of the covered walkway. In the middle of the Laundry Area, where the rain poured down in sheets and everyone else had fled, the princess stood drenched to the bone, flinging her clothes about.
Has she lost her mind?
Or perhaps she’s found a new way to make trouble for me. She might be pretending to be mad as a way of defying the Emperor.
Whatever the reason, the thought that he had to stop her now came first.
Lucian strode toward her without an umbrella.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
Lucian asked in a cold voice. Under his frigid gaze, Lisana slowly turned her head.
Their eyes met.
It was the first time he had spoken to her since the wedding that day. Until now, he hadn’t had the leisure to even acknowledge her existence.
The Northern Front was being pushed closer to the capital by the day. Attritional battles broke out several times a week, leaving him no spare energy for anything else.
And on top of that, she was a spy-wife the Emperor had foisted on him. There was no way he could spare her a single shred of interest.
Lucian still believed that if the Emperor had time to keep watch over him, then he should scrape together every last soldier and reinforce the army.
The Emperor was complacent in his cradle, and through his incompetence he was attempting to slowly strangle the empire.
If this magnificent Thousand-Year Empire crumbles, every bit of it will be the Emperor’s doing.
Perhaps these thoughts came to him more sharply today because he had just returned from seeing his soldiers teetering between life and death.
The Emperor, the imperial family, the Imperial Family itself that they belonged to, he was sick of all of it.
At the low voice cutting through the sound of the rain, Lisana lifted her head. She had just wrung out the last towel firmly and shut the lid of the laundry basket. Through the strands of hair hanging limp like wet seaweed, she caught sight of Lucian.
“Oh. Your Highness.”
“Where has everyone gone? Why are you standing around like this? It’s pouring out here.”
Lucian furrowed his brow and asked. His voice was sharper than before.
The scene before him made no sense. Especially the woman standing in front of him, alone in the rain.
Lisana blinked, then parted her small lips. She was a petite woman, and standing out in this downpour made her seem even smaller.
Lisana spoke in a clear voice.
“I can see that. That’s why I’m rinsing the laundry.”
“…What?”
Lucian asked back, his tone bewildered.
“With all this rain, the water pressure is wonderful. The soap suds have washed right out.”
Lisana burst into laughter. Lucian stared at her, dumbfounded, as she laughed so openly.
What did she just say?
Lucian set all his questions aside and went straight for the biggest problem.
“Why would the princess be doing this sort of work?”
Lucian asked the fundamental question.
Had every servant in the Ducal House dried up and died? Lisana gazed at Lucian with a calm, steady look. Her face, as she chose what to say, was utterly serene.
“No one in this estate welcomes me.”
Lucian fell silent. Most of the household was loyal to the family, so it was only natural they would look down on Lisana.
And his own cold attitude must have played a part, too. It had been a forced marriage. Which is why, back then, he couldn’t even tell whether Lisana should be called the victim or the perpetrator.
Lisana understood her own situation more clearly than anyone.
“It means there’s no one to look after me, so I simply look after myself.”
Lisana said it as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. Though he understood what she meant, Lucian blurted out before he could stop himself.
“The princess is not in a position to do such things. If you’re trying to get under my skin like this, then…”
“My position?”
Lisana tilted her head.
“I’d say what matters more than one’s position is the kind of circumstances one is born into and how one is raised. Don’t worry too much. Just because I was raised in such an environment doesn’t mean I’ll run off over some trifling matter in a fit of temper and cause trouble for the Duke.”
It was true, so he had no retort.
“Though I carry the blood of the Emperor, I won’t act the way he does. And I understand my own position very precisely. If I leave here, no one will welcome me. My father might even chase me down and kill me.”
He couldn’t answer that, either. Lucian was, quite literally, bound by that very chain. He equated the Emperor with the Princess. Even though he knew Lisana had endured every kind of slight for being an illegitimate child, he still did.
“Circumstances shape a person, and I am simply adapting to the circumstances I’ve been given. Just as Your Grace said, without becoming a burden to anyone, and without wanting anything at all.”
Lisana neither grew angry nor glared at Lucian with resentment. She was simply stating the facts.
Her clear, bright smile was as it had always been.
The sound of the rain seemed to recede into the distance.

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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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