Even if Your Regret Holds Me Back (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 7
Hoo.
Helena took a short, deep breath and knocked on the door.
Normally, a servant or butler would have come out from the entrance to greet her by now—but there was no one to receive the visitor.
‘…How strange.’
It wasn’t grand by any means, but ever since she’d become the Grand Duchess, they’d shown her considerable care.
They’d replaced the old, crumbling house with a proper mansion and hired servants to attend to her. They’d even sent horses and someone to help manage the estate.
Yet now, the mansion was oddly silent—as if everyone who should have been there had vanished.
“Is anyone home? It’s Helena. Could you open the…”
Just as she was about to knock again, hearing no reply from inside, the doorknob turned with a soft click.
“…Helena?”
The door opened just a sliver. A familiar voice drifted through the gap, and after a few seconds, a woman emerged.
Viscountess Owen—Matilda Owen.
“I hope you’ve been well, Mother.”
Matilda straightened her back, having finally confirmed the identity of her uninvited guest.
Without hiding her displeasure, she scanned Helena up and down as if inspecting goods for flaws.
“What brings you here without any notice? And what on earth are you wearing?”
Her voice was sharper than her upturned eyes, and each word pricked painfully at Helena’s chest.
Matilda’s eyes widened as she swiftly glanced around, then yanked Helena inside with a rough grip.
“Just come in already.”
Helena followed her inside.
After barely a few steps, a strong smell of alcohol stung her nose. An unsettling sense of familiarity coiled around her ankles, but she kept walking.
What greeted her at the end of the hall thoroughly betrayed her expectations.
Empty liquor bottles rolled across the table, and the servants she’d been given were nowhere to be seen. Dust had piled up in every corner of the house, and several pieces of furniture lay broken.
Despite it being broad daylight, the room was gloomy—the curtains completely drawn shut.
As Helena surveyed the interior, Matilda snapped at her.
“What kind of lady of a Grand Duke’s household wears something like that? Not even a single proper piece of jewelry.”
“–Hic.”
Before Helena could even open her mouth to reply, an intermittent hiccupping sound came from behind her.
She instinctively turned around—and what she’d mistaken for a haphazard pile of rags suddenly stirred.
Soon, a man with a bandage wrapped around his head pushed himself up from among the rows of liquor bottles.
“Ah, our beloved daughter has come.”
The stench of alcohol grew even stronger. Her head started to ache.
They were clearly her family—the only blood relatives left in this world—yet why did his words, “beloved,” feel so hollow and empty?
With as much effort as it took to hear him, Helena forced his name out.
“…Father.”
He, too, scanned her from head to toe just as Matilda had, then mumbled in slurred speech.
“Do you… happen to have any money? Or maybe bring out some jewelry you received from the Grand Duke. Anything will do. It’s been years since we’ve seen family—surely you didn’t come empty-handed.”
As if hearing the commotion downstairs, her stepbrother Eric also descended the staircase. Leaning against the banister, he gave a sly smirk.
“Long time no see, Helen.”
His unshaven face looked gaunt, his eyes sunken. His pupils were dull and unfocused, and every time he opened his mouth, the acrid stench of stale cigarettes wafted out.
His once somewhat decent-looking face now bore bruises from various brawls.
His eye sockets and the bridge of his nose were mottled with deep blue bruises. Bandages were tightly wrapped around his limbs, and his lips were swollen crimson.
Yet his rotten mind remained unchanged.
“Actually, I was just about to bring this up—perfect timing. Can’t you give me next month’s allowance now? I’ve got something I need to spend it on.”
Helena swallowed hard internally. They’d always ended sentences with demands for money, but never to this extent.
Even with their petty pride, they’d never clung to her so desperately like beggars before.
Moreover, Lady Owen had seemed jittery and furtive even at the front door, as if constantly being chased by someone.
A terrible thought suddenly flashed through her mind.
‘Could it be…?’
Though they were despicable scum, she’d still sent them their monthly allowance without fail—after all, they were technically family, however hollow the title.
But if they couldn’t even pay their servants properly and had sent them all away, there was only one explanation.
“You gambled again.”
Her headache worsened—throbbing so hard it made her dizzy.
“Even after causing my brother’s death, are your hands still itching to gamble?”
“He didn’t die because of us!”
Matilda yelled back with an exasperated shriek. Helena, unable to contain her rising fury, roared back.
“While you were busy flipping worthless pieces of paper and whispering over cards, Basil died without ever getting proper medicine!”
“He was always frail! Stop twisting things! We tried every medicine there was—it did nothing! Don’t go blaming us like this!”
“You should’ve never tried to hide it from the start! Was Basil… was he ever really considered family to you and me?”
“We were only trying to spare you the shock! Do you think accusing us like this will bring the dead child back?”
In her first life, Helena had learned too late that Basil was already dying.
She’d hired a personal physician and, trusting their promise to care for him diligently as long as she kept sending money, had suppressed her longing to visit him. She’d believed in their greed—knowing how generous people became when money was involved.
After all, having been essentially sold off in marriage, she’d felt too guilty to show Basil that she lived better and ate better than he did.
She’d also feared falling out of Eugene’s favor—if he disapproved, she might not even be able to send medicine money anymore. He’d wanted her to shed her old habits and live up to the dignity of a Grand Duchess.
⌜Evergale is now your responsibility, too. Please act accordingly, Helena.⌟
She’d never been able to say aloud that Basil wasn’t just a habit—he was a person. And so, bit by bit, she’d distanced herself.
Then came that unusually early winter, when snow fell sooner than ever.
‘You were already gone.’
Helena held Basil’s funeral on her own birthday.
Every year, despite the repeated cycles brought by her regression, she prayed desperately—but nothing ever changed.
Even when she brought him to live with her in the Evergale mansion, even when she placed him in a specialized ward where constant care was available—
⌜Sorry, big sister.⌟
As if it absolutely had to be that day—as if cursed to depart only on that specific date—Basil always left the moment his birthday arrived.
So she’d practiced letting go of desire as if it were routine. In those moments when fate forced even this upon her, she’d accepted that merely getting to spend a little more time with Basil was enough.
That was the one thing she truly appreciated about this cursed regression.
Yet even that small gratitude had become unbearably hard. This time, she’d awakened only after Basil had already passed—meaning he’d once again been neglected exactly as he had been in her first life.
But life, never easy to begin with, seemed determined to make things worse until the very end.
Following an ominous feeling, Helena rushed frantically toward Basil’s room. As soon as she threw the door open, a chilling draft hit her face.
“Hah…”
The room was completely empty—spotless, as if it had never been occupied at all.
The navy suit she’d gotten him for his sixteenth birthday, the canvas and art supplies she’d set out so he wouldn’t be lonely, the pretty wave-patterned bedding that still carried his scent—none of it remained.
Helena collapsed as if facing a barren ruin. Behind her, Matilda’s shadow loomed closer.
“Don’t take it too hard. Keeping a dead child’s belongings only makes the house feel haunted. At least you got something worth money out of it.”
That damn money—money, money! Nausea surged in her stomach. Helena gripped the doorframe and shakily stood up on trembling legs.
“Are you… even human?”
“What?”
“Even beasts cherish their young. Even creatures covered in thorns protect their own offspring.”
“You’ve completely lost your mind! Living alone, patting your full belly—now you think you’re too good to see anyone!”
Helena turned to face Matilda, and the bitterness in her stomach rose even stronger—too bitter now to swallow.
So, like a final act of defiance, she spat out:
“Even if you’ve given up being human, you shouldn’t stoop lower than beasts! You’ve spent your whole lives groveling to that bastard, yet you still dare speak so loudly? Well, guess what? From now on, there’ll be no one left to grovel to.”
“What—what did you say?!”
“You’d better start looking for your grave before you starve—maybe spend the time you’d waste shuffling cards on that instead.”
For an instant, Matilda faltered. Her face flushed red then pale as she stood frozen. Viscount Owen and Eric, who’d been silently watching the argument, instantly turned their gaze to Helena. Their sunken eyes burned crimson.
Even their stares reeked of pettiness.
Helena let out a hollow laugh in disbelief—then immediately worried again.
“Just how low can you people possibly sink?”
“You—say that again! What did you just say? You won’t send money anymore? Do you even remember who got you into Evergale?!”
“Honestly, to the very end… if you had even a shred of conscience, you couldn’t possibly act like this!”
“How dare you lecture your own parents!”
Slap!
A sharp, stinging sound cut through the air. Her vision spun. Her cheek burned.
Was that sound coming from my own flesh? Her eyes stung with heat.
“Parents. You call yourselves parents.”
Helena didn’t even raise a hand to her swollen cheek. She just stood there, tasting blood in her mouth—she must have bitten the inside of her lip.
“You stole my food to fill your own bellies first, taught me to read people’s moods before letters, gave me not even one decent outfit—just the stench of the gutter—and you call yourselves parents?”
She pressed hard against her reddened eyes. She’d rather die than show these people a pathetic, tearful face.
Instead, she murmured each word as if etching a curse.
“If this is what parents are, I wish I’d never had any from the start.”
“You still haven’t come to your senses…!”
This time, Viscount Owen raised his hand. Helena kept her eyes wide open until the end—afraid that if she blinked, her tears would fall.
Mother, father, older brother.
All of them stared at her with twisted faces, looking at her as if she were a bug.
Accepting that truth, unbelievably, made her laugh—a weak, airless giggle, like a deflating balloon.
“You’re the kind of people who’d crawl out of your graves for money—your words are this sharp only because you’re desperate and broke. I believed that once you had enough, you’d at least become human. Guess I was wrong—apparently patting a full belly really does blind you to everything, just as you said.”
Helena continued in a voice that sounded neither like crying nor laughter.
“To think I ever believed I could even pretend these worthless scum were my family.”
My Arch-enemy Sealed My Memory and Said That He is My Husband
This is an incredibly captivating story that you absolutely shouldn’t miss! I’ll give a brief introduction here, and below you’ll find a detailed synopsis of the plot.
The female lead is a fierce and powerful demon king. The male lead is a once-in-a-millennium celestial lord, admired by the entire cultivation world.
They are equally matched, legendary rivals who have battled for centuries.
In the final duel, the female lead is gravely injured. The male lead saves her, seals her memories, and hides her true identity. He tells her that he is her fiancé. His entire life has been flawless—except for the one thing he never expected, never controlled, and never wanted to control: falling for his greatest enemy. She is his inner demon, his obsession.
When the female lead regains her memories, she is furious at his deception.
She makes his life a living hell.
And somehow, the male lead—possibly a total masochist—doesn’t mind at all. In fact, he’s happy she’s paying attention to him.
Yep, we’re back to my favorite trope: male lead suffering. If you love this kind of story, jump into the pit with me now!!!
Intro
Dong Xia lost her memory.
Her handsome and extremely powerful fiancé Li Qing comforted her: “It’s okay if you can’t remember. I’ll always be with you.”
Everyone thought Dong Xia’s ancestors must have burned incense to get such a perfect fiancé. He was the number one person in the immortal realm, yet he remained chaste and only loved her.
…
The day before marrying her fiancé, Dong Xia finally remembered everything.
She wasn’t suffering from memory loss at all.
Her arch-enemy had made her fake her death, destroyed her cultivation, replaced her memories, and pretended to be her deeply in love fiancé.
No wonder he said, “It’s okay if you can’t remember”!
Dong Xia laughed coldly as she pulled out her long knife: Li Qing, prepare to die 🙂
*
Li Qing, as the supreme being of the immortal realm, was the people’s shining beacon.
The only unknown stain in his life was his affection for Dong Xia, the ruler of the demon realm.
In the final battle of the war between immortals and demons, the sky collapsed and the earth shattered. The ruler of the demon realm was finally slain under the sword of the supreme being of the immortal realm, and everyone in the immortal realm applauded.
The cultivation world lost a ruler of the demon realm.
And in the back mountain of Li Qing’s cave dwelling, he secretly hid away a fiancée.
Notes:
1. The female lead is white on the outside, black on the inside, and the queen of flattery; the male lead repeatedly tests the edge of darkness, a VIP guest at the crematorium.
2. Fantasy cultivation world setting.
[Touch the gear icon in the bottom right corner of the screen to move to the next chapter if you want.]
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 🤔