“Is there a god?”
19yearold Agnes shed tears.
The tears stung as they touched the cracked and bleeding corners of her lips.
Was it merely a stinging sensation?
There was no part of her body that wasn’t in pain, with flesh torn and muscles ripped apart.
“Agnes. My ‘Rutium.'”
Gerwer Duke, who had come down to the basement, called Agnes’s name.
Agnes within the cage naturally flinched.
A horrible smell of blood.
He seemed to have used his power again.
On the other side of memory. Even that voice, which she once thought was tender, was now nothing more than a harbinger of pain for Agnes.
10 years ago, Agnes had been rolling on the slave market floor as a cheap commodity.
The young child, treated like an animal because she was filthy, because she wouldn’t sell, was picked up by Gerwer Duke.
“You were born for me.”
Agnes thought salvation had come to her dark life.
She wasn’t an insectlike existence, as her mother and uncle had said. Her birth was meaningful.
She got a clean room without mold or bugs, and bread that wasn’t hard was given as a meal.
Agnes was happy.
For exactly half a year.
“It hurts, it hurts…….”
“Purify!”
On Agnes’s 9th birthday, when winter began, the Duke ordered her to purify her power.
A strange sensation of twisting inside. A horrible feeling of flesh tearing and muscles writhing.
The kind Duke changed the moment Agnes refused to purify.
In painful agony, Agnes attempted to escape.
Several escapes, and several captures.
Each time she was caught again, the place Agnes stayed became smaller.
From the mansion to a room, from a room to a prison, from a prison to a cage…….
In the confined space, the muscles gradually lost their function. For the past 3 years, Agnes could do nothing but lie down in the cage.
Agnes’s cramped world. The only visitors were Gerwer Duke and a blind and deaf maid.
“I used a lot of power today. Barely survived. That damned Lodwik. If it wasn’t for him…….”
Gerwer Duke ground his teeth, then grasped Agnes’s hand, fixed between the iron bars of the cage.
‘I hate it.’
Agnes’s lips trembled.
‘Don’t hurt me.’
But even voicing it was hard. She didn’t even have the strength to refuse purification.
The body of Agnes, sprawled on the floor like a broken doll, shivered, sensing what was coming.
“Purify.”
“Ah, ah……!”
A pain as if a festering wound was being poked with a knife flooded her.
The turbid energy of Gerwer Duke flowed into her body through her caught hand. It was hot, as if burning.
‘Why do I have to suffer?’
‘Is it wrong that I was born?’
‘I don’t want to be in pain.’
Agnes despaired as always.
No one had rescued her from this pain.
“The war is about to start.”
Gerwer Duke stopped visiting Agnes one day.
Agnes sensed it. That her time was running short.
If Gerwer Duke never came, would a brief peace come to her life?
But as if to mock her fleeting respite, the unfamiliar sound of footsteps climbing the stairs echoed through the basement.
“Are you really taking this?”
A maid who found Agnes caged in the cell pinched her nose and made a face.
A servant who came with her approached with a bundle of keys. Then, with frantic movements, she matched the keys to the lock of the cage one by one.
“The valuable stuff has been taken by the others. Gerwer Duke lost the war, and all the family members are dead. Have to take care of retirement pay ourselves.”
“How does that filthy thing become money?”
“How does it become money?”
Agnes drew a faint breath. The servant’s face was captured in her eyes, fluttering beyond the iron bars.
“What stupid talk is that? This is ‘Rutium’! The Dukes are all keen on finding it! Lodwik, Hibetzman, Serdiya. Take it to any side, and they’ll give millions!”
In the screaming servant’s voice, greed was apparent.
‘I hate it.’
Agnes’s bitten lip twitched slightly.
It was a voice that no one would hear.
‘If you go to the dukes, it will hurt. Just as it has been so far.’
The four ducal families needed Letiom.
To purify the curselike energy that builds up in their bodies as they use their abilities.
And purification would certainly put Agnes back into terrible pain.
I must escape.
‘How?’
In the meantime, a servant who had found the right key came into the cage.
He unlocked the device that held Agnes’s hand and grabbed her arm with a cruel touch.
“Come here!”
Her wounded body was dragged across the filthy floor.
Cough.
At the moment when she was just about to leave the cage, Agnes’s body twitched with a coughing sound.
The servant stopped and looked back.
“Why, why is this?”
Agnes’s wornout, bloodstained top. The cloth that had been blocking her mouth from her powerless hand fell.
“She vomited blood.”
The hand of the maid holding the candle trembled.
“What?”
“She suddenly spewed blood from her mouth! Like a dying person……!”
The limit of the rotten body had come.
Agnes’s vision blurred and cleared as she listened to the conversation of the two.
It was then.
When male lead is the homewrecker
“I know she doesn’t love him.”
I’ve read the novel below twice already. Girls, I’m highly recommending it to you!
The female lead? Not a good person.
The second male lead? Not a good person.
The male lead? Willingly plays the third party, breaking up the female and second male lead’s relationship despite all the warnings from his friends—so yeah, he’s definitely not a good person either.
Basically, nobody in this novel is simple-minded or without scheming.
The female lead starts off as the male lead’s secretary, but don’t worry—later on, she takes over the company while the male lead steps back to support her. He won’t steal her spotlight, overshadow her, or dull her shine.
I love novels where men are out here snatching wigs, tearing each other down, and going to war just to win the female lead’s affection. And this is exactly that kind of novel. Most of Hai Dai Ran’s works have this dynamic. You’ll see the male characters’ emotions being pushed to the absolute extreme.
There’s even a scene where the second male lead exposes the male lead online for being a homewrecker. The brotherhood immediately gangs up on him, dragging him through the mud. I find it compelling —it completely flips reality on its head, where usually, women are the ones fighting over a man and getting torn apart by the sisterhood.
For me, female leads in the novels I read should only struggle in their careers, not in love. But if the brainless romantics in the story are all men? I have zero complaints.
I’ve pretty much read all of Hai Dai Ran’s novels and even translated all of them—her works are just my thing. I’ll slowly upload everything here. One day, when my website is official, I hope I can invite her to join as one of the star authors.
Here’s the story synopsis:
One-line summary: She is his lifelong obsession, to the point where he was willing to be a third wheel, scorned by society, just to wedge his way into her relationship with her fiancé.
Cold-hearted and indifferent female lead + Scheming and subservient CEO male lead
Intro 1:
“I know she doesn’t love him.”
With blood trickling from his clenched fist, Rong Xiu gazed at the woman before him, his eyes clouded with anguish. Hidden in the wardrobe, he had witnessed Fan Xia – the woman he desperately loved – in an intimate embrace with her fiancé. Yet his heart still yearned for her, defying all reason.
Fan Xia, the elegant and composed assistant, carried something mysterious in her eyes whenever she looked at her fiancé, Wen Lan Sheng. Strange occurrences began to surface – secret meetings with the young Gu Jin Yi, an unexplained withdrawal of 5,000 yuan… Then suddenly, her fiancé’s sister, Wen Jing, violently attacked her.
In this matriarchal society, Rong Xiu had risen to become the chairman of a powerful healthcare conglomerate, breaking through gender prejudices. But for the first time, he willingly stepped into the shadows as the other man, disregarding his friends’ warnings to become her secret lover.
Because he had discovered the truth – Fan Xia wasn’t the pure angel everyone believed her to be. And perhaps, he was the only one capable of helping her execute her mysterious plan…
Intro 2:
Rong Xiu’s biggest regret in life was missing out on Fan Xia.
He secretly loved Fan Xia for 7 years.
Watched her go public with her boyfriend.
Watched her kiss her boyfriend at their wedding.
Until that man blissfully nestled in Fan Xia’s arms, obtaining everything he could only dream of.
The crazy jealousy stripped away his hidden secret love, layer by layer, burning like wildfire.
Fan Xia, how can I have you!
【Reading and Trigger Warning Guide】
1. Female dominant, male submissive, male pregnancy
2. Male lead schemes his way to the top, male competition
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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.
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