Late at night, up in the clock tower, Vivien stood waiting for a certain gentleman to arrive.
The moment she saw Sir Reiss, a bright smile lit up her face.
"Have you heard the rumors from the palace? I heard the crown prince proposed to you."
After a brief moment of hesitation, she spoke up, her voice cautious. "That's right. So, could you help me find a reliable man?"
As soon as the words left her mouth, Sir Reiss froze.
"It only needs to be a one-year contract. Do you know anyone I can trust? Preferably a young noble from a foreign country. I need to get engaged right this second. Otherwise, I'll be forced to marry the crown prince."
Hearing this, the man's tone dripped with jealousy and bitter disappointment.
"So you're just going to casually enter a contract marriage with some random guy. You said you wanted to spend the rest of your life with me. Didn't you say that you wanted to marry me? That you wanted to be my wife?"
Vivien was completely dumbfounded. When did I ever?
But looking into his deeply wounded eyes, she suddenly felt like absolute trash.
"I've never said anything like that to you, sir."
Just as she was about to defend herself against this baseless accusation, she suddenly remembered a certain someone's eyes. Eyes that looked strikingly similar to the wounded gaze right in front of her. The only person she had ever made a lifelong promise to.
I'll come to see you again when the time comes.
She had always been a little cold, yet so strangely warm to her. Even though they hadn't seen each other in so long, Vivien still missed her all the time.
But wait. This was way too absurd. How on earth could Sir Reiss be Rachel?
"Answer me, Vivien. Even if it's just a contract marriage, once you're married, you'll have to hold hands. And you'll have to kiss. Like this. Could you really do something like this with someone else?"
Faced with Reiss's intense questioning, she was so nervous she was practically on the verge of tears.
Her lifelong best friend was actually a man. Wasn't this the biggest scam of the century?
Ten years ago, burning up with a terrible fever, Vivien suddenly remembered.
She had transmigrated into a novel she'd read in her past life, and she was the female lead, Vivien. The male lead was Crown Prince Alan. But the tragic thing was, this novel ended with the female lead's death, leaving the male lead, Alan, drowning in unbearable regret.
The terminal illness she suffered from was mana overload syndrome. A massive amount of mana would build up inside her heart, eventually causing it to burst, ending her life.
But the one silver lining in all this was that avoiding this tragedy wasn't entirely impossible. The villainess of the novel was the absolute only person who could save her.
Rachel Edwin.
She didn't bother fighting the female lead over the male lead. Instead, she was the ultimate villain with massive ambitions, plotting to seize the throne for herself. On top of that, she had a rare constitution that allowed her to absorb the mana around her.
In the original story, Vivien refused to accept Rachel's treatment, all just to protect Alan.
But who gives a damn about the original plot? A male lead who only feels sorry after I'm already dead. Who the hell needs that?
She was going to stick to Rachel like glue and live a long, healthy life. And while she was at it, she'd help keep Rachel from turning evil. A perfect win-win.
It was a truly flawless plan.