The Male Lead Is Going Mad Searching for His Dead Wife, and I’m That Wife - Chapter 5

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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, but that wife is me. Chapter 5
Circumstances make the person. That was true. It’s probably why Lucian had come to despise Lisana, a woman he’d never even met.
Lucian blinked.
The things Lisana had said felt like a slap across his face.
Hugging her laundry basket, Lisana added,
“Then I’ll be going. Please take care not to catch a cold, Your Highness.”
What on earth was that?
Lucian replayed the scene in his head. The princess had been washing laundry in the rain, and in a gaudy, cumbersome gown no less. Anyone who saw it would have taken her for a madwoman. He had, too.
Every part of it was strange, yet the woman herself was perfectly calm.
Still, there was reality in it, and a small woman who understood her own situation better than anyone.
Lisana wasn’t sinking into despair, nor was she blaming anyone else. She was simply getting on with things, quietly.
Lucian stared at her small retreating back. He felt as though he’d taken a solid hit.
* * *
Time had passed since their encounter with Lucian. Before I knew it, it had been close to two weeks since I’d arrived here.
Winter in the North came without any warning. It felt as though the main feature of a disaster movie had started without so much as a trailer.
Just yesterday it had been merely chilly, but overnight the temperature had plummeted, and the moment I opened my eyes this morning, I had to check whether I was still alive.
Life really was a live-action game. They say happiness is a warm back and a full belly, but my belly was full while my back was freezing. I shivered violently and clutched the blanket tight.
Winter had arrived before I knew it. The fireplace in my room had gone as cold as a Siberian plain. Every breath came out as a white puff of vapor. At this rate, I’d freeze to death in my sleep.
The servants’ bullying grew more creative by the day.
An orphanage would have been better. At least there were children to share body heat with. I gritted my teeth.
A typical noblewoman would react to this situation in one of two ways.
First, she would pull the blankets over her head and cry from sheer injustice. Second, she would storm out, grab the Head Maid by the hair, and start screaming.
In the original novel, Lisana’s reaction was the latter.
But I was a rational survivalist. Crying only lowered my body temperature, and screaming only drained my strength. I was hungry enough as it was, and I couldn’t afford to waste energy on pointless things.
Both options were bad for survival. The firewood was simply something I’d have to fetch myself.
“Guess I’ll go get it, then.”
I hurriedly layered on my clothes. Undershirt, petticoat, gown, shawl. I ended up looking like a rolling snowman, but survival came first. I headed for the woodshed behind the castle.
Creak.
The moment I pulled open the heavy wooden door, the dry, fragrant scent of oak rushed out to meet me. Inside, well-seasoned logs were stacked all the way to the ceiling. So they hadn’t run out of fuel after all. They just hadn’t bothered to give any to my room.
I picked out the thickest, sturdiest ones. Five of them. No, six. Maybe around ten?
I didn’t bother counting precisely. I simply grabbed as many as I could possibly carry, greedy as I wanted to be.
“Hup!”
I held my breath and lifted, and my arms trembled violently. For a body that had survived on a few potatoes, it was surprisingly heavy. My biceps felt like they were screaming.
Still, I couldn’t let go. If I dropped these, I’d freeze to death.
I gritted my teeth and hugged the logs to my chest.
“Hnnngh-aaah!”
As I walked down the corridor, the servants glanced at me sideways. I had to conserve even the strength it would take to answer them.
My room was just past the corner at the end of the hall.
And standing in the corridor in front of it was that man.
Lucian.
He had just stepped out of his room when he spotted me struggling toward him. His gaze traveled from the logs in my arms to my flushed face, then down to my trembling arms. His expression twisted into something fierce.
“…”
He blocked my path.
“Haah, haah. Please, let me through.”
I struck first.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m carrying firewood.”
“That’s not what I mean. Why are you the one hauling firewood? Have all the servants died?”
Lucian asked, his tone sharp.
“Well, no, but…”
Pointing out their childish, petty bullying would only wear out my own throat. Worse, calling it out would just draw more hostile glares my way. I gave a small shake of my head.
Lucian reached out, irritation written all over his movements.
I flinched, thinking he meant to shove me aside, but his hand didn’t go to my shoulder. It went to the logs in my arms.
“Hand them over.”
“Huh?”
“I said, hand them over.”
For a moment, I felt as though my body had floated up. I could no longer feel my arms.
I looked up at him, dumbfounded. The heavy logs I had strained and groaned to carry with all my strength, Lucian lifted effortlessly with one hand, as if they were an empty cardboard box, his expression perfectly calm.
Wow. So this is the physique of the Northern Duke. If he tilled a field with muscles like that, the potato harvest would triple. What a waste of talent.
“Ah, that’s not the right way.”
Lucian turned to me, as if to ask what on earth I was talking about.
Ah, he doesn’t know where I’ve been staying. In the original novel, Lisana threw a fit on the second day after she was assigned this room and had it changed.
I gestured for Lucian to follow me to the room I was staying in.
Thud. The moment he stepped inside, he stopped dead.
I watched Lucian with a sly look. It was a bit of a cheap move, but given his temperament, there was no way he’d leave me in a place like this once he saw it.
The air inside was colder than the corridor. Damp, musty air, mold blooming across the wallpaper, a chill rising up from the floor. It looked less like a room where a person lived and more like an abandoned storehouse.
Lucian slowly surveyed the room. White breath puffed from his lips.
“…Is this really the room the Princess uses?”
His low, subdued voice echoed through the room. It was the kind of silence that hangs before a storm.
“Yes, it has a certain rustic charm, don’t you think?”
I’d meant it as a joke to lighten the mood, but Lucian didn’t so much as smile. He roughly tossed a log into the fireplace, then turned toward the corridor and shouted.
“Bring me the Head Maid!”
Less than a minute after his low yet frosty bellow leaked out into the hall, the Head Maid and the Head Butler came rushing over, their faces drained of color.
The moment they caught sight of Lucian’s icy expression through the open door, they froze in place.
“Y-Your Highness… you summoned us?”
“Come in.”
They shuffled into the room, trembling. I could see their bodies flinch at the cold.
Lucian growled low in his throat.
“Explain. Is this truly the Grand Duchess’s room?”
The Head Maid’s eyes wavered as though an earthquake had struck beneath them.
“W-well, that’s… the mistress’s room has been under repairs for the time being…”
“Repairs?”
“It’s so old and worn down that it needs major renovation… and this was the only spare room we had…”
It was an absurd excuse. This castle has how many rooms?
Still, it was the only thing they could possibly have offered in their defense.
The Head Maid broke into a cold sweat and stole glances at Lucian’s face. His eyes sharpened into a dangerous glare.
“So this freezing storehouse was the only room available?”
“Y-Your Highness! That’s a misunderstanding! We only—!”
The Head Maid dropped to her knees with a heavy thud.
Lucian looked genuinely furious. Anyone with a sound sense of judgment would have reacted exactly the same way.
That such inhumane treatment could be carried out so brazenly within his own castle was an insult in itself. And given Lucian’s upright nature, he would never tolerate such a shameless state of affairs.
At this rate, the Head Maid would be dismissed. The Head Butler would hardly escape censure either. But would my life become any easier once they were gone?
There was no guarantee the replacements wouldn’t be even worse. Better to deal with people whose nature I already knew.
Besides, if I shielded them here, they’d be in my debt. Having weighed all of that, I finally opened my mouth.

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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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