Love You, Love You Not (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 012
While the gates of Ebern Royal Palace opened, two people slipped out through a secret passage, evading the lax surveillance of the Teshia Empire, and joined a few elite soldiers of Farsade who had shaken off the Teshia imperial troops blocking the passage.
In a barn near the Farsade border, Etin, who had dozed off holding Erwin in her arms, woke up upon hearing voices through the wooden slats of the door.
“Princess Erwin is ten years old, right? She’s still young, yet unbelievably beautiful.”
“Agreed. But if it were me, I’d rather die than marry the First Prince. Didn’t he just get another baron’s young lady pregnant again?”
“But seriously, is the First Prince really going to become Crown Prince? Blachnatt seems to be making a strong move this time—could this lead to a civil war?”
Her heart sank. Prince Ezra of the Farsade Empire was infamous even abroad.
A notorious womanizer who chased every skirt, a fraudster in both words and deeds, and a monstrous villain who wouldn’t hesitate to commit murder.
So infamous was he that despite his tremendous status as the First Prince of Farsade, no allied nation was willing to offer their daughter in marriage.
She didn’t know if he merely wanted to salvage his reputation by marrying a princess of a fallen kingdom, but Etin absolutely could not allow it—it wasn’t why she’d endured such hardship to escape.
Etin smeared animal dung from the barn onto her body and used the excuse that she needed to bathe.
Since they were within Farsade’s borders and the soldiers believed Etin and Erwin saw them as saviors, they never dreamed the two would flee.
Even less could they have imagined the pair would hide in Corbe’s slums, the capital of Farsade.
Having grown up in the relief center run by Queen Ria, the slums were no unfamiliar place to Etin.
Had it not been for the filthy stares that men kept casting toward the increasingly beautiful Scathach, she might have stayed a little longer.
If only Etin had been slightly less abrasive, Scathach would have already become easy prey for the slum-dwelling men.
That year was when the Blachnatt family’s heroic efforts enabled Farsade to retake Lindkoem, formerly the capital of Ebern.
When Genann, the slum boss, set his eyes on Scathach—then barely fifteen years old—as his bride, Etin fled with her, just like that dawn when the Ebern Kingdom fell.
Hiding in Lindkoem, where postwar reconstruction thrived thanks to the Blachnatt family’s vast wealth, was not difficult; displaced Ebern citizens were flocking back to Lindkoem by the day.
Among possible refuges, Etin chose the Payone Convent—a convent at the far eastern edge of the Empire, too remote for the central church to closely monitor, and under ecclesiastical jurisdiction, making it untouchable by imperial or feudal authorities.
The head nun smiled, saying Scathach resembled Princess Erwin, then added that the royal blood of Ebern deserved honor.
They had willingly offered their necks to the Teshia Empire, which vowed to exterminate every Ebern they found, thereby saving everyone else.
Scathach, suddenly branded a fugitive unworthy of praise, gave a bitter smile.
Just as on the day she’d heard those words, Scathach returned from the duke’s mansion and fell ill for several days straight.
Etin told Scathach that Director Loegal and Nemed had visited. In any case, she couldn’t meet them—her body still bore traces, blooming like fever blossoms, likely left by Duke Blachnatt himself.
Though Nemed did visit daily, nonetheless.
There was no need to ask Scathach what had happened; her entire body spoke plainly enough.
They’d been marked so blatantly, so shamelessly on such visible spots—it felt like a stamp declaring her his possession.
Why on earth had he sent her back like that, fully aware this was a convent?
While Scathach lay sick, several influential figures from Lindkoem’s Bakra class brought reporters to see the head nun.
They claimed they wanted to publish an interview where Scathach admitted she’d accepted Duke Blachnatt’s offer as his mistress out of exhaustion from harsh imprisonment.
There would be no interview. When Etin refused on Scathach’s behalf, they instantly turned into vicious bandits.
They shouted they’d report to the central church that Payone Convent was harboring a woman who served as a mistress to one of the Ten Noble Houses.
It was unthinkable for a convent to shelter an impure woman. Yet they couldn’t send the grown Scathach to the orphanage run by the convent, nor place the childless Scathach in a facility for unwed mothers.
Though the head nun never pressured Etin directly about the incident, Etin knew they could no longer burden the convent that had taken them in when they had nowhere else to go.
It was a shame to waste the time she’d spent striving to become a nun, but unless Scathach could become one herself, leaving convent life behind was the right decision—no sane convent would accept an impure woman as a nun.
She’d already hinted to Scathach, curled up like a cocoon under her blanket, that they should leave; surely she was preparing herself mentally.
Five years in the slums, five years in the convent—where should they go now? Perhaps it was time to live independently with Scathach. Though she’d spent much of it on living expenses, she still had the jewels Queen Ria had given her…
She’d saved those jewels for Scathach’s wedding day… but after everything that happened, a proper marriage now seemed impossible—unless she never again became someone’s mistress.
Etin, whose eyes reddened with guilt for having been so absorbed in writing weekly petitions that she’d failed to notice Scathach’s desperation, suddenly froze.
Scathach’s room was empty—only a single letter lay alone on the bed.
Lindkoem Station was the eastern terminus of the Farsade Imperial Railway.
Wearing a hat with a face veil, a crisp white blouse, and a neatly tailored sky-blue skirt reaching her calves, Scathach stood on the platform with a modest suitcase in hand.
The fever of first love had torn through both her body and soul. Though she didn’t want to dignify it with the overgenerous name “love,” if this wasn’t love, it couldn’t possibly hurt this much—so she decided to accept it.
She’d always been taught that puppy love was foolish.
It would be healthier for her mind to clearly recognize the feelings she’d harbored for Casar de Blachnatt, bury them deep in her subconscious along with a vow never to repeat such foolishness.
Admitting that truth made her feel far better than those days when she’d curled under her blanket, thrashing and weeping, insisting it had only been worth getting her necklace back—nothing more.
Though whenever she thought of it, she felt as if she’d sold her body cheaply.
Still, she couldn’t understand how someone could turn so cold in an instant. After such passionate intimacy, after tenderly kissing her so many times—he’d simply told her to leave, as if demanding she vanish from his sight, no matter where.
Even if he hadn’t cast her away coldly, Scathach never once imagined their relationship would end well.
The Ten Noble Houses of Farsade permitted marriages only within their circle or with foreign royalty; the imperial court would never approve otherwise. She understood perfectly well that she, no longer a princess, could never truly be with Duke Blachnatt.
But keeping her distance was logic; her heart remained captivated by his beautiful face and mesmerizing red eyes.
In hindsight, perhaps it was just the illusion brought on by her immature, impulsive twenty-year-old self.
She remembered once asking why he’d stopped playing Berlioz’s music. “Because you dislike it,” he’d replied.
Maybe that was when her heart first began to open—realizing this man, who seemed utterly inconsiderate, had actually paid attention just because she disliked it.
Or perhaps it was that day after a nightmare, when she’d spent the entire day tense after recognizing his large, comforting hands that had held and soothed her at dawn, and he’d pretended not to notice.
When he’d kissed her lips, touched her entire body as if she were the most precious thing in the world, pressed his lips to hers again and again with affection in his eyes—so unlike his usual harsh tone—she must have mistakenly believed the duke felt the same way she did.
But now she knew better. Had she still been a princess, or even just a noblewoman who’d bought her title, he never would have behaved so shamelessly with her on the reception room’s couch.
At that final moment, when perhaps a shred of reason still remained, the duke ultimately chose his honor.
As the pinnacle of the Ten Noble Houses, if he’d taken a commoner as his mistress, she would have become his weakness.
Factions seeking to topple him might exploit her common status, slander him under the guise of defending commoners’ rights, or pressure her into making false statements claiming their relationship had been unwanted. Indeed, hadn’t a few reporters already sniffed out the scandal and come to the convent?
Thus, the great Duke Blachnatt had made an excellent choice—though pathetically, it had taken her days to accept that fact.
Boarding the train to Corbe, Scathach sank wearily into her seat. She wasn’t unafraid of standing alone.
But knowing how hard Etin had worked to become a nun, she couldn’t shamelessly cling to her friend’s ankles.
Hadn’t she already endured the villagers’ contemptuous stares and humiliating remarks even while on her way to ask Director Loegal for a recommendation letter?
“How can someone like that be a nurse? She’s so dirty—who’d dare bring their kids to that hospital?”
“Look at her hiding her face—she must have some shame left.”
At least they hadn’t thrown stones. Scathach swallowed her tears and headed toward the hospital.
Director Loegal had said he wished she’d stay working there, assuring her the misunderstanding about her being a mistress would clear up quickly—but to Scathach, once a royal, losing her purity felt no different, leaving her unable to face the issue with full confidence.
Unable to dissuade Scathach—now convinced it was right to leave, both for Etin’s sake and her own—Loegal wrote her a recommendation letter with the utmost care.
Though he now ran only a small hospital in Lindkoem, his reputation in the medical field ensured she’d find a job without difficulty.
“Scathach!”
Startled by the familiar voice, Scathach opened her eyes and jerked her head up in confusion.
“There you are! Phew—I finally found you!”
After confirming it was her, Nemed exhaled in relief, set down his bag across from her, and plopped into the seat. Beads of sweat dotted his forehead—he must have gone through great trouble searching for her.
“Nemed…? How…?”
Nemed just laughed “ha ha,” caught his breath, and firmly pressed Scathach’s hat down onto her head, as payment for all the trouble she’d caused him.
After hearing from his father that Scathach had received a recommendation letter, he’d sprinted to the convent so fast he nearly collapsed—only to find Sister Etin there alone.
He couldn’t possibly let a child, already wounded in body and soul, travel alone—especially if, as her letter suggested, she was heading to Corbe.
“I went to the convent and heard everything from Sister Etin. How could you just leave with only a letter? I had a hard time calming her down—she was crying and sobbing.”
“Ha… but… Etin worked so hard to become a nun—I can’t make her a wanderer again because of me. I’m of age now, and with a recommendation letter, I can get a job without a guardian…”
“Here.”
Nemed cut off Scathach’s self-reproachful words and handed her a sack woven from coarse cloth.
“What’s this?”
“Sister Etin said it’s yours—she insisted I give it to you if I found you.”
Scathach carefully peeked inside the sack, and instantly tears burst forth. Packed within were over a handful of well-polished, gleaming jewels—likely once belonging to her mother, Queen Ria.
She’d disappointed her parents and Etin, who’d sacrificed their lives to save her, all for a momentary thrill.
Separate from her resentment toward the duke, she found herself utterly repulsive. Every inch of her body, once touched by the duke’s lips and hands, burned as if on fire.
“Huh… huh…”
Nemed couldn’t know the exact reason for Scathach’s tears, but assuming it was guilt over Etin, he gently patted her shoulder.
Hot tears fell steadily, darkening the sky-blue fabric of Scathach’s skirt.
“Don’t cry.”
“Nemed… I’m—I’m so filthy. I’m so ashamed, so horrible…”
At those words, Nemed’s heart plummeted. Vaguely suspecting his sister had become a mistress was vastly different from hearing it confirmed from her own lips.
“…You didn’t do anything wrong. It wasn’t your fault.”
Really—it was the duke’s doing. He must have let his lust for Scathach’s beauty overwhelm his reason.
As he patted the sobbing Scathach, tears welled in Nemed’s own eyes too, his fists clenched so tightly that veins bulged on his knuckles as he barely held back his fury.
Male lead fell into her trap — and shattered when she walked away
This is also on my reread list!
This one is a slow burn, but when it burns, it burns hard.
Definitely worth a read, y’all!
The story follows a thousand-year-old seductive spirit who, on a bet, sets out to charm the male lead—a once-promising but unfortunate cultivator.
But just when she succeeds in making him fall for her, she heartlessly leaves, driving him to madness.
Determined to find her at all costs, he captures her, keeping her by his side no matter what, even if she hates him.
I love this kind of trope—I enjoy watching the male lead suffer in agony.
The ending drags a bit with unnecessary filler, but that’s fine.
As long as I enjoy the beginning, I’m good.
Intro
As an enchantress, Su Heng possesses captivating eyes and charming beauty, easily manipulating the joys and sorrows of living beings at her fingertips.
But to enchant a god, making him taste the bitterness of love’s separation, long-lasting resentment, unattainable desires, and inability to let go…
Do you dare?
Su Heng assists a divine lord in his cultivation, aiming to make him experience all the sufferings of love, so that he can attain the Great Dao.
Only after being chased down from the heavens by the divine lord, confined and completely possessed by him, does she realize how successful she has been.
The once gentle and polite youth has transformed into someone she no longer recognizes.
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I see. So that was why he said he didn’t love her 😭
Now they are best friends hahaha so ezra is end now?
Haaah, can understand the reason for this novel is “love you, love you not” it was so hard for that words to be spoken