105. Grand Duke Drietter, Appears!
2024.01.13.
“That, that…! Please, have mercy! Just ten more minutes! I will do anything I can!”
Gumnes Yotpa felt as if he could suffocate every time the Crown Prince’s mocking words caught his ears and the prince’s shadow took another step closer toward him.
He backed away slowly, as if trying to escape a tightening demonic grip.
“Ah, ah!”
In doing so, he ended up colliding with a servant who had been swiftly moving through the crowd.
The servant, having just taken off the prince’s jacket and left in a white shirt, now spilled heavily perfumed wine all over his back.
Several wine glasses the servant had carried on a tray shattered.
The sound of breaking glass drew even more attention, and before Gumnes Yotpa could even utter another “Ah—”, he was lifted into the air, seized by an overwhelming grip around his throat.
His feet dangled high above the floor, lifted as lightly as a child’s.
-Thunk!
Clade Euphris’s large, solid fist crashed into his face.
Surprisingly, the last thing Gumnes Yotpa saw before squeezing his eyes shut was the Crown Prince’s face—like a child who had just found a delightful new toy.
***
It was a one-sided beating.
The Crown Prince, who had been surrounded by women showering him with ardent gazes, now mercilessly kicked the face of Yotpa, a northern noble who had recently been made a viscount.
This was not a duel between trained knights, conducted by mutual agreement.
It was more like the brawls of street thugs or the reckless fights of young, hot-blooded noble youths at the academy.
It was an embarrassingly vulgar scene to unfold within the sacred halls of Glory Hall.
“H-How…!”
Empress Marilyn, realizing the commotion, covered her mouth with both hands and quickly glanced at the Emperor.
Emperor Igor, who had been indulging himself just as freely as Gumnes Yotpa or Duke Celentina, did not scold the scene from afar—he laughed.
“Kwahahahaha—!”
“Your Majesty!”
“My dear nephew must have accumulated quite a bit of stress during his time secluded. Now that he’s finally out, he needs to let it all out.”
“How could you say such a thing!”
Clade Euphris, taller than most by a head, sauntered toward his retreating target.
Hands carelessly shoved into his pockets, he calmly observed Gumnes Yotpa crawling on the floor, already half unconscious, and smiled faintly when the man glanced up at him.
It was then that Clade Euphris’s long leg lashed out, kicking Gumnes Yotpa squarely in the jaw.
Ladies shrieked, and Emperor Igor clutched his stomach, laughing uproariously.
Clade’s movements carried the innocent cruelty of a child playing with a squirming bug.
Empress Marilyn froze, clutching Tasha Kimfri’s hand beside her for support.
Though she should have grown accustomed to Emperor Igor’s orchestrated scenes of violence, she still found them unbearable to witness.
Meanwhile, the Emperor watched the ongoing screams and chaos with bright, gleaming eyes, not stopping it one bit, and instead shouted for another bottle of wine.
“The wine tastes better now. Empress, are you afraid of Clade?”
“If you don’t stop this, that poor man won’t be able to walk home on his own tonight.”
“Should I stop it?”
“Of course you must! This is a rare occasion you yourself arranged with such goodwill. If the Crown Prince truly felt gratitude for being here, he would never behave this way! You must stop this fight and reprimand your nephew severely! Only then can the discipline of this palace be upheld! If this continues, the dignity of the Imperial family will collapse!”
“Dignity?”
Despite Empress Marilyn summoning all her courage to speak her mind, Emperor Igor merely scoffed.
Emperor Igor personally uncorked the wine bottle swiftly brought by the head servant.
He greedily licked the wine that poured like blood down his hand, then smirked at Empress Marilyn, who watched with a wrinkled expression, and began drinking straight from the bottle like a baby suckling milk.
His mouth sucked greedily at the neck of the bottle, but his icy blue eyes roamed across the young noblewomen gazing at Clade’s roughness with admiration, and the disappointed noble ladies.
He noticed the old aristocrats sighing regretfully from afar—the very same eyes that, just a couple of hours ago, had sparkled with praise at Clade’s composed appearance now clouded with disappointment.
“Burp—.”
Without pausing, Emperor Igor drained the entire bottle and tossed it aside carelessly.
Coincidentally, the bottle landed right in front of Tasha Kimfri, who had been standing beside the Empress, still holding her hand.
Without even glancing at the startled Tasha as she stepped back in surprise, the Emperor gently turned to the Empress beside him and replied softly.
“My dear Marilyn, my black pearl from the south. Men are meant to grow through fighting, aren’t they?”
The Emperor turned to Solen Racha, the Captain of the Imperial First Knight Division, who stood guard behind him, seeking agreement.
Solen Racha bowed sharply in a disciplined manner and affirmed it.
“There you go!”
Pleased with Solen Racha’s answer, the Emperor laughed, pounding the armrests of his golden throne engraved with a wolf’s head.
His boisterous laughter grew louder and livelier with every kick Clade’s boots delivered to Gumnes Yotpa.
“Ehehe!!”
His booming laughter, thumping his legs like a clown enjoying a performance, blended into the grand orchestral music echoing through Glory Hall.
Empress Marilyn watched the scene with a horrified expression. Her pale eyes sank into resignation for a long moment—then suddenly widened.
“Your Majesty.”
“Hahaha!”
“Y-Your Majesty—!”
“Haha! What?”
It was because of an unannounced guest.
The Emperor’s laughter abruptly stopped.
Emperor Igor, still wearing a smile, stretched his mouth into a wide grin as he saw the figure standing before him.
“Well, well, who do we have here?”
“I am Roger Drietter. I have come at once, honored by the great invitation of the Euphris Imperial Family.”
Roger Drietter, with a pale, gaunt face.
The Grand Duke Drietter.
***
The one-sided beating had reached its climax.
Gumnes Yotpa had never been particularly well-regarded, so few genuinely pitied him.
Yet, because the perpetrator was the beautiful Crown Prince, people merely whispered quietly among themselves.
“Has the Crown Prince always been like this?”
“Impossible! He was the treasure of the Euphris!”
“Even mountains and rivers change in ten years. After suffering ten long years in such a desolate place, how could he have grown up normally?”
“There must be a reason. The Yotpa men have always been a family unable to shed their northern barbarism.”
“Well… recently, the Crown Prince’s reputation hasn’t exactly been…”
Gumnes Yotpa desperately covered his battered face, writhing and struggling to rise, attempting to strike back even once.
His white shirt was now a mess, stained with wine and his own blood.
Clade Euphris smiled faintly at the squirming man.
He neatly combed his disheveled blond hair with his hand and straightened his clothes.
Except for the initial punch to Gumnes Yotpa’s face, he had never taken his hands out of his pockets, using only his boots to crush the man.
Frowning in disgust at the stain on his pitch-black boot, Clade casually wiped it on the gray trousers of the struggling Gumnes Yotpa.
“Now my clothes look a bit more like yours. Should I forgive you now?”
“Guh… guh….”
“Or not?”
Clade asked with a slight frown, his words cruel and laced with amusement. Gumnes Yotpa and those nearby gasped.
The Crown Prince, with dazzling beauty, smiled, revealing white teeth.
Reflected in that beautiful face was pure evil itself.
There was no trace of imperial dignity—only a delinquent, cocky attitude. Yet, at the same time, it was irresistibly charming.
Caught in that subtle gap, hearts burned not only in young noblewomen blushing with flushed faces and a few noble ladies, but even in Gumnes Yotpa himself.
Gumnes Yotpa writhed like a worm, then, with help from those nearby, barely managed to stand.
The Yotpa family had been a lineage of northern warriors for generations—though he himself was the laziest in the family—so the humiliation he now felt was on a different level than that of ordinary nobles.
His family was one of brave warriors.
Unfortunately, Gumnes Yotpa believed this entire incident occurred only because Clade was of royal blood, and thus had been tolerated.
Though he felt as if his ribs were cracked, he clenched his teeth and forced strength into his trembling body.
Unaware of how much he was shaking, he watched in stunned horror as a red-tinged spit, spat out with a “Ptoo,” carried one of his front teeth along with it.
Gumnes threw off the glove on his hand and tossed it at the feet of the Crown Prince, who stood arrogantly looking down at him.
“Cough! Damn it. Cough, cough. I won’t tolerate this any longer!”
Recalling his friendship with Bollonico, Gumnes clenched both fists with a reckless, baseless confidence and raised his guard.
The moment he took one unsteady step forward toward the Crown Prince, who was slowly scanning him with a relaxed, confident smile—
Gumnes Yotpa suddenly realized the Glory Hall had grown eerily quiet, and the atmosphere around him had shifted drastically.
And the instant he sensed that change—
he blankly stared at the shimmering floor of Glory Hall, where his own saliva, front tooth, and a bit of blood lay, now overshadowed by an even more radiant flutter of a dress standing right before him.
“Fighting is bad!”
A woman suddenly stepped abruptly between Gumnes Yotpa and Crown Prince Clade.
“Please don’t fight, gentlemen!”
The flower once blooming in the east, transplanted to the north, blooming on a cliff’s edge.
A peerless beauty whose watery eyes and silver hair resembled a crystal carved from snow.
The woman hailed as, alongside Empress Marilyn, the greatest beauty in the Euphris Empire today.
The very one only heard of in rumors.
The arrival of the Archduchess Ariesta Drietter.
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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