“People really don’t change. People aren’t something to be fixed. Even if they try to change, they only become more broken – that’s human nature.
If it were my old self, I would have apologized for my mistake or clung to him in tears as he angrily spoke. But the Lorencia who unconditionally apologizes for unfounded wrongs no longer exists.
Rather, it’s now Ruans who should apologize to me. I don’t know if he will apologize, but even if he does, I have no intention of accepting it.
“Is my confession funny to you? So that’s why you told me not to misunderstand your love? Is that it?”
Ruans let out a long, deep sigh. Then he punched the sofa armrest with all his might several times.
“So that’s the kind of face you make.”
Lorencia looked at Ruans and gave a wry smile. She had never seen him make such an angry expression before. It was better than she imagined.
“My love is absolutely not in the same context as a misunderstanding. Let me say it properly again. It’s true that I love you. It’s not a lie!”
I wanted to refute him. To tell him not to lie.
“I love you enough to give you my everything. Lorencia. So let’s return to the Isuter Empire and live happily together. And have my child. Then the child will inherit the throne of the next Isuter Empire.”
If it were when I knew nothing, I might have genuinely believed his words and cried tears of joy.
“I love you. I mean it, Lorencia.”
His romantic confessions always gave me hope. Hope that even a bastard child could be happy. But the more hope accumulated, the more miserable the end became. Now it’s my turn to give Ruans hope, in proportion to the misery I received. I look forward to the moment despair colors his face, distorted in wretchedness.
When the hopes that had piled up turn out not to be hopes but miseries – I wonder what kind of expression will Ruans make then?
“What Your Majesty wishes for will never happen.”
“Why do you keep thinking so negatively? Lorencia, you just need to listen to what I say.”
“I thought Your Majesty would know since even the deceased Young Master Lorirolls knew… It seems Lady Anne and Illina didn’t tell you either.”
“I don’t know what you want to inform me of, but don’t say anything. Just trust only me…”
“Your Majesty. I have not started menstruating. So I cannot bear the child you desire.”
His constantly moving mouth suddenly stopped. Ruans also knows that I haven’t menstruated. Telling me to have a child while knowing that is a deception and mockery toward me.
“I didn’t know.”
Lorencia lifted the corners of her mouth.
“Lorencia. They say some people start menstruating late. And it’s okay. Even if you don’t bear my child… I really mean it. If only you, the beautiful Lorencia, stay by my side, I don’t need anything else.”
She could see Ruans’ awkwardly lifted mouth corners trembling slightly. Lorencia couldn’t hold back her laughter.
“Why are you laughing?”
“It seems you took my joke too seriously.”
“A joke? You’re joking with me right now? Lorencia.”
“Your Majesty. I’m not a witch, so how could I not menstruate? Why are you responding so gravely? If I really hadn’t started my period, I would have been very touched by your words.”
“I-I see.”
Lorencia looked at the flustered Ruans with ease.
“First, let me apologize, Your Majesty. For joking when you confessed your love to me in earnest.”
“No, it’s alright.”
Ruans reached out his hand to Lorencia.
“I can take any jokes you make. So let’s return to the Isuter Empire together.”
Lorencia openly furrowed her brows.
“I’ve told you several times that I cannot return, Your Majesty.”
“Will you at least tell me the reason why you don’t want to go back?”
“Your Majesty cannot even imagine what else I saw in the future.”
“Other than me standing at the pinnacle of all the empires in this world, what other prophetic dream did you have? You have to tell me for me to know.”
“You know that there are many possibilities in the prophetic dreams I have, right?”
Ruans swallowed his saliva again, but for a different reason than before. Lorencia’s uncontrollable prophetic dreams often changed the future.
“Of course. Thanks to that, the debutante was moved up.”
“But because of that debutante, Lady Anne and Young Master Lorirolls died.”
“And if there’s a prophetic dream you haven’t told me about, spit it out quickly.”
Ruans spoke through gritted teeth.
Lorencia recalled the Ruans who had achieved everything in the previous future. Using his power, he won a great victory in the war and unified all the empires in this world. Afterwards, he moved the Ella Temple to the Isuter Empire and held a national wedding with the High Priestess.
“In my dream, I saw the Ella Temple being moved to the Isuter Empire, and Your Majesty taking the High Priestess as empress.”
“That’s absurd. The High Priestess becomes my empress?”
Ruans looked at Lorencia with a face that didn’t understand anything. Daniel and Pellena had told Ruans himself that he would only place the High Priestess of the Ella Temple on the empress’ seat. So when Lorencia mentioned the High Priestess’ existence through a prophetic dream, he was so surprised that his expression hardened.
“That was my last prophetic dream.”
“What did you say?”
“I’m telling you it’s the last prophetic dream I had.”
“The last prophetic dream you had?”
“Constantly having prophetic dreams puts me in danger, so I discarded the ability.”
Lorencia held back the laughter that kept trying to escape. The sight of Ruans moving like a marionette puppet from the beginning to her lie about prophetic dreams, the green eyes engulfed in unease, was truly a sight to behold.
“What? So you discarded the power to see the future even though you could have maintained it, just to live?”
“That’s right, Your Majesty. I discarded it to live. Was that wrong of me?”
“Lorencia, how could you do that?”
Ruans looked at Lorencia blankly with a dumbfounded expression.
“You discarded that power? You had no intention of continuing to use that power for me?”
Ruans, who had been laughing in vain, put his hand to his forehead.
“So Lorencia didn’t love me after all.”
Ruans finally understood what Daniel had told him.
“You should have either discarded or maintained the ability after discussing it with me! Why are you deciding it on your own? Without saying a single word to me!”
Realizing that Lorencia didn’t love him enough to risk her life made him feel betrayed by someone he had trusted.
“Lorencia, you never loved me. That’s why you could easily discard that power.”
Lorencia, who had been suppressing her laughter tightly, slowly lifted the corners of her mouth. The words she had been waiting for finally came out of his mouth.
“Your Majesty.”
Ruans looked at Lorencia, who was smiling brightly.
“I have never once said that I love you, Your Majesty. Don’t tell me… you misunderstood everything I said to you as love? Emperor Ruans, Your Majesty.”
“What do you mean you didn’t love me?”
His gaze wavered unsteadily, green eyes moving rapidly from right to left. Seeing Ruans’ green eyes fill with impatience, Lorencia began laughing loudly again as if she couldn’t hold back anymore.
“Lorencia! Answer me.”
At Ruans’ trembling voice, she started laughing even louder. Lorencia’s eyes welled up with tears from laughing so much.
“You really loved me? But what can we do. I have never once loved you, Your Majesty.”
“Are you saying that because you can’t believe my love?”
“It seems you don’t understand, so let me say it firmly.”
Lorencia spoke, suppressing the rising resentment.
Let’s pay him back exactly as much as I suffered. Drag him down to rock bottom. Thoroughly break him when he thinks he has everything. Make him into someone who can trust no one, like my 29-year-old self. Make him a person full of nothing but suspicion.
“It’s not that I can’t trust Your Majesty, who visited the Polloid Empire even going so far as to forge a concubine acceptance decree. I’m saying I don’t love you, Your Majesty.”
Lorencia got up from her seat, approached Ruans closely, and stroked his cheek as she spoke.
“You have an expression as if wondering how I knew the concubine acceptance decree was forged.”
Ruans’ green eyes widened as much as they could, and his red lips parted slightly. His face grew paler and paler, and the corners of his mouth were trembling.
“Won’t you ask me how I knew the concubine acceptance decree was forged?”
He couldn’t say a word, as if he had lost his language ability. He hardened like a statue.
“It’s not forged.”
Ruans, who had been frozen stiff, barely spoke through trembling lips.
Ruans looked at Lorencia who had come close. His mind was filled with the question “How did she know?” and questions to himself.
“Is it really true that Count Brant stamped his seal on the concubine acceptance decree? Your Majesty.”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“But Count Brant is dead.”
“He stamped it before he died.”
Ruans only moved his lips. Deep contemplation filled his green eyes. The decree is a forged one made by Pellena. He doesn’t know how Lorencia found out, but right now he absolutely has to deny it.
“Let me be clear – Count Brant allowed Lorencia to become my concubine. So on the concubine acceptance decree issued by Her Majesty the Empress Dowager, he signed and stamped his seal in place of Lorencia who can’t write.”
“No. Count Brant never stamped his seal on the decree. He’s the kind of person who would rather die than do that.”
“You… What did you see in your dream? What kind of future did you see? There’s a prophetic dream you haven’t told me about, isn’t there? Tell me. Tell me now!”
Ruans asked irritably as he got up from his seat.
Lorencia carefully removed the frame covered in white cloth with her hands and brought it in front of Ruans.
“Aren’t you curious what painting this frame hidden by white cloth contains?”
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
_____
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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