My Villainess Ex Won't Leave Me Alone-Chapter 155 - 5.12 - Brainwashing Himself

"Come, tell me you missed me," Lucian cooed, "I'm not mad."

Celine was definitely not used to being pursued, especially not after doing such a bold thing. She expected a lecture from Lucian, not a warm reception.

Her right hand gripped the handle of the axe tighter, "What tactic to avoid taking responsibility is this?"

"I missed you, and that's all that matters to me right now," he continued his pursuit. "You can kill a hundred soldiers and I would still want to hold you."

He couldn't see her expression behind the mask, but the way her shoulders relaxed meant that she was willing to play along with him, or so he hoped.

"On your knees then," she tested the waters.

"..." Lucian would usually bicker back, but he only placed Togo on the ground and got on his knees, hugging her legs.

He could tell that she was tense, still in her murder-mode, and he wanted to bring her out of it.

He pressed the side of his face to her stomach, "Are you going to kill me, my lady?" he asked, using his soft voice.‎

She seemed to struggle with her thoughts, her reactions slower.

"Someone might see," was her response.

He would never do something like this in the open where someone could see him. His reputation was on the line, after all, but the mask he wore made it easier to do, so he did.

"I'm just begging for forgiveness at my lady's feet," he breathed in her scent, but didn't smell the usual perfume on her. "And also begging to touch and be touched by her. It has been a while..."

He apologized for being a hypocrite, for suddenly demanding her affection when he asked her to be fine with what they already had.

The axe hung loosely from her right hand. The lack of response was not a good sign, and Lucian was tempted to peek into her mind.‎

‎His hands started to travel upward to her hips, and then to her waist. "My lady has become thinner, is she not eating well?"

"I'm not going to apologize for killing your soldier," she finally said.

"I'm not asking you to apologize," he said.

"Then what are you doing?"

"Begging."

"You know how to beg now?"

"No," he paused, "But I'm willing to learn, to please my lady."

As long as he feared the wish that could turn him into a shackled, it didn't matter how he acted. He could marry her right here and now if he were able to control his mind.

Just like how he used to fear Voice, he managed to have a relationship with Celine without losing himself.

A slip could be deadly, so safety precautions had to be taken, even if they hurt their relationship.

Celine was still silent, confused by the sudden change in his approach. ‎

He rarely admitted his wrongdoings to her, so she probably couldn't help but feel suspicious, but at the same time, she was also hopeful. She wanted to believe him.

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"Can my lady find it in her heart to forgive this poor man who misses her dearly and is in need of her affection?"

Celine's body turned slightly to the side, away from his hug.

"Did you really miss me?" she asked, sounding doubtful, "You always say sweet things, but do a bare minimum to act on them."

"I'm scared to act on them," his honesty caught Celine off guard.

"Why?"

"You would leave me," he answered, his arms tightening around her, as if she was already running away from him.

A sting of pain at the back of his head made him wince, 'I'm fine,' he reassured himself, 'I'm fine.'

Just a little more, he could go a little further. Just a little more, for her to feel reassured and loved, 'I'm fine.'

As long as he didn't feel fulfilled with his relationship with her, he was not going to turn into a shackled. He was going to stay in control.

He even used his own fears to his advantage, making him feel like he could go further than ever before. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

Brainwashing himself had always been his specialty. ‎To make himself endure things he didn't want to endure, do things he didn't want to do, and live through things he didn't want to live through. ‎

Only the outcome mattered.

The path he had to take to reach it was just a series of actions that had to be done.

Wasn't she the same?

She didn't depend on his words and actions alone. ‎She rose in power to gain his respect, acted cute enough to earn his affection, lovely to soften his heart, violent to intimidate his mind, and so much more. ‎

She didn't cage his body, she caged his mind, his heart, his whole existence. ‎So even if she wasn't here, she was still in his thoughts, in his feelings and in his decisions.

She knew he was using the same tactic to bind her, and the question was: what was their true self and what was a manipulation tool to achieve their goals?

Lucian didn't care. He loved her mask as much as the person underneath it, and believed Celine loved him just the same. ‎

She made him kneel for her, and he took it as a way to prove his devotion, nothing humiliating about that in his eyes. ‎

He reached Celine's left hand, and unwrapped the thing she was holding.

His newest beauty product, a soft red lipstick.

The carving on the metal tube depicted an open bird cage and a pair of birds inside. The birds were free to fly away, but chose to stay. ‎The thorns outside the cage showed how dangerous the outside world was. ‎

"It represents you and me," he explained, while she listened, "The thorns represent the world that is trying to take us away from each other, or trying to harm us. The cage represents our relationship. We are free, but choose to stay."

Nothing about Lucian's behavior in the prophecy made sense.

Only his business ventures were realistic, which he explained as Mathieu looking into his current ones. ‎

But the labels refused to leave Lucian alone, and he couldn't stop thinking about the second male lead role he had been given.

Pushing aside the plot, the role at its core fit the curse of his life too well to be a coincidence: unable to reach a happy ending with the woman he loved despite his best efforts.

Prophecies were always told in riddles and metaphors, which made them difficult to interpret. ‎

Lucian stopped looking at it from a surface level, and started to read between the lines, searching for a deeper meaning.

He would have never invested in cosmetics and other beauty and hygiene products if it wasn't for his Cleine.

It required research and development, had a slow start, and the return was nothing compared to the amount he was getting from his other businesses.

He couldn't shout on top of a roof how much he loved her, and how much he wanted to spend the rest of his life with her. So he used this move as his outlet.

For her, he was showing off his love, but to the rest of the world, he was just a man who cared for women's health and comfort more than his own profits.

Only a foolish businessman would do that, but Lucian was exactly that type of fool when in love.

That's why he was sure those beauty products he was known for in the prophecy wouldn't have existed if it wasn't for Celine's presence in his life.

The signs of their secret relationship was there.

Wolfberry lip balm, Wolf hair comb, Lady moon undergarments…

He planned to release many collections, and each of them had different themes and meanings.

Mathieu didn't specify the themes of the collections, but he said that the second male lead's beauty empire overshadowed all his other ventures simply because his products were all the ladies talked about in the North.

So much that even the clueless heroine couldn't ignore it. She thought that he, the second male lead, was taking advantage of women's insecurities and profiting off them. Thanks to that, she was not impressed by his wealth and business achievements in the slightest.

It intrigued the second male lead with how she was different from the usual gold diggers he met.

'Definitely not me,' Lucian thought, considering he was in love with the greediest of them all.

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