“What did you say just now, Mother?” Kwon Chae Ha’s thick eyebrows writhed in fierce anger as they turned toward his mother, Heo Yeong Joo.
At that, she straightened her back, as if she had been holding back, and braced her hands on her hips before firing back with reproach.
“I said we should hold the funeral.”
“Hah.”
A sigh, intertwined with emptiness and anger, escaped from his mouth.
As if he had heard some utterly absurd words.
“A funeral? Who died?”
“It’s been a week already!”
“Yes. It’s only been a week.”
“Chae Ha, we’ve searched as much as you wanted, even deploying divers. We’ve combed the nearby islands and coastlines. What more do you want us to do? It’s time to give up. Despite all the searches, we couldn’t find a body….”
“Mother.”
The chilling voice sounded almost threatening in Heo Yeong Joo’s ears.
In a still low voice, but it came scraping out of his throat, as if he could drag her to hell if she said one more word.
“Choose your words carefully. Min Seol Won, my wife, is not dead.”
At those words, Heo Yeong Joo finally let her mounting frustration show.
She had held it in for the last few days at the urging of her husband, but her patience had finally worn thin.
That the entire household was walking on thin ice because of such an insignificant woman.
“Kwon Chae Ha! Are you saying we should leave it as a missing person’s case forever? I can’t live with that uncertainty! Even for the sake of the departed, a proper funeral should be held. We should let the dead go.”
Psh, a sneer curled up at the corner of Chae Ha’s mouth.
“That’s strange. I had no idea you thought so highly of my wife. It sounds like you’re throwing a grand party.”
“……”
“And.”
A cold glimmer passed through Chae Ha’s eyes and he took a step closer to his mother.
Pressed by his force, Heo Yeong Joo involuntarily stepped back, at which Chae Ha delivered his final blow in an icy tone.
“I’m curious why you, who wouldn’t even attend our wedding, are so eager to hold a funeral. You couldn’t bear to mention that I got married, but you want to announce to the world that my wife is dead?”
Startled, Heo Yeong Joo’s eyes trembled.
However, she couldn’t let this opportunity to argue, that she had gotten after days, pass by.
“The departed are departed, and the living must live! Don’t you think you should be thinking about your future, Chae Ha?”
“Well. My future. I think it’s inappropriate to think about it just a week after my wife disappeared.”
At Chae Ha’s words, Heo Yeong Joo snapped and finally raised her voice.
“There has to be a new beginning at some point! So you’re going to live holding onto your dead wife? Listen well, Kwon Chae Ha. Min Seol Won is dead! The police said she fell off the breakwater and was swept away by the waves……”
“Mother.”
An eerie voice made Heo Yeong Joo’s mouth snap shut.
Chae Ha spoke chillingly, his teeth gritted hard enough to draw blood.
“If you say she’s dead one more time, I don’t know what I might do.”
Feeling instinctively that it wasn’t just a threat, Heo Yeong Joo blinked her pitiful eyes.
Leaving such a mother behind, Kwon Chae Ha ascended the stairs with rough strides.
He knew of her obsession with marriage, now and then, but it was truly shocking to hear her talk about remarriage even before the warmth of Seol Won’s spot had cooled.
“……ha.”
When he finally reached the top of the stairs, the target of his anger was himself.
Who was he to blame anyone else?
Wasn’t it he who had made Seol Won that way?
In his entire life, Chae Ha had never regretted anything.
Because he only made rational and reasonable choices from which there was no turning back.
Yet now, the greatest regret of his life, an unbearable regret, swept over him like a storm.
“Ha…… ha ha.”
Laughing like a madman, Chae Ha wrung his chest.
Had Min Seol Won never met him, she might have lived.
If only he hadn’t proposed a contract marriage to her.
Kwon Chae Ha. If only he hadn’t chosen her.
3 years ago.
After the death of Kwon Tae Ha, the eldest son of the Chaeun Group and Chae Ha’s older brother, their mother Heo Young Joo’s hysteria intensified daily.
She insisted that her second son must fulfill the desires that her eldest son couldn’t.
That was a ‘marriage’ with a distinguished family.
From early on, Heo Young Joo had marked the daughters of groups that stood shouldertoshoulder with Chaeun as potential brides for her two sons. One of them was the youngest daughter of the Baek Young Group, Baek Sa Ra.
However, when Tae Ha suddenly died, she started drilling the existence of Baek Sa Ra into Chae Ha.
It was relentless, no matter how much he claimed he didn’t want to marry.
When she used his brother’s death as a weapon and appealed with tears, Chae Ha could not deny his duty as a son.
This wasn’t just for a day or two, his fatigue grew with her excessive obsession.
Even on the day when he returned from an unwanted wedding, Heo Young Joo grabbed him again.
“I’ve arranged a meeting with the Baek Young elders next week. Clear your schedule.”
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.
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