Chapter 1

“Are you tired again today?”
 
I asked my husband as he returned home late at night, still in his formal attire.
 
My husband, Oscar, looked at me with his cold blue eyes.
 
“I’m tired.”
 
He handed his coat to the butler and spoke briefly.
 
“I’ll sleep separately again today.”
 
Then he shuffled away on his long legs, not even looking at me.
 
The smell of damp grass caught the tip of my nose.
 
It was Serwen’s scent. The woman my husband has been seeing in secret.
 
“Honey!”
 
I hurried after Oscar.
 
“I need to tell you something, honey!”
 
“I told you I was tired!”
 
He gritted his teeth in annoyance and slammed the door to his private bedroom in my face.
 
It was the most polite thing he’d ever done.
 
I stared longingly at the closed door with a very sad face.
 
‘Ha…….’
 
My husband’s attitude is the worst.
 
‘But he never even mentioned divorce.’
 
He’s never mentioned divorce to me, not even when he’s seeing other women, let alone coldly treating me. He’s very stubborn.
 
I’ve been foolish enough to put up with it.
 
Do I love my husband?
 
No! I just couldn’t bring myself to ask for a divorce first.
 
Because of the damn kingdom law.
 
According to the kingdom’s laws, the person who proposed divorce had to pay alimony. It was a rubbish law that demanded such resolve to break a sacred marriage.
 
I didn’t want to pay alimony just because I was the one who proposed the divorce, even though I hadn’t done anything wrong.
 
So, I pretended to cling to him until he mentioned divorce first.
 
Get sick of me, get tired of me, I prayed and prayed to myself.
 
“But that’s it,” I said. “I’ve had enough.
 
I bit my lip.
 
The maids who attend to my husband’s business and enter his chambers flinch and glance at me.
 
To them, I must have looked like a vindictive woman whose pride had been bruised by her husband’s coldness.
 
I took a deep breath and pushed open the door to his bedroom. I looked him in the eye and said it clearly.
 
“Let’s get a divorce.”
 
His brow creased.
 
* * *
Adversity ignites love.
 
The fruit beyond obstacles always looks sweeter.
 
I, playing the role of an obstacle that makes the woman to be conquered by the regretful male lead even sweeter.
 
I am the means to make the male lead realize his passionate love for the female lead?
 
I was possessed by a high-level novel of devastated regret called “Portrait of Green Water.”
 
I’m an arranged marriage candidate who’s being used in the love games of the regrettable male lead.
 
“Marriage? With you? Serwen, I have no intention of letting my reputation suffer by being formally tied to a slave girl.”
 
As a means of strategic marriage, the regretful male lead, Oscar, spews disdainful lines at Serwen, who yearns for his love and marries the influential daughter of a powerful family he has been courting.
 
That’s me, Marlena.
 
It’s not like she abandons Serwen after that.
 
He confines her in a house in a back alley, keeping her under his control and visiting her periodically.
 
Serwen is understandably wary of Oscar.
 
“You’re married. Why are you doing this to me? Please let me go now.”
 
“I don’t like it when you provoke me with things like that.”
 
‘Ugh.’
 
Thinking back to the contents of the novel, I involuntarily made a disgusted sound. I almost spat it out.
 
“This is a bother to the Duchess. Please go back now.”
 
“I told you not to irritate me.”
 
I don’t know why that sound is ‘irritating,’ but whatever the case, Oscar is overcome with the urge to make Serwen submit, and with a snarl, he lunges at her slender body and…….
 
And just like that, the two of them succumb to the heated moment.
 
Let’s leave it at that.
 
Because, to be honest, I feel sorry for Serwen.
 
But the monologue that follows is the worst.
 
“In the end, this person is mine.”
 
“He may be married, but his heart belongs to me. It’s a small consolation…….”
 
“It must be lonely for a duchess to wait for him alone in a fancy mansion. I pity a duchess who can’t win the heart of a duke”
 
Thinking about Serwen’s monologue makes me laugh out loud.
 
They’re both predisposed to infidelity. It’s in their blood.
 
What’s surprising is that this crazy novel glorifying adultery has been ranked pretty high for a long time.
 
That’s probably because the story development in Portrait of Green Water is provocative.
 
I also enjoyed bashing Oscar and Serwen in the comments to see how far they would go.
 
Honestly, the novel was a lot of fun, but in a bad way.
 
‘But…….’
 
I sighed.
 
As a reader, it’s only fun when you’re chewing popcorn…….
 
It’s not as fun to be in the shoes of Marlena, the strategic marriage partner of the regretful male lead, Oscar.
 
Marlena is a despicable villainess who has been in love with Oscar for years.
 
She was born the daughter of a powerful man, but her life’s purpose is only Oscar.
 
Having fallen for Oscar at first sight, she insisted on marrying him immediately.
 
But there are all sorts of calculations and formalities involved in a noble marriage.
 
When the Marquis of Rowissum urged her to wait, she insisted that she could not, and she threatened her father that the longer she waited, the more the family’s honor would suffer.
 
When he scoffed at her suggestion that she try it out, she took advantage of the luxury of being unmarried and flirted with several men at once.
 
In the end, her father, exasperated, asked her coldly.
 
“Fine. It’s been a while since I expected anything from you, but I never thought you’d be this crazy. I’ll give you a chance. Are you going to change your mind, or are you going to give up all your rights as a member of the family and end up in a loveless marriage?”
 
‘Give up all rights as a member of the family!’
 
By bringing such disgrace to the family, if she still insisted on marrying Oscar, it meant she would be cast out by the family and not receive a penny of the inheritance.
 
The Crestwell ducal family is a bit scandalous, despite being a branch of the royal family.
 
The Marquis of Rowissum, on the other hand, had tradition and authority.
 
To put it in terms of conditions, it was almost like a reprimand, pleading for her to stop clinging desperately and learn to reject suitors more gracefully.
 
But Marlena had no intention of changing her mind.
 
“Of course, it’s marriage, father. And once we’re married, I’m confident I’ll win his love.”
 
Sigh…
 
How could she say such things with such confidence?
 
Marlena’s confident demeanor prompted the Marquis of Rowissum to declare that there was no hope of rehabilitation for his daughter.
 
He goes directly to Oscar and asks him to marry her, and she marries him, bringing further shame to the family name.
 
Despite the eagerness of the marriage, Marlena has lost far too much to gain.
 
Oscar would never be faithful to his family.
 
In the novels I’ve read, Oscar neglected Marlena every time, using the excuse that he was tired.
 
Naturally. Marlena, having lost her inheritance rights, was nothing more than an empty shell, and Oscar was infatuated with Serwen.
 
Marriage to Marlena was just another source of excitement in his relationship with Serwen.
 
That’s how he eventually conveys the fact that he never intended to marry Serwen.
 
Her suffering was a kind of catharsis for Oscar.
 
This man is no ordinary man to make such a major life decision as marriage for such peripheral pleasure.
 
Well, I guess he had a lot of confidence.
 
But even Oscar hadn’t thought of that.
 
Marlena’s creepy obsession.
 
If Marlena’s obsession had been at a reasonable level, Oscar would have been able to live with it, but it wasn’t.
 
Eventually, Oscar gets fed up and impulsively proposes a divorce.
 
Even after the divorce, he adds the radical condition that he’ll continue to support her with a lifestyle that won’t be inferior.
 
Given his feelings for Marlena, it’s a surprising offer.
 
But Malena wouldn’t listen. How could she, having obtained the position of duchess?
 
She begins to cling to Oscar even more viciously.
 
As befitting the villainess who should fulfill her role as a hindrance in the romance of a trashy, regretful high-level novel.
 
Like a scorned woman staring at a cliff, she can’t climb.
 
Marlena is desperate and tries to feed Oscar a love potion. She wants to take his body and have a child with him.
 
The attempt fails, of course, and Oscar’s disgust for Marlena grows deep in his bones.
 
As Marlena grows more impatient by the day, she becomes aware of Serwen’s presence.
 
Marlena tries to drug her to ruin her pretty face.
 
“That wench seduced my husband!”
 
But just then, like a savior, Oscar appears and grabs Marlena’s wrist.
 
“What do you think you’re doing?”
 
Well, the rest is history.
 
In the moment when he’s about to lose Serwen, Oscar realizes how much he loves her.
 
But after being traumatized by something terrible, Serwen closes herself off to Oscar completely after that. …….
 
‘The comment section exploded.’
 
Readers started fighting in the comments.
 
Oscar was objectively an asshole, but Marlena wasn’t portrayed as anything less than grotesque, so the reader debate was pretty tense.
 
Serwen garnered sympathy. Perhaps it was due to the description of her just before falling victim to Marlena’s schemes.
 
The lack of sane people made the episode quite entertaining in its irritation.
 
However, just as things were starting to heat up, “Portrait of Green Water” went on hiatus due to the author’s health.
 
According to the author’s social media, Malena was supposed to exit, and a new love interest for the sub-male character was supposed to appear. Or rather, didn’t he already appear, and they said to find him?
 
Actually, that’s none of my business.
 
An attempt to make a child, an attempt to ruin Serwen’s face.
 
It’s not going to happen anyway, not with me possessing Marlena’s body.
 
An affair between a man and a woman, to their own happiness or not.
 
It’s none of my business, and I want to stay out of it.
 
After all, it was the old Marlena who loved Oscar, not me.
 
I’m not the one with the broken heart.
 
I even feel sorry for Serwen, who pities me.
 
* * *
My husband, Oscar, glanced at me at my declaration of divorce.
 
He sighed and threw up his hands.
 
“You’re going out of your way to get attention.”
 
He sounded completely bored.
 
I crossed my arms and gave him a small smile.
 
“I’m not being attention-seeking; I really do want a divorce.”
 
“You’ve been ousted from the family. Paying alimony would make it hard for you to even get by for a day.”
 
I said it smugly.
 
“No, it won’t. You’ll be the one paying alimony.”
 
Oscar scoffed coldly at my words.
 
“Have you become so ignorant of the kingdom’s laws? Who’s the one asking for a divorce right now?”
 
Ha, those damn kingdom laws.
 
Yeah, because of that, I had been humbling myself and pretending to be obsessed with Oscar, which I had no intention of doing.
 
Originally, my goal was to smoothly follow the original route, but when Oscar showed no sign of giving me a divorce, I had to resort to pretending to be obsessed, although I didn’t want to do it unless absolutely necessary, as it seemed less smooth compared to the original route.
 
But there was another way. I just didn’t want to use it because it wasn’t as smooth as the original route.
 
Since Oscar showed no signs of getting a divorce, I had to resort to it reluctantly.
 
“Do you know a woman named Serwen?”
 
I said, crossing my arms and keeping my chin up.
 
My husband’s face hardened instantly at my words.