The Secret of Min-Jun's wife | JENLISA AU

Chapter 54

Chapter 54

Do you remember the story you told me once? The one about the lighthouse, the story of Rose and General Alexander? I've thought about it a lot lately. Rose, who married Emperor Augustus—not for love, but for wealth, power, and influence. It seemed like the perfect union, right? A marriage of convenience, where the heart had no place, just ambition. But as I reflect on it now, I realize something... something that cuts deeper than I ever expected. I am Rose.

I was once trapped in a hell of my own making, a life of poverty and pain, surrounded by nothing but struggle. I used to wake up every day to the sound of hunger, the ache of dreams that would never come true. The weight of misery clung to me, like an invisible chain. And then, just like Rose, I made the decision to marry him—not out of love, but for the promise of escape. I thought he could give me the peace I so desperately longed for. I believed he could show me the love I deserved.

He gave me luxury—more than I ever thought I could have. The finest silks, the grandest mansions, the jewels that sparkled brighter than the stars. I lived in a world that was nothing like the one I had known, a world that seemed like a dream. The kind of life every woman would kill for. But still, despite it all, something was missing. No matter how many diamonds I wore, no matter how grand the feasts, I was left hollow inside. Every night, I lay in bed beside him, but it wasn't love I felt. It was emptiness, an aching void that swallowed everything. I was trapped in a gilded cage, drowning in a life I had once thought would save me, yet somehow, it only drowned me more.

Then, you came into my life, unexpectedly. Like a storm that swept through the calm, you appeared when I least expected it. We were rivals at first, opponents, caught in the game of power, each of us with our own mission, our own desires. But something shifted between us—something I never anticipated. You became my lover, my confidant, the one person who made me feel like I mattered for more than just the life I had. For the first time, I felt like I wasn't just a woman chasing after wealth and power—I was someone worthy of love, real love, the kind I had been starving for.

You loved me in a way I never thought I could be loved. You made me feel seen. You saw past my desire for luxury, past my ambition. You saw me—the woman underneath it all. And even though I was far from perfect, even though I had flaws, you chose to love me for who I was, not for what I could give you. You made me feel like I was enough.

But there was something you never told me.

A lie. A secret that you kept buried beneath your smile, beneath the promises you whispered in my ear.

You lied to me.

And I—I believed in you. I believed in everything you said,

Rose and General Alexander, they never got their happily ever after. No. They didn't live that dream. They died—separate, distant, never truly finding the peace they sought. The love they fought for, the power they chased, it all meant nothing in the end. They were left with nothing but memories, and those, too, faded away with time.

Maybe, just maybe, they didn't end up together here. But I'm sure of one thing: somewhere, up there, where the stars meet the sky, where the pain and the lies can't touch us anymore—they are together.

As the weight of everything presses down on me, it all starts to make sense. I understand now why you never told me the tragic end of Rose and General Alexander. You didn't hide it from me because you wanted to keep the truth away, but because you couldn't bear to watch me crumble under the weight of it. You saw the hope in my eyes, the fragile dream I was holding onto—this belief that love, in its purest form, could save me, could heal all the scars I've carried. And you knew that if I knew their fate—how they were torn apart by their own lies, by the very things they thought would bring them peace—it would destroy me. You kept the truth from me, not out of deceit, but out of love. You wanted to protect me from that pain, from the reality that no matter how hard we try, love doesn't always conquer everything, that sometimes, in the end, we lose ourselves in the very things we thought we could control.