Even if Your Regret Holds Me Back (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 10
Thunder rumbled.
Dark clouds filled the sky without a single gap, as if a heavy downpour was imminent. Even Evergale himself, ruler of the land, could not escape the heavens.
Yet unlike the gloomy outdoors, the mansion shone as bright as midday. Inside, servants bustled about their respective duties. Eugene, too, was deeply immersed in his work within his study.
His eyes never left the documents—not even when a maid quietly entered, set down a cup of tea, and slipped away.
But the rising steam from the teacup momentarily broke his concentration.
“Why should I feel uneasy…? Hah.”
Finally, Eugene set aside the pen he’d been clutching and picked up the teacup instead. Its handle, crafted from pure gold with exquisite detail, bore the initials of his name.
He’d received it about half a year after meeting Helena.
Each letter of his name had been carefully, lovingly engraved—pressed down again and again to contain a heart swollen with emotion.
Her face, smiling brightly as she handed it to him, now seemed blurred.
“Let’s divorce, us.”
Her calm voice kept circling endlessly in his mind.
Eugene set the cup down and leaned back in his chair. He couldn’t even begin to grasp when or where things had gone wrong.
It had already been a week since Helena left—seven days of acting as though nothing had happened, throwing himself solely into work.
It had also been exactly one week since Helena had begun slowly eroding his trust.
Just then, a faint murmur drifted in from outside—apparently the door hadn’t closed fully. It was the same maids who’d just served his tea.
“Guess there’s no need to make desserts for a while?”
“Probably not, right? The mistress isn’t here anymore, and His Grace never did care much for sweets.”
“What a shame. I always liked how she let us eat whatever was left over.”
“Ugh, you’re hopeless. I’d rather go without if it meant Her Ladyship came back soon.”
“Who said I didn’t?”
A slightly pouting maid poked her fellow sharply in the ribs. As her companion rubbed the spot, pretending it hurt, the first maid glanced around and continued.
“But where on earth could she have gone all of a sudden? And alone, too. Was there something she needed to sort out?”
“How should I know? Stop your idle chatter and go fetch the groceries from the back gate.”
With that mildly scolding remark, their voices faded into the distance.
Eugene gazed at his cooling teacup, lost in thought.
“Helena… liked desserts?”
Whenever they were alone, she barely drank anything but lightly scented tea and never once asked for sweets.
He’d assumed she simply disliked sweet things—but maybe she’d only been adjusting to him, avoiding anything whose crunch or strong aroma might disturb his focus.
⌜Back then, you probably never imagined that sitting in this position would mean you couldn’t freely eat even a single thing you liked.⌟
Helena had said it half-jokingly, yet her expression had seemed hollow.
He remembered how, from some point onward, she occasionally wore that same look—scenes he now wished he could forget.
He needed to settle his agitated heart. Eugene stood up, intending to take a walk.
As he stepped out and headed toward the staircase landing, another conversation reached his ears from below—maids carrying laundry.
One carefully held up a brownish-green satin dress.
“Don’t you think this would suit the mistress? She always liked this style. Even though she rarely wore it, saying she shouldn’t tarnish Evergale’s dignity. Hey, what if I tried wearing it?”
“Hey, wake up. It suits her because she’s the mistress—on us, it’d just look like dead leaves.”
“Well, true. Even in rags, she’d still be beautiful.”
Eugene watched as the maid folded the dress back into her basket.
It was utterly plain—a simple dress with only slight puff sleeves and a faint ruffle at the waist.
Like most noblemen, Eugene had always gifted Helena only the most extravagant clothes, so she could uphold her dignity as Grand Duchess.
Helena had accepted them gladly and filled her wardrobe accordingly. Hence, he’d assumed her tastes were no different from other women—especially since, before marriage, she’d only worn modest dresses due to financial hardship.
“Could I have been so mistaken?”
His head grew heavier with confusion. Eugene quickened his pace toward the garden.
Thankfully, the sunlit greenery proved a decent choice. Walking through it, his turmoil began to subside—just a bit.
Then he stopped, noticing a small yellow flowerbed tucked in one corner of the garden. It wasn’t large, nor did it hold any rare or precious blooms.
Normally, he’d avoid it entirely—he hated pollen—but for some reason, his eyes kept drifting back to it.
“Hey there.”
“Oh, you’ve come.”
Voices floated over from a few steps away—two men chatting. A gardener pruning branches and a passing stablehand. Eugene pressed himself behind a bush.
Once their trivial small talk ended, the stablehand sniffed and pointed at the flowerbed.
“Hmm, why are the blooms over there larger than the ones you’ve been tending? And the scent seems stronger too.”
“Oh, come now. Don’t compare what shouldn’t be compared. That’s the mistress’s own garden. She cared for those flowers with such devotion—silent as they are, even plants understand that.”
“Oh! So this is the mistress’s garden? Well then, it makes sense they’d be so lovely. If even a single blade of grass is cherished this much, His Grace must be truly happy.”
After the two men left, Eugene approached the flowerbed as if entranced.
“Helena… grew these?”
The Helena he knew was a woman who actively avoided flowers.
Before their marriage, she’d only reluctantly accepted the bouquets he’d given as gifts—and soon forbade him from bringing them altogether.
After moving into the mansion, she never once placed flowers in a vase. She’d even removed every flowerpot from both their shared tea spots and her own room.
This flowerbed was the sole remnant left of Helena after she’d meticulously carved away every trace of herself.
A tiny patch, barely the size of his study desk.
Frustrated, Eugene hastily left the garden. Burying himself under mountains of paperwork felt better than lingering here with such idle thoughts.
Yet Helena’s traces were everywhere. Wherever he stepped, she was there.
Even in the training yard he briefly visited on his way back to his study, she refused to let him go.
A few knights resting between sword drills sighed wistfully.
“When will Her Ladyship return? Sparring with her was our only joy.”
“Tell me about it. Lately, everything feels so empty.”
“Right? Even practicing doesn’t feel like practicing anymore.”
Eugene’s pupils widened sharply.
He could dismiss Helena’s tastes or the flowerbed as his own misperceptions—but this… this…
Facing so many revelations in just half a day felt utterly overwhelming.
Or perhaps… had any of it even been true to begin with?
He immediately stepped into the circle of knights.
“What’s this about? Helena spars with you?”
“Y–Your Grace!”
The knights sprang to their feet in alarm. Eugene glared at them, demanding an answer. Finally, one stammered out a confession.
“W–well… she’s been our sparring partner for quite some time now. At first, we couldn’t believe it—but she could easily overpower even newly knighted trainees.”
“So you’re saying Helena wields a sword.”
“Yes. Her Ladyship—”
“Enough.”
Eugene’s brow furrowed visibly.
He was Helena’s husband—Eugene Evergale. He was the one she loved.
Then why did others seem to know her better than he did? Why were there so many sides of her that he’d never seen?
“Who even are you—the one I thought I knew?”
Irritation flared. Unbidden, his mood turned dark.
“Why did you hide all of this from me all this time?”
He cursed his past arrogance, when he’d assumed he’d be fine without her. Her absence now grated on him incessantly—only once she was gone did he truly see the void she’d left behind.
“If you won’t teach me anything about you… at least tell me how to forget you.”
[This is the timeline separator]When she stepped down from the last carriage, only a few coins remained in her purse.
Helena spent most of them in the marketplace—not on food or drink, but on a bouquet of flowers.
Cradling the bouquet, she walked toward the cemetery. It was far larger than what she’d paid for—a lush, layered bundle of marigolds whose rich fragrance tickled her nose.
“Do you know what these flowers mean? ‘Happiness that will surely come.’ Only good things ahead for you, miss.”
Apparently bothered by her perpetually gloomy expression, the florist had grinned broadly and offered her this blessing.
People here had always been kind-hearted—even though this village in the North was among the poorest, they’d always shown her generosity. It was the only place that had helped her survive her childhood.
Pretelita—her long-forgotten hometown, where she’d spent those distant early years.
The Owen family had abandoned barren Pretelita as soon as Helena showed enough grace to pass as a proper lady, relocating to the larger town of Heiro.
“To sell me off for the highest price possible. Luckily, I caught Eugene’s eye.”
Helena married the year after settling in Heiro. Soon after, she moved straight to Evergale—and while living in luxury there, Basil died.
Even in death, she couldn’t leave her brother alone. Helena reburied him in Pretelita, the land where everyone she’d ever loved now lay at rest.
Mary Owen and Basil Owen.
Slowly, Helena knelt before their two neatly erected gravestones. Gentle sunlight spilled over the white marble.
“Mother, Basil. I’m here.”
Unsurprisingly, no answer came. Only a clumsily woven bundle of wildflowers—left by a child—already rested there. Helena placed her bouquet beside it.
“Mother, you always loved these flowers, didn’t you? You used to say that just sitting quietly among them felt like being buried in a sea of blossoms, just from their scent. I love them too—your name is part of it, after all. Basil probably liked them as well. He always said he liked everything I liked.”
The day she’d told him she was marrying Eugene because she loved him, Basil had genuinely congratulated her, saying how happy he was for her.
Gently, as if caressing a memory, Helena slowly brushed her fingers over Basil’s name carved into the stone.
All she felt was the coldness of the rock—but she prayed he might somehow sense her touch from within his rest.
“Back then, I truly believed that protecting Evergale was the only way to save you.”
On that final day of her first life, when she last visited the Owen household before leaving, Basil’s ragged, fading breaths still echoed in her ears.
Ex-husband Wants Reconciliation
One-line summary: Chasing the wife to the crematorium (making an effort to attract someone who has become indifferent), the female lead doesn’t look back, the second male lead takes the position.
Intro:
To repay the kindness of the older generation, Su Mu crossed into a female-dominated world and became a live-in daughter-in-law of the Yan family, single-handedly saving the Yan family from fire and water.
But her husband, Yan Jiyue, the eldest son of the Yan family, treated her with sarcasm and never showed her a good face.
It wasn’t until after Su Mu’s death that this pampered and arrogant young master shed a few fake tears and pretended to want to die for love.
This life’s kindness was enough. If there was a next life, she would definitely kick Yan Jiyue away.
Who knew that the heavens would be so kind as to allow her to be reborn, returning to the time when she had just married into the Yan family.
Su Mu glanced at the Yan eldest son, who still spoke coldly to her, and threw a divorce letter in front of him.
“Let’s divorce!”
***
Yan Jiyue never imagined that he would be reborn. He happily went to find Su Mu, wanting to make up for the mistakes he had made in his ignorant youth.
Wasn’t the reason the heavens allowed him to be reborn to let him reconcile with Su Mu?
But when he pushed open the door to Su Mu’s room, the person lying on the bed was another man.
Su Mu’s personal attendant, Xie Yi.
Yan Jiyue hated him so much that his teeth itched. In front of Su Mu, Xie Yi was a gentle and considerate whisperer of sweet nothings, but in reality, he was vicious-hearted and deliberately sabotaged their husband and wife relationship.
In the previous life, it was he who secretly hid in Su Mu’s coffin and committed suicide, stealing a step ahead of him to be buried with Su Mu.
Yan Jiyue’s eyes were filled with hatred as he cursed, “What kind of thing are you? Your background is lowly, what right do you have to occupy Su Mu?”
Xie Yi looked at the sleeping Su Mu and no longer pretended to be a whisperer of sweet nothings.
He proudly stuck out his belly, “I have the right because my belly is capable of giving the Wife-master a daughter.”
***
Yan Jiyue was consumed with jealousy. He spread rumors that Xie Yi had once been branded with the mark of a “harlot” on his chest.
But on the night Xie Yi cut off the flesh bearing that mark, Su Mu suddenly realized something was amiss.
“How did you know the exact moment I was poisoned? And why did you show up a month early?”
Xie Yi remained silent, blood from his wound soaking through his robes. His sapphire eyes brimmed with anguish – or was it just a flawless act?
Between a once-arrogant husband now seeking redemption, and a gentle soul willing to die for her – who truly held the darkest secrets? And could it be that Su Mu and Yan Jiyue weren’t the only ones given a second chance at life…?
[Reading Guide]
1. True divorce, chasing the wife to the crematorium, the female lead doesn’t look back, the male lead is Xie Yi.
2. The ex-husband did not cheat, he just realized too late and didn’t realize that he liked the female lead.
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Who cares? 😒 That mf deserves a lot of pain 😒😒😡😡
EXACTLY! She’s with someone else …now you aint shit
Me too 😒 she should have kicked his balls and cut them 🤔