“Please save me! Please, save me!”

The desperate cries of the nine-year-old Crown Prince Maxwell echoed with terror. He needed to run, but his feet seemed glued to the ground.

The sharp arrowhead aimed at Maxwell’s heart, and the tall man pulling its string.

“Please save me, Your Majesty… Grandfather!”

Maxwell knelt down, pressing his forehead to the grass, pleading.

“Stand up.”

The stern voice of Maximus, the 26th Emperor of the Helterd Empire, pierced the cold autumn air in the forest.

That day, the Emperor had taken Maxwell, his grandson, for a hunting trip in the nearby mountains. Upon reaching halfway up the mountain, after sending away everyone accompanying them, the Emperor and his grandson rode alone along a trail.

The Emperor’s love for his grandson, who had lost his parents, was well-known. The Emperor’s entourage watched them depart for their walk with fondness, choosing not to follow.

After his first son, the Crown Prince, had met a gruesome end at the hands of a black panther, the Emperor had appointed his barely one-year-old grandson as the new Crown Prince. He protected the boy so that no one could covet his position.

His second son, Gustav, his new queen’s youngest son, Eric, no one dared to challenge Maxwell’s position as the Crown Prince as long as the Emperor was alive.

At least, that was the appearance.

Young Maxwell’s hands trembled uncontrollably. He had a premonition that this day would be his last.

The Crown Prince knew. His grandfather didn’t love him – no, the Emperor’s feelings towards him were not just ambivalence but hatred.

Publicly, he was a kind grandfather who loved and cherished his grandson.

But in private, when it was just the two of them, the Emperor’s grey eyes were filled with hatred and contempt for his young grandson. The harsh treatment disguised as education and training grew more brutal each day.

To avoid his grandfather’s eyes, Maxwell had to act like a weak and frightened child who got dizzy even from horseback riding.

He hunched his back and shoulders to hide his growing height, skipped meals to prevent his muscles from developing faster than his peers, and always kept his differently colored eyes cast down.

He never understood why. Why did his guardian, his grandfather, hate and despise him?

All he knew was that someday he would die at his hands.

And Maxwell knew, today was that day.

Kneeling on the ground, hands clasped in prayer, young Maxwell heard his grandfather’s unmerciful voice echoing in his ears.

“Stand up!”

Maxwell forced strength into his collapsing legs and stood up. His hunched back and shoulders straightened, and the nine-year-old child resembled the physique of a young man.

For the first time, he faced his grandfather’s grey eyes with his own red eyes, no longer trembling.

A calm voice emerged from his red lips.

“Please tell me why. Why do you hate me? Why do you want to kill me? At least grant me that in my final moments.”

“That’s precisely the reason.”

The Emperor’s eyes flared as he scanned the arrow over his grandson’s body and shouted.

“Even when trampled, your filthy blood cannot be hidden! Look at your body. You think I can’t see it? Do you think that’s the body of a nine-year-old raised gently in the palace? Look at your cousins and your young uncle Eric. Your body is too different from theirs!”

Maxwell was speechless, his fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles turned white. He shouted back, for the first time standing up to his grandfather.
“I’m taller than them, or because I have red eyes instead of gray like them, is that why you hate me? I am your grandson too! The son of your first son!”

Maxwell’s pent-up sorrow overflowed.

“Do you want the Crown Prince’s position? I never wanted it. All I ever wanted was… only your love, grandfather. In the palace where no one loved me… I just wanted to be loved by you. But why do you hate me so much? Why do you want to kill me?”

“Ha! How can I not hate you? Because of you, with your cursed blood… I lost someone. My most beloved son, I lost him because of you!”

Maxwell stepped back, unable to understand the Emperor’s words.

Because of me, he lost his most beloved son? That’s impossible.

I am just a nine-year-old Crown Prince who has never stepped out of the palace, incapable of doing anything. The son the Emperor lost was my father, Crown Prince Luca, who was killed by a black panther.

Maxwell’s face turned pale as he listened to his grandfather spouting incomprehensible words.

“I know father died protecting me and my mother. But how does that justify your hatred for me? I was a baby less than a year old!”

“Dull boy. I told you the reason, and you still don’t understand.”

The Emperor’s blood-red eyes darkened with chilling madness. He pulled the bowstring, lips curling mockingly.

Resigned to his fate, Maxwell exposed his chest to the arrow, determined not to flee in fear. He tasted the bitter blood from his bitten lower lip.

Maxwell’s red eyes stared unflinchingly into the Emperor’s gray ones.

Male lead is a Love-Obsessed Merman

When he discovers she has gone, he risks everything to pursue her on land, enduring agonizing pain to transform his tail into human legs…

One-line summary: Male lead chases female lead. The male lead’s love is a bit sick, an invincible love brain.

Synopsis

During a voyage at sea, Jiang Yang accidentally captures a merman.

Servant: I heard that mermen are fierce and brutal.

Jiang Yang looks at the merman obediently rubbing her palm like a puppy: “You call this fierce and brutal?”

Servant: I heard that mermen have no human nature.

Jiang Yang looks at the merman with wet puppy eyes, obsessively calling her ‘A Yang’ like a childish infant: “You call this having no human nature?”

With great difficulty, she releases the merman back into the sea and returns to shore.

Who would have thought that in less than half a month, the merman, who should have been freely wandering in the South China Sea, would shed his scales, endure the pain of losing his tail, transform into human legs, and come ashore to find her?

He kneels at her feet, rubbing her palm, with merman tears rolling down: “A Yang, don’t abandon me.”

_____

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