“Hey! Did you take my book again?”
“The one who gets it first gets to read it, what’s this ‘my book’? And why would you want a book you never read in the first place?”
“This, you…”
“‘This, you’? Oh my, Misha Roar, her Highness speaks so harshly.”
“Ha! I’m speaking harshly? Me? Watch your words!”
Misha Roar. My halfsister.
She took the book from my desk and walked out. As she walked, her tantalizing, red hair, so like our mother’s, swished.
Seven years in this mansion, dealing with Misha had become nothing but a nuisance.
I stretched, yawning. Studying until dawn had made my eyes heavy.
Leaning on my desk for a moment, the maid Teria brought me lemon tea. It was so bitter it woke me up instantly, relieving my fatigue.
I was planning to memorize just this and then read the book Misha just took, but my plan had gone awry.
But it’s just half a day. Misha won’t be able to read more than a paragraph of the great debate between the two most prominent scholars of the Empire.
If it was a debate about the appropriate thickness of ruffles for a ball gown, perhaps.
The book will end up on a pile on the desk after being shown to a teacher, and when Misha goes for a massage later, I can send Teria to fetch it.
It’s fine. She’ll never notice the book is gone.
Misha was also preparing for the Academy’s entrance exam. Along with five elite home tutors and one famous masseuse provided by the Countess.
Misha would complain that studying made her skin suffer and receive a facial massage at the same time every day.
To Misha, the Empire Academy was a social place to find a good husband. So if she couldn’t look good to men, there was no point in attending.
I naturally didn’t get assigned a masseuse. To bring back Teacher Julia, the Count had to have another dreadful negotiation with the Countess.
The Countess had found the idea of me taking the Academy entrance exam distasteful from the start.
My existence as the Count’s illegitimate child was already public. Yet it wouldn’t look good for the legitimate daughter and the bastard to attend together. Especially since I was better at studying.
If Misha failed the Academy’s exam, an exam even a bastard could pass, how painful would it be? Assuming she understands what pain is.
Looking back, it was miraculous. A bratty herbpicker from Tunbar Mountain was now preparing for the Academy’s entrance exam.
The Countess’s attitude towards me hadn’t changed a bit. After being abruptly taken to the Count’s mansion, I was always exposed to danger.
When the Count returned from a business trip and found out I had been brought by the Countess, he immediately took me on a tour of his domain.
People recognized the girl sitting next to the Count in his carriage right away.
The rumor that the usually reserved Count Roar had brought his bastard spread quickly, so the Countess couldn’t dispose of me by neglect or death.
Thanks to that, I was somewhat safe while the Count was away on business again.
It hadn’t been good from the start.
In the meantime, the Countess brought in a home tutor to ‘reform’ me. But it was clear he was there to torment, not teach me.
His torment was quite innovative; he continually shamed me.
For instance, if I got an addition wrong, he would sigh and compare it to my pitiful childhood.
“What were you learning at eight years old that you got this wrong now? What? Herbs? Ah… What was your mother doing then? …I see. A proper noble lady would have moved past that at eight… Ah…”
Or he would constantly mention the Count.
“Are you trying to smear the Count’s face? If you can’t even memorize this, what will become of the Count’s reputation at the palace…?”
Later, just looking at him seemed to evoke a cry, “You miserable and pitiful bastard!”
At first, I tried to endure it, thinking that the countess sending a home tutor was an acknowledgment of my existence.
But as I observed, she had only found a subtle way to torment me.
One day, doing what he always did, I stared at him and said,
“Teacher Julia said I’m good at studying. Could it be my poor skills are not the teacher’s fault? Haven’t you ever thought that?”
Then he widened his eyes. It was the first time I realized that his cowardly eyes could grow so big.
“Have you never questioned whether you yourself are not to blame for tarnishing the count’s face?”
His face turned red, and he left.
And from the next lesson, he began corporal punishment. He would present a difficult problem I couldn’t solve and slapped my palm for each incorrect answer.
I sensed that protesting would be futile. Showing a wrong test paper and saying that I got something wrong that he had already taught would only make me a liar.
I became furious at his crafty and secret wickedness and decided to repay him in kind.
I became good at cursing and fighting because of the children who cursed and beat me. There was no reason not to learn from torment.
A few days later, I discovered that the home tutor was not as crafty as I thought. I caught him chatting with a young maid in the garden after class.
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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