The Strongest Man’s Fake Wife Wants to Live Chapter 17

Iceberg was officially approved as a painkiller in Swapro Territory.
After granting the approval, Owen canceled the large order of hoban he had placed and switched the item to Iceberg instead.

“Thank goodness.”

Pesha rested her chin on the balcony railing of the castle and gazed out at the garden, which was gradually being put in order.

The newly hired gardener had shown a reassuring eagerness to take notes and learn as Pesha carefully explained, point by point, how to grow flowers that thrived in the northern regions.

The garden was still barren, but Pesha smiled as she imagined it soon filled with white flowers. Then she spotted Owen and his adjutant walking side by side through a corridor a little distance away from the garden.

He appeared to be receiving some important report, judging by his rather serious expression.

Pesha was looking in their direction when she happened to make eye contact with Owen and awkwardly waved her hand.

But he lowered his gaze indifferently without any reaction and simply continued on his way.

What the hell. Did he just ignore my greeting?

“Hahaha…….”

Pesha slowly lowered her hand, desperately keeping a smile on her face.

‘It could happen. Male leads are supposed to be cold to everyone except their woman, after all. I just have to endure it until the divorce. I should think only about the divorce settlement I’ll be getting!’

Still……

Pesha’s eyes slowly wandered over the garden with a few trees planted here and there, the uneven pathway that looked as though someone had started making a road and then given up halfway, and the old castle walls.

Eventually, she let out a sigh.

“The problem is, I feel almost too sorry to accept a divorce settlement……”

Now that everything had been taken care of, all she had to do was stay put, yet somehow all she could see were the pitiful parts of the territory, and it was driving her crazy.

As she hung her head, a low voice came from behind her.

“My lady.”

Startled, she turned around to find Owen, who had been walking through the corridor just moments ago, standing right behind her.

“L-Lord Namoi……!”

Pesha’s shoulders jerked in surprise like a child caught doing something naughty.

How does he make no sound when he walks?

Did he hear me talking about the divorce settlement?

No. I said it really quietly!

“W-What brings you here?”

“The sun is high in the sky. The sunlight is harsh, so you should go inside.”

“Huh?”

“The eastern sunlight is strong. If you stay in the sun for too long without an umbrella, your skin will burn.”

What was this……? Why was he worried about her all of a sudden?

Was this his way of responding to her greeting?

If he answered her greeting just twice more, her heart might actually give out.

Pressing a hand to her pounding chest, Pesha replied with the most innocent expression she could manage.

“Oh, yes. Did you come because you were worried about me?”

He would surely answer, No, with his usual expressionless face.

Then she planned to joke that he was still being kind and lighten the mood.

She had asked without giving it much thought, but Owen suddenly pressed his lips shut.

“…….”

“My lord?”

She really could not figure him out.

One moment, he seemed considerate enough to come all the way over personally to tell her not to stay out on the balcony and to go inside.

Yet when she asked him a question, he did not answer at all.

While she forcibly maintained her smile, he suddenly brought up another subject.

“Iceberg will arrive in the territory next month.”

“Yes? Ah, yes.”

“They say it may take some time because the seeds have to be procured separately.”

“I see…….”

But could you tell me why the red-haired man standing behind you is glaring at me like that?

Behind Owen, who was reporting the progress of things as though he were giving his superior a work update, a red-haired man was staring at her with a terrifying look in his eyes.

Cold sweat streamed down Pesha’s back because of it.

‘Ah, the spicy life of being a daughter-in-law begins.’

Until now, she had mostly encountered servants who either knew little about her or were in no position to openly show hostility toward her, so she had never received such an openly hostile reaction.

But was this because he was Owen’s comrade-in-arms and fellow soldier?

Even before they had properly exchanged a single word, he seemed to hate her intensely.

The gaze of a knight who had survived a brutal battlefield and been formally knighted was so sharp it felt as though he were rubbing sandpaper across her face.

‘What on earth did I even do?’

She wanted to explain that this marriage had simply been the joint handiwork of her father and the Emperor, and that she had never had a say in it.

But there was no way he would listen.

Thinking of using Owen as a shield somehow or getting him to leave together with his adjutant, Pesha opened her mouth.

“Um, but……”

“My lord. Forgive me for interrupting your conversation, but may I finish my report on the urgent matter?”

Is he deliberately cutting in because he knew I was about to speak?

Being treated like an invisible person while he asked Owen alone for permission was so childish that it was almost unbearable.

Fortunately, Owen’s expression was not particularly pleasant as he glanced at his adjutant.

It looked like he was about to say something about the man’s rude interruption, so the mature Pesha decided to yield her turn.

“Oh, of course. Please do. I’m fine.”

Even though Pesha spoke as if she understood, Owen did not seem particularly pleased with the situation.

“……Speak.”

The adjutant stared pointedly at Pesha as though he did not even want to speak in front of her, but when Owen impatiently urged him on, he had no choice but to begin his report.

“You said it was urgent. What is it?”

“I apologize. It’s just that there is a rumor going around that the amount of wheat harvested this year will be quite substantial.”

Wheat?

Standing across from them, Pesha perked up her ears.

“Why?”

“I haven’t heard the details myself. All I know is that the information came from the Eastern Merchants’ Union……”

“If the rumor is widespread enough, wheat prices will probably fall.”

“Yes. That is why I wanted to ask whether we should start buying wheat now, even if it means overextending ourselves a little, in preparation for this winter.”

Pesha, who had been listening in on their conversation, blinked her large eyes.

It was nothing particularly important.

Summer was already well underway.

Any sensible lord would, around this time of year, calculate the tax revenue to be collected between late summer and early autumn, when the spring wheat harvest approached, and gather whatever budget was scattered throughout the territory.

‘Of course, things are different in this land, where farming is difficult.’

But farming?

Suddenly, she felt a sense of déjà vu.

Pesha felt a forgotten memory suddenly come rushing back.

‘Didn’t I see something about wheat prices falling in the year I got married in the original story?’

That year, when the protagonist Io married Owen, the two of them were still awkward with each other.

But as a bumper harvest was expected in the east, grain prices fell.

Merchants who anticipated that an increased supply would flood the market and cause prices to plummet began lowering their prices competitively.

Owen, who learned of this, ordered them to secure as much wheat as possible in preparation for winter, since the territory had suffered from food shortages the previous winter.

But there was a trap hidden in all this.

‘The prediction of a bumper harvest was a false rumor deliberately spread by that bastard Count Tompkins.’

He spread rumors that the amount of wheat entering the market would increase, deliberately stirring up anxiety among farmers and lords.

And just as he had expected, when wheat prices fell, he rejoiced.

Oh, wheat prices are going down.

But what does that have to do with me?

‘The problem is that Tompkins’s market manipulation gets exposed before long, and Owen gets arrested!’

Tompkins artificially drove down the price of wheat, and only after Owen had purchased a large quantity did the rumor of a bumper harvest turn out to be false.

To make matters worse, a wheat blight spread during harvest season, sending food prices skyrocketing……

Although Tompkins’s crimes were exposed, Owen, who had merely purchased more wheat than the previous year to prepare for winter, also came under suspicion of conspiring to manipulate the market.

Of course, it was nothing more than a trumped-up accusation from the Emperor, who disliked Owen, but it took a considerable amount of time for him to prove his innocence.

With the lord arrested and even the food they had purchased confiscated by the Emperor, Swapro’s winter that year was brutally miserable.

‘This was such an insanely frustrating arc that a lot of readers just skipped this whole part.’

I kept Pesha’s realization of the original plot fairly close to the Korean, especially the escalating “Oh, wheat prices are falling—wait, that’s bad!” feeling as she remembers why this event matters.