An elegant melodic music resonated under the blue sapphire chandelier.
Soft instrumental sounds filled the hall, accompanied by a guttural gurgling sound like a whirlwind, which rose and fell with a woman’s movement.
She was making her way through the hustle and bustle of paired men and women. Or rather, it would seem like people are avoiding her. A mauve-haired woman, dressed in an out-of-season furry purple silk bustle dress, gently waved a matching furry fan and stomped over to a table of food.
The young lady who had almost collided with the woman right before her hurriedly lowered her head and covered her mouth in surprise.
“Ouch.”
“Are you okay, my lady? Your face is pale. Let me take you to the lounge room.”
“Thank you so much, ugh.”
The lady covered her mouth again and gagged.
“Lady Angela!”
Startled, the man wrapped his arms around the lady’s angled shoulders and held her staggering body firmly.
Feeling the man’s warm touch, the lady spoke in a delicate, birdlike voice.
“Lord Ento is really kind. I’m so shocked you’d look at ‘something ugly’…”
Oh my.
‘If they want to flirt with each other, then flirt. Why are they tripping over me like this?’
Roughly touching her mauve frizzy hair, Lila, the woman in question, whimpered to herself.
But her thoughts were interrupted by a feast of desserts she normally couldn’t eat.
‘Mmm, I suppose we should start with the mildest flavors. Like this crepe cake.’
Lila endured this commotion to eat a dessert not often eaten at the baron’s house.
No, she wanted the fuss.
She cut into the crepe cake, popped it into her mouth, and Lila squealed with delight.
‘Mmm! It’s so soft! Yummy!’
As she sat down near the table where the food was displayed, people bowed their heads and watched as she happily ate her dessert.
“Really… How is she allowed to attend the imperial ball dressed like that, shouldn’t she be stopped?”
A beautiful young lady in a form-fitting evening gown of black lace and cream silk whispered as she gently waved her fan. The other young lady beside her nodded in affirmation.
“Perhaps I should speak to her cousin, Baron Este.”
“But…”
The other young lady hesitated at her words.
“Well, Baron Este is also a bit…”
The lady left the rest unsaid. Lila glanced over at another figure, who had taken a seat across from her and was shoveling food into her mouth.
“Ugh, who’s going to pass the word? I definitely can’t.”
“Me neither… a bit.”
“I’d be so grateful if the brave lord would speak for me…”
You’d think they were talking in hushed tones, but Lila could hear everything.
They were whispering right next to her, so if she can’t hear it, her ears are weird.
By any means, this is a high society thing…
Lila nodded her small head and smiled inwardly at the now familiar scene of socialization.
However, the people who saw her smile either turned away in disgust or moved away…
“Ugh.”
She gagged again.
Instead of being disgusted or humiliated by the sound, Lala shivered……
‘Ah, I’m so proud! I’m a woman! A great woman! That’s good, Cho Yoon Seol!’
She patted herself on the back and moved on to the next cake. The surrounding nobles frowned as they watched Lila grinning from ear to ear as she held up the chocolate mousse.
Lila’s ugly face was one thing, but she was dressed in a way that people feared seeing in their dreams.
The purple dress that went up to her neck was feathered at her waist. Feathers buried in the overlapping waist fluttered and fell.
Her face wasn’t even worth looking at more than her outfit.
Her wispy mauve hair was twisted into an odd shape, and her face was a mess of freckles that covered her ears.
There was a large mole next to her small but high nose, and if you look closely enough, you could see long hairs growing from the mole, making it hideous.
Her chocolate mousse-covered lips were puckered and thick, and the back of her hands was dotted with strange spots like age spots.
People would break out in a strange cold sweat when they see her eyes that were so slender one couldn’t tell if they were open or not.
Occasionally, she would scratch her fingers through her hair as if to itch it, and they would stumble backward and away from her.
It was because of the idea that if they looked at her or get close to her, they would become ugly themselves.
Lila gave a faint smile as she watched the horde of young ladies move away from her.
‘All right, I did one thing. I have to go back today. I’m getting tired.’
Five cakes later, she had no more regrets.
There was a collective sigh of relief as Lila turned toward the exit, and only then did the people let out a hearty laugh.
It was too early for the party to end, so she didn’t run into anyone as she made her way to the exit where the carriage was parked.
She climbed into the baron’s shabby carriage and breathed a deep sigh of relief at the sound of it pulling away.
She removed all the pins that were making her head ache and opened her ever-present pouch.
“Hairbrush.”
As she spoke, a large, thick, bristly hairbrush popped out of the pouch. She hummed as she swept it through her frizzy mauve hair.
She brushed her hair for a while until her dull locks shined. Running her fingers through her silky locks, Lila muttered,
“The main character buff is really scary.”
She had spent more than an hour to make her hair look dull, and it had taken her less than five minutes to get it back to her shiny locks.
“Haa…”
With a deep sigh, Lila closed her eyes. Even after all these years, thinking about it made her angry.
Why was she doing this to herself? Straining her eyes, Lila cursed under her breath.
It’s all because of that stupid grim reaper, no, it’s because of that damned Jin Yura.
Lila, or rather, Yoon Seol, grimaced as she remembered how she had come to this place.
“Hey! Why are you so slow, can’t you move faster?”
Yoon Seol nervously organized her makeup box while listening to the angry and spiteful voice.
After filming the drama indoors, she had to hurry because it was a tight schedule to go to the countryside.
“Sorry, I’m done.”
Yoon Seol apologized as she roughly put the cosmetics and items that were out.
She was happy to be in charge of Jin Yura’s makeup, a famous Korean actress, one of the top three, but it was also hard work.
When she only knew her as a fan, she thought she was so innocent and gentle, but Jin Yura slapped her on the back of the head as if she had been waiting for it.
From the manager to the coordinator.
There was no place her meanness couldn’t reach. But lately, she’s been unusually picking on Yoon Seol.
She’d tell her that she was moving around on purpose and ruining her makeup, or that she was doing it for attention, or that she should stop staring at the actor and give her a loud slap.
They harassed her in such small, subtle ways so that she couldn’t argue back.
However, famous actors are actors, so their faces change dramatically, and when Yoon Seol tries to say something, they change to a meek face, which makes Yoon Seol feel even more embarrassed.
One day, the coordinator told her.
Yoon Seol must understand. Ms. Jin Yura, it’s not the first time she’s done that, and it’s more because she is a sweet and kind person.
I asked her what that meant, and her answer was not understandable by my standards.
[What I mean is, do you think Jin Yura always bullies nice people?
‘How long can you pretend to be nice?’ they tease her like this.
But you know how people are, right? Even good people can get angry. Like bursting out in anger after holding everything in. Jin Yura is definitely like that.]
[Excuse me?]
[Look, she’s nothing special. If she’s not going to be nice to the end, she didn’t have to pretend to be nice at all.]
She remembered the coordinator shaking her head as if she was fed up with all the complaining.
Anyway, the important thing is, this is the workplace. Jin Yura’s personality is not important. What’s most important is that she was getting paid for the work she does.
Before going to the countryside, Jin Yura visited Yoon Seol again.
“Yoon Seol, can you come with me to a coffee shop for a while?”
Yoon Seol observed her expression carefully. Jin Yura, who had a mild impression of her, nodded her head inwardly as she smiled and spoke.
As she is someone who doesn’t trust Jin Yura, her circumstance with men was also very severe. She quietly followed her, recalling the faces of former lovers who are easily swayed at the sight of her gentle face.
Near the station, in an alleyway, there’s a shabby-looking cafe that’s liked by a lot of celebrities.
Despite its shabby exterior, the interior was all in the form of rooms. A perfect place for a secret meeting.
As Jin Yura entered the room, Yoon Seol was waiting at the entrance with my heavy makeup box.
“I heard you were busy…”
After urging someone like that, she didn’t come out for an hour, so Yoon Seol grumbled while reading a recently updated web novel on her phone.
“Oh my!”
Yoon Seol, who was always known for being easily surprised, let out an involuntary squeal.
Jin Yura scolded her in an irritated voice.
“So noisy. My ears are going to fall off.”
Then she turned and walked out of the store.
“What a character…”
Yoon Seol quickly caught up to her after recovering from her surprise.
The two exited the alley and stood in front of a crosswalk on an eight-lane road, waiting for the light to change.
At that moment, a man recognized Jin Yura, he was wearing a hat and staggered up toward them.
“Yura.”
His pronunciation was slurred, and the smell of alcohol wafting in the distance made Jin Yura shrink back in horror. The man, shrewdly noticing this small gesture, snapped.
“What the hell, I’ve only been watching your movies, are you ignoring me now?”
Yoon Seol panicked as the big man approached them threateningly.
“Hey, you shouldn’t be like this.”
Still, she felt she had to take care of the actress, so she stepped forward and tried to stop him, but she felt helpless.
“Who are you, I’m talking to Yura, get out of the way!”
Yoon Seol’s body was easily pushed back by a large hand, but Jin Yura stubbornly held onto her and said in a small voice.
“Are you kidding, what am I supposed to do if you move out of the way?”
“No, that’s…”
“Jin Yura! Hey, Yura!”
That’s when the man stretched out his hand. Yoon Seol, whose body was tangled with Jin Yura’s, stepped back to avoid the man’s waving fist. Jin Yura hid behind her back, grabbing her clothes and not letting go.
“No, wait.”
Choked by the collar, Yoon Seol was about to say something when she spotted the man in front of her, his hands waving about as if he were making a fist, and instead of speaking, she hurriedly lifted her makeup box.
Bang!
Yoon Seol’s body was shaken violently by the man’s fist, and Jin Yura, who was hanging on her back, fell on the pavement with her.
Bba-ang!
A loud horn sounded, accompanied by people’s screams.
When Yoon Seol reflexively tried to get up, Jin Yura pressed down on her body and got up first.
Thud!
The screams of people hurt her ears and the small hands pressed her body preventing her from getting up.
After that, a shattering pain engulfed her entire body.
“We’ve arrived, my lady.”
Hearing the coachman’s voice, Lila shuddered and opened her eyes. She thought back on Jin Yura, the woman who had stampeded on her to try to save herself, and she cursed.
“You b*tch.”
Lila grabbed the coachman’s hand and got out of the carriage. She secretly saw the coachman wiping his hands on his trousers, but she didn’t care.
She stared at the blue-roofed mansion, small and shabby for a noble family.
Este Barony.
It was her home now.
“You came, my lady?”
Becky, Laila’s exclusive maid, dressed in a colorful dress that made her look like a baroness, came out to greet her leisurely.
Lila looked at Becky with an impassive stare, then spoke the familiar words.
“Are your eyes strained?” Can’t you see it?”
Becky’s eyes fluttered as if hurt by Lila’s words, and she looked pitiful. She felt a pang of conscience, but Lila gave her an intentional glare, then pushed past Becky and went to her room.
She was relieved to finally be in a place where she could relax.
Bang.
As soon as the door was shut and locked, Lila kicked off her shoes and sat down on the couch.
“Haah…”
She thought as she put her feet up on the stool and wiggled around.
“She’s surely going to tell my cousin Louis, right?”
Becky was dating her cousin, who was the head of the baron’s family, so she was being extra mean. Only then will her cousin fall in love with her, and rumors will spread among the employees.
“It’s only a matter of time. You can do it, Yoon Seol!”
I clasped my hands together and shook them vigorously up and down. Exhausted and wanting to go back to sleep, Lila staggered to her feet and slipped off her dress.
She wasn’t wearing a corset, so it wasn’t hard to get the dress off on her own. Tugging at the joining straps, she slipped off the purple bustle dress and tossed it roughly into the closet.
She let the dress crumple. Something she would never have done in the past.
Pulling the odd bundle of fabric around the waist over her inner dress, Lila hid it well inside the closet.
After stripping off everything, Lila walked with an odd gait into the bathroom that connected to her dressing room.
She massaged her face with the cleansing oil from her pouch, rinsed it thoroughly with lukewarm water, and washed every inch of her body.
With a refreshed look on her face, she turned to the full-length mirror on one side of the bathroom.
Her naked body in the mirror looked nothing like she remembered. The fat on her stomach and waist was gone, as were the age spots on her body and the back of her hands.
Lila stepped closer to the mirror, towel-drying her softly falling mauve hair.
She wiped the foggy edges of the mirror with the towel and held her face close.
It’s admirable to look at it again.
She studied her face and let out a string of exclamations.
“You look crazy, really.”
There before her was a face that could be labeled innocent, sexy, sweet, gorgeous, and any other descriptor you could think of.
Her lilac-colored hair was as smooth as silk, and her eyes were a deep blue, like the color of the ocean, beneath a pair of rich mauve lashes that hung shyly down.
The large moles that flanked her slender nose and dainty nostrils were gone, as were the freckles that dotted her face.
Lila smiled proudly, her full lips glowing pink.
“I can’t believe my makeup skills defeated this main character’s buff… I can’t help but compliment myself.”
Beautiful!
As if the word wasn’t enough, Lila looked rather pleased and proud of herself for ruining her face so badly. She opened the pouch she had placed on the shelf.
The pouch, which looked like a small handbag, was elegant and beautifully shaped, with a large mauve ribbon and black lace on cobalt blue.
In the middle of the ribbon, a large blue sapphire was cut into squares and glistened subtly.
“Blow dryer.”
At the monotonous command, a blow dryer popped out of the pouch.
The electrical cord was still in the pouch, but the air flowed freely.
Whiiing.
After drying all of her hair neatly and changing into a soft nightdress, Lila placed the pouch right next to her bed and tried to slip into the cozy bedding.
Knock knock.
The unwelcome knock on the door happened just when she was about the close her eyes. It was also expected.
“Miss, may I come in for a moment?”
She heard Becky’s sultry voice. If she was the maid of honor, she should have been in the room long before now. But Becky came to her late. Lila quickly guessed why.
She wondered why her cousin hadn’t returned home, thinking perhaps he was seeing another woman at the banquet, with such distrust.
“There are many things to worry about in the world. If you date someone, you’ll be in trouble. You can’t help it, but you’re so determined, really.”
Lila shook her head at the sight of her cousin, whom she had seen before leaving the banquet.
“I can’t even eat dessert that voraciously. Please, Louis. I have my reasons; but what is wrong with you?”
“Miss?”
Becky’s voice reached her ears again as she talked to herself without opening the door.
Lila screamed with all the strength she could muster. Thinking back to when Jin Yura called her a bitch.
“You’ve got to be kidding me, who do you think you are to come into my room!”
A harsh voice poured out of her, but she didn’t care.
No, rather…
‘Yes, this is Jin Yura-style hysteria.’
A sense of pride washed over her. Of course, she felt guilty. If she was herself, she couldn’t be so harsh on Becky.
But Lila’s words were more ferocious.
“Get out! Don’t you dare come in here!”
“Sorry, I’m sorry. Then, take a rest.”
When she heard the sound of footsteps moving away quickly, she relaxed my upper body that she lifted as she was screaming. Lila murmured helplessly as she floundered on the bed.
“Hah, this is so emotionally draining.”
It was mentally draining to act out of character, but she was doing it for a reason.
She was doing it for a reason, and it was because she was about to experience something even worse than unintentional death.
“F*cking Reaper.”
She pulled the covers over her head and muttered to herself.
“What’s the point of being the main character? Who cares if I’m pretty? The moment I show my face, I’m on my way to the bad ending according to the set route.”
Lila still couldn’t believe it, and she remembered the sloppy and sloppy Reaper.
Shouldn’t the Reaper be wearing a black robe over his head or at least a neat black suit?
I never thought it was a man wearing a black baseball cap, a black jacket, black jeans, black slippers, and a bad posture.
The Grim Reaper greeted me with a stiff hand gesture.
[Hello?]
[W…who?]
Yoon Seol got up from the floor in a daze. She was looking at the Reaper in a daze as if she didn’t even know what had happened, and she suddenly screamed.
[Jin Yura!]
Only then did Yoon Seol, who felt strange being alone without Jin Yura, looked around.
Yoon Seol was so angry that her eyes turned white because of Jin Yura, who pressured her to lie alone and prevented her from waking up.
[Where did she go, did she really leave me alone?]
It’s because of her.
I couldn’t help but feel feverish as I thought about the fact that she had left me alone with a sullen-looking man and the things that had always bothered her.
[B*tch, b*tch, b*tch].
The Reaper, who had been watching her without saying a word as she fidgeted with tears in her eyes, finally spoke up.
[You know what, Ms. Cho Yoon Seol?]
[What, what?]
Yoon Seol stepped back when she saw him, who had been suspicious for a while. This was definitely where she collapsed, but strangely, she couldn’t see any people, so her anxiety grew even more.
[I’m sorry, I accidentally brought you here, so I came to send your soul back…]
His expression didn’t change at all, so she wondered if he was really sorry.
[The car will explode at that moment… I didn’t even think of it.]
Normally, Yoon Seol would have been safely loaded into an ambulance and taken to the hospital, but the Reaper pronounced her dead, and in the meantime, Yoon Seol, who was pronounced dead on arrival, was left in the ambulance.
Because the truck that hit her exploded.
The countless injuries and casualties in the aftermath made the Reaper rush to take care of business before he had a chance to correct his mistake.
His words seemed to bounce off her ears and fly off into the distance. Yoon Seol cupped her ears with her palms, feeling like she was getting choked up on a high mountain.
The Reaper continued to speak, whether she listened or not, as she tilted her head and cupped her ears.
[I’m going to make you a heroine instead, and I want you to think of it as reincarnation and enjoy your second life].
Before I could process the words, my body flipped over.
[Kyaa!]
With a scream, Yoon Seol lost consciousness. When she opened her eyes again, she realized that something had gone terribly wrong.
An unfamiliar language, unfamiliar scenery, and unfamiliar people…
She had been reincarnated as 10-year-old Lila, or so she thought at that time.
At first, she was too shocked to speak. The shock of a 26-year-old adult woman becoming a 10-year-old child was one thing, but the fact that she had died unjustly because of that Jin Yura was another.
Lila’s bizarre behavior had her father worried. This was especially true since the time Yoon Seol possessed Lila’s body was shortly after her mother’s death.
Lila’s father, Baron Este, doted on his only daughter, and all of his servants were kind to her.
Gradually, Yoon Seol felt more comfortable and ready to embrace her new life. But just as she was about to make a fresh start, she lost her father.
When Lila was 12 years old, her father was killed in a carriage accident on his way back from a business trip at the upper house of Count Pinatelli’s estate.
We were told it was an accident as he was returning on an unreasonable schedule to see Lila a day sooner.
Just when she thought she’d gotten over it and moved on with her life, Lila was overwhelmed with grief at the news of her father’s death. And Louis, whom she had seen a few times before, had become the head of Baron Este.
While wrapped in her quilt and reminiscing about the past, Lila let out another swear word. The more she thought about it, the more she swore.
“What a rotten Reaper. Why didn’t you make me the hero of a romantic comedy or something lighter?”
Of all the protagonists out there, I’m not going to give you the protagonist of a wasteland.
There was only one reason Lila wanted to avoid being the heroine, even if it meant ruining her appearance.
She wasn’t reincarnated, she has possessed.
<Birds are happy when they are trapped in a cage.>
The last novel she read before she died was a serialized version of
<Bird in A Birdcage,> one of the bloodiest, most graphic, and most unfortunate endings to a female protagonist in fiction she’d ever seen.
Lila kicked the blankets and screamed.
“Merry bad endings aren’t my thing, if it’s a bad ending, it’s a bad ending, why does it have to be merry!”
There were a total of three male leads in <Bird in A Birdcage,> which I read on my phone before the accident.
Unfortunately, I had already met them at the crown prince’s birthday banquet when I was 13 years old.
First of all, the crown prince, Theobald Vassium Ivrenia, who can be called the true male lead, has dark black hair that seemed to cut down the night sky and eyes that shine red like the midday sun.
He was arrogant and cynical, and when he flashed Lila a wicked smile, she felt goosebumps all over her body.
The second, Duke Heinrich V. Frederick, ruler of the southern part of the Ivrenian Empire, was a handsome man with long silver hair that cascaded like a waterfall. His eerie violet eyes curved gently as he looked at her, and Lila couldn’t help but blush.
But she couldn’t forget that he was the first man to legally imprison her in the original story.
The last was the Marquis Alfonso Lou Benière, with his gorgeous blond hair and eyes that reflected the blue sky.
He was the second man after Heinrich to take the original female lead. He had a childlike innocence, but he was also extremely possessive and sadistic.
He was a madman who thought he had the original Lila, a mere baroness, in his hands, and when he didn’t, he locked her up and tried to fill her with his marks.
It goes without saying that the process was highly sensational and radical.
Because this novel was R-rated!
“Ugh, I hate that.”
Anyway, in the end, the original Lila chose the crown prince, Theobald Vassium Ivrenia.
I don’t know if you’d call it choosing, or if you’d call it getting what she wanted, but once she’s in the palace, she takes the medicine he gives her and became a total idiot.
Pining for his mistress, who had left him for another man, the crown prince made a choice he shouldn’t have, one that ultimately turned her into an idiot.
A side effect of the magic potion he had given her hoping that it would make her forget all about them.
The original story ended with the prince happy that he had brought her back from the dead, whole and in his arms.
Lila rubbed her forearm and muttered, looking horrified just thinking about it.
“It’s the pre-wedding laws that are the most problematic.”
Lila recalled a peculiar law that existed only in the Vassium Empire. A plot device that allowed a male lead to legally imprison the female lead in the original story.
Looking at the novel alone, she wanted to hit ‘herself’ in the past, thinking,
‘If it’s R-rated, there should be a law like this.’
When reality hit her, she changed her mind. It was a crazy law.
It was a special law the emperor had created for the nobility, a law of cohabitation called the
‘pre-wedding cohabitation law.’
In the case of arranged marriages in the empire, the couple would have to live together in the man’s house for a year to prove their compatibility before the actual wedding.
The aristocracy of the Vassium Empire took romance very seriously, and before the ‘pre-wedding cohabitation law’, divorce was common and illegitimacy was a serious problem.
This is because people were having sex with their lovers and having children before they could produce a suitable heir.
Even if it’s an arranged marriage, if the compatibility is that bad, it shouldn’t have been arranged in the first place. Isn’t this why they fell apart while dating separately?
Lila clicked her tongue and shook her head. If it wasn’t for that law, she wouldn’t have suffered so much.
If only the original had not imprisoned the female in her mansion and teased her with the ‘pre-wedding cohabitation law’.
She was first imprisoned in Heinrich’s house, then taken to Alfonso’s mansion, and finally to the crown prince, where she is turned into an idiot.
“What an idiot. I’m never going to be like that. I didn’t even have a relationship in my last life, I was just making money. Why can’t I have a relationship in this life and do all the things I want to do? I don’t deserve to die a miserable deàth!”
If there was a silver lining to this ridiculous cohabitation law, it was birth control. If one of the partners wanted contraception, it had to be provided. Whether it was the man or the woman.
Because if you got pregnant during the ‘pre-wedding cohabitation’ period, the marriage would be irrevocable.