Chapter 1
“Six months. You must kill your husband within that time.”
For the first night of a newlywed, it was an incredibly brutal statement to make to the bride who had just arrived in the bridal chamber.
Alice, the bride who received this savage order, stared at the woman before her. A woman she had never seen before, with her murky purple hair elegantly twisted up, wearing an expensive dress.
The woman was staring at Alice with her glittering amethyst eyes.
“Why aren’t you answering? Don’t tell me you’re going to say you can’t do it now?”
When Alice remained frozen without saying a word, the woman’s brow furrowed.
“Have you forgotten how much money we’ve poured into your family? If you can’t do it, your brother will never have his knighthood ceremony. No, not just your brother, but your entire family will end up on the streets.”
Is this a dream?
Alice briefly thought so as she heard the ominous threat.
But as if to prove it wasn’t a dream, the cold that seeped through her thin negligee was chilling enough to make her body shiver.
As soon as she shivered from the cold, unfamiliar memories flooded in as if they had been waiting.
The sudden influx of memories was enough to make her head throb momentarily. As she squinted her eyes due to the pulsing at her temples, the face of the woman before her contorted.
“Why aren’t you saying anything!? Are you ignoring me? How dare you act so arrogant on your first day in the Duke’s household. Just because you’ve married and entered the Duke’s family, do you think you’ve really become the Duchess?”
The woman, seemingly misunderstanding Alice’s attitude, shouted at the top of her lungs, even raising her hand as if about to slap Alice’s cheek.
‘If this isn’t a dream, then the person in front of me right now is…’
Amidst the flood of memories, she realized who the woman before her was.
It was the mother of the husband she had just married today, the Grand Madam of the Dearrut Duchy.
Quillian Dearrut.
‘Right now, my mother-in-law is telling me to kill her son. What kind of ridiculous situation is this?’
Suppressing her confusion, Alice spoke to her mother-in-law, whose face had reddened with anger.
“…I apologize. I was too nervous… I made a mistake.”
As she bowed her head and apologized, the woman’s demeanor softened somewhat.
“Tsk, if you make such a mistake again, know that I’ll beat you until you come to your senses. Remember this clearly. You didn’t enter here as the Duchess, but as my subordinate.”
“…Yes, Mother.”
“Six months, the Duke absolutely must not live past six months. So, from now on, don’t make even the slightest mistake in what I order you to do.”
“…Yes, I will keep that in mind.”
Seemingly satisfied with her docile response, a smile finally played on Madam Quillian’s lips.
Her gaze, which had been briefly fixed on the large bed in the bedroom, turned back to Alice.
“Well then, serve your husband well tonight.”
“…Yes.”
With an openly mocking smile, her mother-in-law soon left the bedroom, leaving Alice alone.
Click-
As the sound of the door closing echoed and the footsteps faded away, Alice, who had been standing still like a stone, finally collapsed on the spot.
“No… What on earth is happening…”
Alice muttered blankly, looking down at her body.
The provocative negligee she had only seen in dramas and her snow-white hands.
Her hands, which had always been in charge of washing dishes in the kitchen corner, never had such soft skin.
Alice, who had been staring blankly at her two hands, suddenly stood up.
Then she approached the full-length mirror on one side of the room.
Alice’s eyes widened as she stood in front of the mirror.
Bright and lively pink hair, and eyes that looked as if they were inlaid with gold.
And a cute face that looked much younger than her actual age.
This was definitely not the appearance of ‘Han Soo-yeon’.
“Am I… really dead?”
Han Soo-yeon’s last memory was seeing the flames of an exploding gas in the kitchen.
She probably couldn’t have survived that explosive flame.
She had sensed it when she saw that flame.
Ah, I’m dying. That’s what she thought.
“…It’s unfair.”
Dying was one thing, but it was incredibly unfair to die without even properly learning from the chef after working her bones off as an assistant for so long.
After all, she had worked as an unpaid kitchen assistant for a whole year.
“Ha, my life…”
After letting out a dejected sigh, she looked at her reflection in the mirror again.
Then she firmly pinched her soft cheek with her fingertip.
“Ouch!”
It wasn’t a dream after all.
Han Soo-yeon had really died.
And surprisingly, she had become a woman named ‘Alice Fordley’.
Alice Fordley, the second daughter of a minor count’s family, who was married off to the duke’s family like a piece of property.
‘…Possession, huh.’
What she had only seen in books and movies had happened to her.
Fortunately, Alice’s memories came flooding back intact, making it easier to accept this situation.
Although that doesn’t mean it wasn’t shocking.
But this girl’s life… isn’t exactly smooth sailing either.
In Alice’s memories, which flashed like a panorama, the only happy memory was being held in her mother’s arms when she was very young.
Born as the daughter of a noble but not very wealthy count’s family, Alice lived a life squeezed between her older brother, the heir, and her cute and sickly youngest sister.
With the birth of her younger sister, her parents’ attention drifted further away, and she always lived quietly with sacrifice, patience, and waiting.
Then, to cover the enormous cost of her brother’s knighthood ceremony, she was married off to the duke’s family like a sold good.
At this point, one might think that marrying into a duke’s family would be happy.
But as we saw earlier, her mother-in-law was a crazy woman trying to kill her son, and her husband wasn’t exactly a normal person either.
He was lying unconscious in bed, just waiting to die.
The duke’s condition was so bad that they couldn’t even hold a proper wedding ceremony.
No, rumor had it that the duke was already dead, but the ducal family was deliberately hiding the fact for fear of collapse.
So Alice was essentially married to a living corpse.
Swish-
Alice carefully walked to the bed and slightly pulled back the curtain covering it.
There, she saw her husband lying as if dead.
“…Wow. He’s handsome.”
The moment she confirmed his face, Alice forgot about the serious situation until just now.
She just opened her golden eyes wide and let out a pure exclamation of admiration.
Black hair like the dark night sky, a smooth forehead, a straight nose, and plump lips.
The man, with his eyes closed quietly, was as captivating as a sculpture.
He was handsome and perfect, incomparable to any actor she had seen in her previous life.
“…No, he’s been collapsed for over six months, but why is his body so good?”
Alice, whose gaze naturally lowered from his face to his body, muttered softly as she saw the broad shoulders and firm chest visible through his nightwear.
Even at a glance, the lines of his muscles were clearly visible, suggesting that below his chest was even more toned…
“Ahem… Ah, hmm.”
As her gaze kept moving downward, Alice cleared her throat and hurriedly raised her eyes.
‘He’s a sick person. A sick person…’
Looking at the ceiling due to unnecessary embarrassment, she cooled her flushed face and looked back at her husband’s sculptural face.
‘To think I have to kill you…’
‘Six months. You must kill your husband within that time.’
To bring in a daughter-in-law to surely kill a man who was already as good as dead.
Even if he wasn’t her real son, it was truly a chilling act.
And the fact that she had to do it was chilling too.
“Sigh. This isn’t some makjang drama. Of all things, to be possessed by a wife who has to kill her husband.”
T/N: “Makjang” is a Korean term used to describe over-the-top, sensationalistic storylines often found in dramas or novels. It typically involves extreme plot twists, exaggerated conflicts, and often morally questionable characters or situations.
What a bolt from the blue.
In her previous life, she had read a novel with exactly this content.
A romance fantasy featuring a wife who killed her husband on her mother-in-law’s orders.
At first, it seemed somewhat unromantic, but being a romance novel, the wife who killed her husband wasn’t the main character.
It was just a very brief story of a minor character appearing at the beginning of the novel.
Yes, there was a wife who killed her husband anyway.
That wife eventually…
“Oh, wait a minute…”
Alice’s face hardened at the chilling memory that flashed through her mind.
The name of the dead husband in that novel was clearly…
“…Kylus Dearrut.”
And the name of that wife was.
[Alice Dearrut, who poisoned her husband, is sentenced to death by hanging.]
Alice’s mouth gaped open at the vivid passage from the novel that came to mind.
And with a movement that seemed like it would creak, she lowered her head again.
The face of her peacefully sleeping husband, the black-haired Duke Kylus Dearrut described in the book.
‘Kylus Dearrut. You are to become the wife of Duke Dearrut, Alice.’
The moment she confirmed the handsome duke’s face again, she realized.
That she had been possessed by a trashy side character in a novel.
“Oh, shit.”
* * *
‘Huff, huff…’
Rough breaths rose to the tip of her throat, but Alice couldn’t stop running.
She ran and ran towards the entrance where a stream of light poured in from the pitch-black darkness.
But just before reaching the entrance, someone reached out to Alice.
Caught by a large hand, Alice was embraced as if trapped in a broad chest.
‘You can never escape.’
The moment an incredibly low voice penetrated her ear, Alice turned her head.
Just as the black smoke covering the face of the man embracing her disappeared.
Alice took a sharp breath and opened her eyes wide.
Opened her eyes…?
Blink, blink.
Alice slowly blinked her eyes as she saw the handsome side profile of the man in front of her.
A sense of reality gradually returning.
“Ah, what a nightmare…”
Alice muttered lowly, but suddenly realized her position as she saw her husband’s face too close.
Her current posture.
One hand inside his shirt on his broad chest, one leg over his thigh – it was quite a close and intimate-looking position.
Alice’s mind suddenly cleared at the distinct firmness felt on her palm.
“Heup!”
