Jane visited the palace once a week to treat Ian, accompanied by her grandfather, who was also a pharmacist.
Despite Ian’s request to see her every day, she firmly refused, saying she had other patients to care for and that monitoring his condition and prescribing medication once a week was sufficient.
However, this was not enough for Ian. He wanted to spend more time with her. Ideally, he wished to have her by his side all day, but he understood that Jane did not want that. She was not someone who could live like his mother.
Ian knew that if he tried to force her to stay in the palace, she would leave the country without hesitation with her grandfather.
Therefore, he injured his palm, knowing that she would come running if he was in pain.
“Why do you need sword training at just 8 years old? You’re a prince. Can’t you just let the knights handle dangerous weapons?”
“I can’t avoid sword training.”
He trembled slightly, indicating his anxiety as if not training would endanger him.
Ian imagined what she might be thinking – a frail prince, unloved by the emperor, neglected by the empress, forced to train in swordsmanship to seek their approval. She might even imagine him threatened by his enemies due to her vivid imagination.
Jane, a commoner who took care of her blind grandfather, pitied Ian, the crown prince. Although it was contradictory, Ian didn’t mind. In fact, he encouraged her misconceptions.
He wished for her love, but if that was too much to ask, he hoped she would at least feel sorry for him and not leave him. If the emperor kept the empress by his side using power and force, Ian planned to bind Jane to him with her sympathy.
“Next time, call a healer. I know you dislike them, but I can’t keep coming here whenever you need me.”
This statement struck Ian like a bolt from the blue. He had believed she would always come if he was in pain. Was he wrong to think so? Should he act like the emperor? But he didn’t want to see Jane wither away like the empress…
Anxiety gripped Ian at the thought of losing her. Unknowingly, he clenched his fist.
“Don’t clench your fist like that. The wound you insisted I stitch up will burst open.”
Jane looked concerned as she tried to check his hand, but Ian grabbed her shoulder, almost pleading.
“Did you dislike me for making you stitch it up? If it’s not a cut, it’s okay, right?”
He pondered whether to fake a stomachache next time. But if she found out he was lying, she might get angry for being deceived. It was difficult to find spoiled food in the royal palace where everything was of high quality. Maybe he should try eating some unknown plants in the garden that might cause stomach pain?
Ian pondered how to make her visit him again, but it seemed she wouldn’t come even if he was in pain, as she firmly shook her head.
“Even if it’s not a cut, I can’t come for a while.”
Ian felt abandoned by the world at her resolute words. Being rejected by her felt like his heart would stop – better to be abandoned by the world than by her.
“Do you dislike me now? Or did you realize the lie I told? Do you find it repulsive and creepy that I hurt myself to see you? But Jane, you only come here when I’m in pain. I couldn’t think of any other way.”
“Why are you crying? You were enduring well even when I was stitching the wound…”
Jane wiped the tears welling up in Ian’s eyes with the leftover bandage.
“It’s because Jane said she won’t come… That you dislike me now…”
Ian spoke in a defeated tone, which made Jane wave her hands in panic.
“Dislike you? That’s not what I meant. It’s not that I won’t come at all… I just can’t come and go as often as now.”
“Why? Why can’t you come often?”
“The monsoon was long this year. Grandfather says that epidemics are bound to follow long monsoons. We need to bring in new supplies before the epidemic spreads, and the existing herbs are getting damp due to the moisture. We’re short of hands. Normally, we are busy during the monsoon season. We even have to cut down on sleep.”
“…”
“I rushed here today because I heard His Highness was seriously injured, but I absolutely cannot do this next time.”
“Even if I’m about to die, you won’t come? Just because of managing herbs?”
“Managing herbs is not trivial. Medicines are necessary for treatment. And if you’re that ill, you should call a healer, not a trainee pharmacist like me.”
“You know how much I hate healers…”
“Then you shouldn’t get hurt.”
“…So you won’t even come once a week now? Never again?”
“I will definitely visit once a week, no matter what. I have to bring you your medicine. So, please don’t get hurt.”
Should he be relieved that she will still come, even if it’s just once a week? But a week felt too long for him.
If she won’t come even when he’s in pain, what method should he use to call her? How can he make Jane always stay by his side? If only he could chain her to himself, link her ankle to his, and spend their lives inseparably…
Ian’s gaze lingered on Jane’s ankle.
“If I had broken Jane’s ankle back then, would she still be with me?”
Reminiscing about the irreversible past, Ian tapped the glass tube with his fingertips. Inside, a grotesque black lump was wrapped neatly in a white silk cloth.
“It’s strange… It’s all so strange.”
Everything felt bizarre. The strangest part was that this black mass was supposed to be Jane.
It couldn’t be. Ian’s Jane was nothing like that.
She always tied her vibrant red hair tightly. Her obsidian-black eyes glowed with determination, and her characteristic stubbornness showed in her tightly closed lips.
When she smiled, her right lip corner rose first, charmingly revealing her canine tooth.
Her rough, scarred hands were a testament to her long career as a pharmacist.
To Ian, Jane was perfection and eternity. She was supposed to be by his side forever. It was natural for her to be there for life. She was his companion, his lifelong support.
From the moment she grabbed his hand at six years old, offering salvation to his frenzied self, even before they met, appearing in his dreams, smiling at him like a prophecy, Ian never doubted she was his everything.
“How could that be Jane?”
Hearing that the pharmacy had burned down, Ian rushed to the site like a madman. The fire had been extinguished, but the building where Jane was had been destroyed by the blaze.
Ignoring the knights’ warnings of danger, Ian rushed into the pharmacy and began digging through the ashes with his bare hands. What he found was a corpse, blackened and contorted in the rubble.
‘Why didn’t I question it? That Jane’s image in my dreams stopped at around this time. That I had never once seen her in her middle or old age.’
He laughed at his own stupidity for not feeling any unease or fear, even after recently dreaming of her crushed under a dragon.
“All I thought about was using that dream as an excuse to persuade her to marry me…”
How could he think those trivial official meetings were important? He should have personally escorted her. The anxiety didn’t subside, so he asked Simmons to check on her, but that wasn’t enough.
He should have gone himself, met Jane, and stayed by her side until the reality of his unconfirmed fears was revealed.
Tears streamed down his cheeks, wetting the glass tube. Ian wiped them with his palm. He resolved to stay here until he was certain that the charred lump was indeed Jane.
“Cough.”
Even after wiping his tears, his vision blurred, and a crippling pain overwhelmed him. Since losing her, he had neglected his medicine, and now the pain had returned.
“Khh… huh-huh, hah-hah.”
From his mouth came a sound that was neither crying nor laughing, a strange groan. To him, already as good as dead, it was laughable to feel pain. It was absurd.
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.
[Touch the gear icon in the bottom right corner of the screen to move to the next chapter if you want.]
