How to Turn a Kind Savior into an Emperor (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 5
She simply couldn’t bring herself to step out into the open, roofless expanse, so she finally dashed back into the forest.
With a strangled expression, as if someone were hot on her heels, she kept retreating deeper inside. Chaotic memories of those dreadful days flooded her mind.
‘No. Please…’
Failing to watch her step, she tumbled onto the forest path. When she rose, gasping for breath, an enormous lake lay before her—unbelievably vast.
Though it was still April, the lake’s shimmering surface looked remarkably warm. Gazing at the dreamlike vista, Ines almost felt she had escaped Romfield just to see this.
Rooted in place before the deep water, she stared, spellbound, at the wondrous sight for a moment.
Unconsciously, she closed her eyes and began reciting a verse from Scripture.
〈But… he who desires too much shall return empty-handed. He who desires too much shall return empty-handed. He who desires too…〉
Murmuring the same words softly over and over, she walked toward the lake as if entranced.
〈Shall return empty-handed.〉
Completing the scriptural verse, Ines wore a deep smile.
Yet she had absolutely no intention of drowning herself. By the time she came to her senses, her body was already half-submerged. Just as her waist grew wet in the lake, her feet lost touch with the bottom.
As her body was abruptly dragged under and water surged violently into her nose, Ines finally realized what she’d done—but it was far too late.
She thrashed her arms wildly in the air, flailing desperately, but her heavy dress, soaked through, kept pulling her down, again and again.
Even as she died, she felt absurd. Even as her mind grew hazy, she burned with bitter injustice.
How could such a life exist? After enduring those horrific years and escaping prison, was she really meeting such a hollow end?
She couldn’t even tell whether she was still breathing or already dead.
The moment of death was horrifyingly long and silent.
Just as all sensation in her body dulled, the line immediately preceding her oft-recited verse—etched deeply in her heart like a habit—suddenly surfaced in her mind.
If someone extends their hand to you and asks to walk ten steps together, give them everything you have.
But God was wrong. She was ready to give everything right now—but no one had reached out to her.
For the first time, Ines cursed and reproached God.
But at that very instant, a strong man’s grip seized her, and her feet, already touching the lakebed, slowly began to rise.
Immediately, something warm pressed against her lips, and breath she hadn’t realized she needed flooded into her all at once. It hurt so much she tried to twist away, but the firm hand gave her no room to escape.
The man holding her surged powerfully toward a single ray of sunlight piercing through the water.
His solid arms felt like the lifeline the world had finally offered her. Her once-quiet world began to churn violently, as if caught in a storm.
Before losing consciousness, she met golden eyes as intense as the sun. She fell into the illusion that she now stood beneath the gaze of some unreachable, absolute being.
It was the moment Ines’s blind devotion toward one man began to take root.
Then came a knock at the door, snapping her out of her thoughts of Carson. Susan entered the room and gave a slight curtsy.
“My lady.”
When Ines looked at Susan, the maid approached with slightly shorter steps than usual.
“A letter has arrived.”
“A letter?”
“Yes, from Sir Joseph.”
Normally, her lady would have snatched the letter immediately, but since she only stared blankly, Susan gathered a bit of courage.
“But… will you meet him today?”
A secret letter implied a private meeting had been requested.
“I don’t know…”
At Ines’s ambiguous reply, Susan mustered her strength to speak again.
“My lady, please don’t. You’ve already received marriage proposals. Meeting Sir Joseph now wouldn’t be proper.”
Ines felt slightly exasperated. Back then, Susan had clearly tried to dissuade her from seeing him too—but the Ines of that time had scolded Susan angrily for being impertinent.
When Ines sighed, Susan bowed her head deeply and stepped back a few paces.
“I’m sorry. I overstepped.”
“No, don’t say that. I know you’re only worried about me.”
Ines took the letter and sat down at the table. Tapping her fingers rhythmically—‘tap tap tap tap’—she sank into deep thought.
Joseph Benoît, Joseph Benoît…
She quietly pictured Joseph’s face. If only she avoided marrying him, could she escape repeating her past life?
The tragic events that had unfolded in this house after she’d gone to Romfield scraped coldly down her spine as if she’d witnessed them herself.
Her mother, grown pale and withered from worry over Ines. Her father, hanging lifeless in the air after losing everything.
The horrifying image made it hard to breathe, as if her whole body were submerged in water.
“Susan, open the window a bit.”
When the window opened, the sound of heavy rain poured in. Along with the downpour, the scene from just a short while ago replayed vividly before her eyes.
Jemarren, who had come to humiliate her terribly.
The carriage she’d collided with while fleeing from him.
The cold rain clawing at her face as she lay collapsed on the ground.
And Joseph’s despicable smile visible through it all.
The ten years in Romfield—more agonizing than death itself—flashed by like a reel of memories.
Just because those events hadn’t happened yet… did that truly erase Ines’s past?
Because he hadn’t committed those acts yet… did that mean she shouldn’t hate him? No, that wasn’t right.
He needed to understand.
The humiliation of having to lick food someone had dumped before you. The terror of helplessly trembling before absolute power. The shame of crawling on the floor just to avoid a beating. The agony of swallowing back vomit brought on by unbearable labor. The curse of her own body, reduced to a plaything and violated endlessly.
And ultimately, the soul’s end—where one could feel nothing at all.
Having steadied her breath, she picked up the letter on the table as if nothing had happened.
Dearest Ines.
At the neat handwriting of the salutation, Ines’s brow furrowed sharply. Rubbing her finger harshly over the name he’d written, she smudged the letters beyond recognition.
“Susan.”
“Yes?”
“Isn’t he unbearably arrogant?”
Hearing her mistress’s cold, unfamiliar tone, Susan’s body trembled involuntarily.
“W-what do you mean?”
“How dare a mere commoner knight address me by name so freely?”
It had been Ines herself who granted him that privilege. She still remembered the night her name first passed his lips—the night she lay awake, heart pounding.
“How dare he…”
How dare he send me to that dreadful hell, drive my parents to their deaths, and steal our sacred hereditary title? Just a commoner knight?
Revenge.
That word shot into Ines’s mind like an arrow embedding itself.
Only then did she realize she hadn’t felt nothing upon seeing him—on the contrary, she’d felt one emotion all along.
It was murderous intent.
The certainty that only by killing him could she survive.
Recognizing that overwhelming emotion—so intense she hadn’t even noticed it before—Ines smiled darkly.
Thus, she couldn’t stop everything here and now.
To exact revenge, she first needed to keep him close. Some might say she was recklessly stepping back into the mud, that no sane person would make such a choice.
“Go tell him I accept.”
Yet to his request to meet, Ines gave an affirmative reply.
“Hurry.”
As she urged Susan, Ines felt as if she’d heard someone urgently shouting: If you accept his proposal today, you’ll relive that same hell again.
“My lady…”
Susan called softly, but at Ines’s icy expression, she quickly bowed and left the room.
No matter that she’d returned to the past, wearing clean clothes and bearing an unmarked body—her heart remained trapped in that hell, in Romfield.
After a moment lost in thought, Ines shook her head and recalled the trial.
When she’d stood in court as a criminal, every circumstance and witness had appeared precisely on cue, like actors in a meticulously staged play.
The men who claimed to be her lovers were clearly strangers—but one of them even knew the exact location of a mole on her most private spot.
Moreover, the cleaning maid she’d met in the library had flatly testified she’d never seen Ines that day.
Clearly, a mere commoner knight couldn’t have orchestrated all this alone. If Joseph gained a barony from this affair, someone higher up must have gained something far greater.
If she refused to marry Joseph, they’d find another way to harm her and House Swenden.
Now, she had to uncover everything—who, for what reason, and what they hoped to gain by plotting this.
Once she knew, she’d return it all in kind.
Ines stared coldly at the relentless downpour. Perfect peace could never be achieved by trembling in fear, hoping to avoid reliving those days by ignoring everything.
Her trembling hands, shaken by anxiety, gradually steadied as she thought of the one person who brought her a sense of safety.
Carson von Raymond. The only person in this world who had become her refuge. The sole savior who pulled her from death and first reached out to her in a life worse than death.
Just recalling Carson’s golden eyes made her feel perfectly safe.
And so, Ines’s blind devotion toward him began to grow steadily.
When scheming men desperately battle for her favor in the male harem
This one’s also on my reread list! The rivalry, scheming between the men in the imperial harem are just as intense and thrilling as in classic palace drama novels, where concubines fight to the death. Give it a read, girls! I promise you won’t be disappointed.
Synopsis:
“I am not worthy of her… but I still want to be by her side, even if only as a loyal dog…”
Those were the painful whispers of Yue Guanyi – the proud Crown Prince of the Great Qi, who was torn between deep love and a guilty conscience. Despite holding the supreme power of the Imperial Guard, he still could not forget the dark past when he was sold into a brothel.
Fate played a cruel twist when Qiu Shuzhi – a young female official who had just passed the imperial examinations with top honors – stepped into his life. She did not know that she was the one who had saved him from a tragic fate many years ago. And now, her heart was the target of pursuit for both Yue Guanyi and the powerful Empress Dowager Qin Qing.
While Yue Guanyi only dared to silently care for and protect the one he loved from afar, the Empress Dowager Qin Qing openly expressed his feelings and did not hesitate to take advantage of his power to approach Qiu Shuzhi. The covert struggle between the two most powerful forces in the imperial court began…
Trigger warning: All men in this novel are yandere style.
_____
Please help me, I want to bring you the best possible things.
If you find any chapter or novel with poor translation and editing quality, let me know by commenting directly under that novel or chapter. I will retranslate it as soon as possible.
[Touch the gear icon in the bottom right corner of the screen to move to the next chapter if you want.]
Most Commented This Week
The Villain Has Gone Mad For Me (Completed Main Story)
I’m The Lowest-Ranking Daughter Of A Martial Arts Villain (2 Chapters Left to Complete)
I Became the Assassin Family’s Foster Daughter (Completed Main Story)
Men of the Harem (137 Chapters Left to Complete)
The Duke Only Needs My Child (Completed Main Story)
At the End of Ruin, There You Are (56 Chapters Left to Complete)
She’s a Villainess but her Husband is Handsome (Completed Main Story)
People Aren’t Meant to Be Fixed! (4 Chapters Left to Complete)
My Discarded Fiancé Returned (Completed Main Story)
Summer Must Die (16 Chapters Left to Complete)
I Received The First Time Of My Extraordinary Superior (9 Chapters Left to Complete)
Regret With All Your Might (Completed Main Story)