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Chapter 1
My life was like a steel ball falling to the ground.
My parents got divorced, and in the end, only my smart older brother was chosen.
I was like something no one would even buy at a used market.
That was my situation.
I was always compared to my brother, and harsh words were normal for me.
Because I was the granddaughter, I even had to take care of my grandmother who had dementia.
I thought I finally escaped when I got a job.
But one day, bad luck came suddenly.
On my way home from work, I was hit by a speeding truck and died.
My life started over again, but it was a thorny path.
Boom!
Thunder crashed, and rain started falling hard.
In front of the mansion’s locked iron gate,
a boy was kneeling in the rain and begging me.
“I’m sorry…”
As thunder and lightning crashed, I slowly opened my heavy eyes.
I didn’t like him.
No, actually, I just didn’t like the situation.
The boy, who didn’t know how I felt, lifted his head like a sinner.
“Are you going to abandon me?”
The boy asked me.
His black hair was wet with rain, and under it, his dark blue eyes stared at me.
His sad eyes looked like a lost puppy.
“I’m useless…”
The boy, who had been crying, bit his lips that must have once been red.
Right before his nineteenth birthday, he put his hands on his wet, tense thighs.
The veins stood out on his big hands, and his uniform was tightly wrinkled.
“You said you want to divorce me…”
The boy moved his pale lips and tried to smile.
The heavy summer rain made his feverish body even hotter.
His pale cheeks were flushed.
Even while getting wet in the rain, Noah kept looking at me as I tried to leave.
His blue eyes were dark and deep.
“I’m sorry, Count.”
I barely managed to speak.
I already knew what I had to say in this situation.
“Why…”
Noah slowly lowered his head.
Tears mixed with rain filled his eyes and ran down his chin.
Even as I watched my begging husband, I couldn’t say anything.
‘Noah, you don’t know that I had a previous life.’
In my last life, I died in a car accident.
After I died, I opened my eyes in another world, in someone else’s body.
‘This is my sixth time.’
Just like that, I lived as Solia Lotten six times.
Noah, my husband, was kneeling and crying.
I was his wife by political marriage, and the daughter of a nouveau riche, Solia.
The first time I possessed her, Solia was five years old.
She was the poor daughter of a sailor, not even a noble.
Her real father worked hard and became a merchant leader, and by the time Solia turned twelve, he even bought a baron’s title with money.
Five years later, as Baron’s daughter, Solia had a political marriage with the poor Count Lenister.
Lenister used to be a famous noble family leading the empire’s politics, economy, and culture, but those days were gone.
After the previous count and his wife died in a carriage accident, the family fell apart, and the debt was left to their young son.
Noah, the only direct heir, became the new count.
When Solia first met Noah, he was only fifteen.
So Solia became the wife of Noah Lenister, who was two years younger than her.
Solia didn’t like poor Noah, but she couldn’t refuse her father’s orders.
Her marriage let her father connect to a noble family, and Noah got a dowry big enough to keep his household running.
Noah and his family were so poor that they needed money from his wife’s family just to keep the mansion.
Solia was scared of angering her father, so she did what he said and made Noah’s life hard.
Her father, once a commoner, felt inferior to Noah, who was born a noble.
That’s how I bullied my sick husband and wasted money, until finally, the captain of Noah’s knights beheaded me.
After dying, I woke up as Solia again.
This time, I avoided my sick husband.
Even after becoming the countess, I stayed away from his family, skipped meals, and stayed up all night.
I got tuberculosis and died at twenty in a monastery.
The third time, I tried to get revenge.
I stole all the money my father made by selling me off.
I locked him in the empty safe and set up a bomb, but an alchemist’s miscalculation killed me too.
The fourth time, I quietly transferred all my father’s real estate to Noah’s name.
But a servant my father bought stabbed me, and I died instantly.
The fifth time, I decided to care for my sick husband.
I made him tea with what I thought were herbs, but it was actually poison.
Noah lost consciousness, and I was kicked out by his family and starved to death.
And now—
This is my sixth time living as Solia Lotten.
This time is different because I remember my past life as a Korean office worker named Yoo Chae-hwa.
‘I barely survived! I always died young, but this time, I made it to divorce.’
All five past lives failed.
Now, my instincts tell me this is my last chance to escape.
‘I don’t have the power to stop or change fate.’
So I need to survive by going along with fate.
I went up to my kneeling husband and whispered in his ear.
“I don’t like a sick husband.”
I felt sorry for saying something I didn’t mean.
But I want to live.
I have to leave you so I can live.
My husband, soaking wet, just looked even more pitiful.
My heart ached like it was poked with a needle.
I kept moving my trembling lips.
“I also don’t like a poor, empty-shell count. What does Noah have, except for that title?”
“…”
“Your family, Lenister, has been ruined for a long time. The title of count doesn’t mean much, does it?”
I stabbed him with words, even though I knew it would hurt him.
That way, he wouldn’t try to hold on to me.
I took out a leather case with the divorce papers and building deed and threw it in front of Noah.
The leather case rolled on the wet ground.
“Here is your alimony. You can live for at least thirty years with this.”
Noah didn’t answer, so I kept speaking.
“Don’t be stubborn. Just take it. I transferred one of my father’s commercial buildings to your name.”
Noah stayed silent.
He should be happy, but he just stared at the case with empty eyes.
“If you sell that troublesome mansion, you won’t starve. Just protect the building under your name and don’t trust anyone like before.”
That’s why I got slapped by my father, just to steal the building for him.
Noah called my name with his head down.
“Solia.”
His voice was calm and relaxed, like he hadn’t been crying.
“Are you leaving me because I’m useless? Because I’m weak and can’t do anything?”
“…Yes.”
I nodded in the rain.
I never really thought that, but I had to cut my feelings for my sick husband.
“What if… I become capable?”
“That can’t happen, Noah.”
I firmly said and picked up my cheap dark coat from my arm.
I hurriedly brought it because I had nothing to wear for winter.
I grabbed my few things from the ground.
A merchant’s wagon would come soon.
Then, this would be the real goodbye.
Noah quietly watched me as I was about to leave.
I couldn’t look at him.
With my head slightly down, I spoke.
“Let’s divorce.”
Noah didn’t answer again.
“Divorce…”
I thought he would say no, but suddenly, Noah agreed.
He got up and slowly came closer to me.
His shoes passed by the leather case.
Then Noah opened his red lips.
“I hope you regret leaving me.”
“I won’t regret it.”
“You’re so cruel to the end, Solia.”
Noah hugged me tightly without asking.
He blocked me from leaving and whispered softly.
“If you leave me, you’ll be unhappy…”
His lips touched my sensitive ear.
While I was trapped in his arms, I said,
“…Don’t fool yourself. I won’t be unhappy. My life will be happy without you, Noah.”
I said it.
Now, it’s really over with Noah.
I never loved him as a man, but I did care about him.
Noah was the only person I had—no family, no friends.
‘What if he doesn’t let me go now?’
I bit my lips in nervousness.
Surprisingly, Noah let go of me easily.
His face was blank, but I saw his lips twist.
“I’ll divorce you, Solia.”
Even hearing his cold words that didn’t match his tears, I couldn’t answer.
“Just like you wanted.”
Noah lowered his eyes with an uncaring face.
Like someone trying hard to hide his pain.
His black hair was blown by the wind and rain.
I couldn’t fix it for him like before.
“You have to throw away a useless husband if you want a new start.”
Noah whispered as he stopped right in front of me, so close that his lips almost touched mine
