Rebirth of the Film Emperor's Beloved Wife

29

With the cast finalized, Jungkook’s days became busier and busier. Although he would still make time to cook Lisa dinner, they no longer saw each other as often.

Lisa was troubled about one thing, and that was how to get her final two smile points.

【 Can the Auxiliary Assistance function help me make Jungkook smile? 】

Her expectations for the function had been raised by its success in helping her find an actress for Jungkook.

【 Dear Master, that won’t work. Auxiliary Assistance can only play an auxiliary role, it cannot directly complete System Missions for you. 】

001 rebuffed with a head shake. Lisa was a bit disappointed by 001’s answer, but she had expected it. After all, the System Missions would be too easy if she could use Auxiliary Assistance to complete them.

The phone suddenly rang with a call from Mother Manoban.

“Mom, do you need something?” Even towards her own mother, Lisa didn’t show much enthusiasm. However, the tone of her voice was a touch warmer than usual.

“Do I need a reason to call my daughter? I think that women should be gentle and considerate. Men are attracted to that. You’ve been with Jungkook for so long now, and yet you’re still so cold. What if he decides to abandon you?”

Mother Manoban was joking, of course, but her tone did reveal a dash of real disapproval. Mother Manoban was a lively woman, and Father Manoban wasn’t bad either, so she couldn’t understand why both of her children ended up being such cold icebergs.

Oh, and there was also that frigid son-in-law of hers too. Her family was going to get taken over by the icebergs soon.

“He won’t,” was Lisa’s assured reply. In her past life, that man had stayed by her side even when she was confined to bed as a human vegetable. He’d taken meticulous care of her.

She was treating him so well now, so why would he want to abandon her? He definitely wouldn’t.

At the other end of the line, Mother Manoban rolled her eyes. Fine, suppose her daughter was right… but just who did her daughter inherit this level of self-confidence from, anyway?

Finally, she stopped joking around and told Lisa the reason for her call.

“Lili, why don’t you bring Jungkook back for dinner tonight? Your brother is home.”

“Alright,” Lisa agreed. She’d been wanting to talk to her brother Yoongi anyway. After she hung up, she gave Jungkook a call.

…..

Jungkook was in a middle of a meeting with the main cast when he heard his phone ring with the ringtone he’d specifically set for Lisa. Immediately, he answered the call and quickly made a gesture to let the cast know that he had to step away for a bit.

“Lisa,” he greeted. Unlike before, he didn’t ask if she needed something and just waited patiently for her to speak.

“Is it alright to have dinner with my family tonight?”

Saying that put Lisa in a good mood. Her mother claimed that she wasn’t gentle and considerate enough, but look at her now, she even knew to ask for Jungkook’s consent. How was she not gentle and considerate?

The past Lisa wouldn’t have bothered to ask “is it alright?” so the current Lisa really was quite satisfied with her own progress and performance.

“Okay.”

In Jungkook’s point of view… rather than thinking that she was asking for his consent, he believed she was actually implying that there was no room for disagreement. He still had the impression that she was a strong, decisive, and dictatorial woman.

In any case, he hadn’t planned on rejecting in the first place.

…..

That night, Jungkook drove to Manoban Manor with Lis in his car. They seldom visited together, and just in general, the number of times Jungkook had visited was few. It wasn’t because he didn’t want to but because it seemed that Lisa didn’t like it when he did.

After he opened the car door for her and she got out, she didn’t go straight into the manor like before. Instead, she stood by the car and waited for a moment before she slowly, very slowly, made her way to the manor entrance. Slightly caught off guard, Jungkook quickly recovered and quickened his pace to catch up with her.

Grandpa Manoban, Father Manoban, Mother Manoban, Brother Manoban, and Nayeon  were all waiting inside of the manor, and each one revealed a different expression when they saw Jungkook and Lisa walk in together.

“Grandpa, Mom, Dad, Big Brother,” Lisa greeted first. Then, she went and took a seat on a side sofa. Although she completely ignored Nayeon’s existence and did nothing to hide her obvious disregard, no one was really surprised because Lisa had always been this way.

It was as if in her eyes, Nayeon and Jungkook were not a part of the family. However, the difference now was that only Nayeon was being excluded.

Nayeon was sitting beside Lisa. Her eyes darkened slightly, but she regained her composure almost immediately and gave a gentle smile, as if she didn’t mind at all.

Jungkook also gave his greetings. He said formally, “Grandfather, Father, Mother, Brother.”

Just as Lisa had done, he blatantly ignored Nayeon. Thinking about what Tzuyu had done last time, his goodwill towards the Chou family had all but vanished.

The Manoban family naturally noticed the couple’s indifference towards Nayeon, but nobody spoke up. Speaking of couples, the Manoban family tradition was quite repressive.

Only marriage could completely set them free from the family’s constraints. Otherwise, they would have no choice but to obey the elders’ orders and change careers.

This resulted in the early marriages of the Manoban children, but to them, marriage was marriage and nothing more.

Father Manoban and Mother Manoban  genuinely loved each other, while Yoongi and Lisa were both obviously just trying to meet the family’s obligations. The other family members knew this but turned a blind eye to it.

However, the neglection of Nayeon and Jungkook by their respective spouses didn’t mean that they were treated as complete strangers by the rest of Manoban family. Father and Mother Manoban wouldn’t tell Yoongi to bring Nayeon home for visits, and their attitudes towards her were rather indifferent, but they did treat Jungkook much better than they did Nayeon.

Mother  would worry about Lisa’s post-marriage life, but she kept silent about Yoongi’s. It was easy to tell that the Manoban family was relatively satisfied with Jungkook, but not so much Nayeon.

“Jungkook, sit. Are you hungry? Dinner will start soon.” Out of all the Manoban family members, Mother Manoban was the one who liked Jungkook the most.

“Okay.”

Jungkook was sitting next to Lisa. Although their positions appeared intimate, their bodies were actually not touching. This was how they normally interacted—seemingly intimate when in truth, there was always some degree of distance between them.

Mother Manoban peered at them from the corners of her eye and frowned a bit. Three years had passed, and yet the two were still like this.

She had assumed that disclosing their relationship would pull the two closer, but looking at them now, their progress didn’t seem very ideal.

A cloud of worry hovered over Mother Manoban’s heart. How long would she have to wait before she could see her daughter and son-in-law be in love?

Oh, and there was her son and daughter-in-law too. Thinking about them only worried Mother Manoban more. Although her daughter’s marriage was problematic, her son’s marriage was worse. Both Mother Manoban and Father Manoban had agreed that their eldest son and the chou family’s daughter were really ill-suited for each other.