Summer Must Die (16 Chapters Left to Complete) - Chapter 2
The original was absolute.
Everyone uttered predetermined lines and wore predetermined expressions. Not a single person frowned.
The Lindsey family was, quite literally, perfect. Summer was now feeling with her whole body just how chilling that perfection truly was.
“Miss! Good morning!”
“…Get lost.”
“Shall I prepare your tea with rose tea? They say it’s newly arrived today!”
Despite Summer’s icy curse, the maid cheerfully spoke and left.
Not a single maid showed the slightest sign of fatigue. They moved mechanically, without a single complaint or grumble.
After repeating the same routine for a month, Summer finally realized this place was inside a novel—and that realization made it utterly horrifying. There were three main reasons.
First, everyone was practically a marionette—puppets repeating identical words and actions.
“Miss, I’ve brought your tea.”
“What’s your name?”
“Is it to your taste?”
“I asked your name.”
“I’m so glad it suits your taste!”
“Just get out.”
“Then, please call for me anytime you need me.”
Whether the maid left or not, Summer irritably gulped down the rose tea.
Second, anyone who wasn’t a major character appeared as faceless egg-shaped ghosts.
At first, she’d only felt a vague haziness, as if their faces simply wouldn’t stick in her memory, and she dismissed it as unimportant.
But after realizing she was inside a novel, she suddenly saw their faces clearly.
Everyone except Earl Lindsey, Countess Lindsey, and Summer Lindsey had indistinct facial features—sometimes none at all.
Summer was going mad, utterly isolated—and frighteningly fast.
“I’m losing it.”
Summer coldly stared at her teacup, then suddenly hurled it against the wall.
Though the crash was loud, no one came in. Summer slowly walked among the scattered shards.
Tiny fragments pricked her skin, stinging slightly, but she didn’t care.
The third horror of this world:
Anything that deviated from the setting would reset by the next day.
This wound, too—since it didn’t fit the setting of Summer Lindsey, the pampered, beloved daughter of nobility—would vanish completely by tomorrow.
“…”
Summer took a deep breath while gazing out the window, then stopped. Right here. She wished it would just stop like this.
But her body instinctively exhaled roughly.
In this world, perfectly crafted by others, Summer couldn’t answer even one of these questions: What should she do? What could she do? What did she even want to do?
It was horrifying, terrifying, and infuriating.
Yet the fact that she could do absolutely nothing ultimately left Summer utterly miserable.
[This is the timeline separator]“Summer. Wake up, dear. The sun is already at its peak.”
Another day began, cruelly familiar as ever.
“I’m already awake. What are you talking about?”
“Yes, my season, my beloved daughter. Hurry and get ready. We must have breakfast together.”
“For heaven’s sake, say something different!”
She’d snapped at Countess Lindsey, who came every morning with the same lines, but the Countess simply played her role like an actress reciting scripted lines and left the room.
Summer slowly traced her fingertips over the spot where her wound had been.
“…”
Her skin was perfectly smooth, without a single mark. She’d clearly been hurt yesterday, yet there was no trace of injury.
While Summer stared blankly at her flawless skin, a maid approached and spoke warmly.
“Miss, the weather is lovely today. How about visiting the greenhouse?”
“I don’t really feel like it. Just leave me alone.”
“I’ll get everything ready right away!”
Damn maids—they only ever said their lines. If Summer stepped out of her role, the maids would gesture and mutter their scripted lines to empty air.
Witnessing that was deeply unsettling—like encountering a cultist blindly obsessed with something, evoking a strange mix of dread, disgust, and horror.
Having lost all willpower, Summer was eventually led by the maids, parasol in hand, toward the greenhouse.
She’d grown to hate the pretty dresses, the trailing maids, the beautiful garden, and the grand greenhouse—ever since realizing they were all just preset settings.
“Hey. What’s your name?”
Asking the maid’s name right before entering the greenhouse was purely impulsive. She knew she wouldn’t get an answer anyway.
Without even looking at the maid, Summer casually asked, then wondered—what were typical maid names again?
Maybe Mary or Poppy? She suddenly imagined a maid with slightly tanned skin, freckles dotting her cheeks, and round eyes.
“Ugh…”
As Summer scanned the greenhouse, a strange sound from behind made her turn around. Instantly, she staggered backward, her face turning pale.
“What on earth…?”
The maid following her trembled violently, as if the system had glitched, then stiffened like a wooden puppet.
Summer was speechless at the sight. Should she call this a miracle? But it was too horrifying to be one.
The maid’s face began melting, her skin bubbling and boiling—then eyes, nose, and mouth formed in sequence.
“Miss, my name is Mary.”
Then the maid beamed brightly. Her cheerful voice remained unchanged.
“Mary.”
Summer murmured. Slightly tanned skin, cute freckles, round eyes—the maid’s face matched exactly what Summer had imagined just moments before.
Why? Confused, Summer slowly backed away from the maid. Joy and terror churned inside her.
“Mary.”
“Yes, Miss. My name is Mary.”
The joy of finally receiving a real answer from someone in this world clashed violently with the horror of this uncanny situation, shaking Summer to her core.
Eventually, overwhelmed by nausea, Summer clamped a hand over her mouth and bolted out.
Mary simply watched Summer leave—then vanished without a trace, as though an actress slipping behind the curtain after finishing her role.
“Ugh! Ugh, hhh…”
Having fled from the maid, Summer crouched in a corner, repeatedly retching nothing but stomach acid. Her body trembled uncontrollably, and her head went cold.
A human had been created exactly as she’d imagined—name and appearance alike. It terrified her. She wanted to run.
Damn possession. Damn system.
“I want to go back…”
Summer collapsed onto the grass, burying her face in her hands.
Tears soaked her palms. She felt utterly trapped—like a doll from a doll shop that had suddenly gained a soul.
If her soul was human but her body a puppet, was she a person—or a doll?
“Please, let me go back… Hhh, ugh… I want to go back…”
Terrified, Summer sobbed and sobbed—until the setting sun bathed the world in red.
[This is the timeline separator]Now, Summer had nothing left to lose.
“Summer. Wake up, dear. The sun is already at its peak.”
“Shut up, paper doll.”
Summer snarled viciously. Yet Countess Lindsey merely gazed at her with adoring eyes and stroked her hair.
This was a world inside a novel.
That meant the woman right before her, repeating the same lines like a broken doll, wasn’t human—she was fiction.
There was no reason or need to consider her feelings.
“Yes, my season, my beloved daughter. Hurry and get ready. We must have breakfast together.”
Summer didn’t go to the dining room. Instead, she sat by the window desk and rested her head.
“Bring me pen and paper.”
“…”
The maids ignored her words, absorbed in their cleaning as usual. Of course—they were only allowed to perform their fixed daily tasks.
Then, one of them stood up.
It was Mary.
“The pen and paper are in the drawer, Miss.”
Summer watched Mary warily as she rummaged through the drawer. Just as Mary said, she found paper and a pen.
“Thank you.”
“You’re very welcome.”
After the brief exchange, Mary returned to the group of maids and resumed tidying the room. Summer silently watched her for a moment, then picked up the pen.
It was time to face the truth—even the reason this place felt so terribly familiar yet foreign.
The romance novel she’d read on the day she’d passed her final exam—her first and last romance novel: “I Shall Become Emperor.”
Truthfully, she’d been deeply immersed and thoroughly enjoyed it—so much so that she’d wished to meet the female lead herself.
“Only fun as a reader…”
Summer bitterly crumpled her face and muttered coldly.
The pen dangled idly in the air.
“So they lived happily ever after—but does the middle part even matter?”
Since it was the only romance novel she’d ever read, her memory of it was vivid. The problem was, she didn’t know what actually mattered.
In a romance, wasn’t it enough to just end with “they found a love lasting a thousand years”?
From the start, Summer hadn’t read the novel to see a prince on a white horse or some grand love story.
She’d wanted to see the confident, splendid heroine overcome hardships—or enjoy a satisfying success story.
“Is it because I’m an extra that I can’t meet Julian?”
Summer slumped over her desk and mumbled dejectedly. While reading, she’d completely identified with Julian.
Julian, who’d lost her parents at a young age and was raised by a village aunt, had lived cheerfully and normally—
until the new lord arrived and began tyrannizing the village.
When the lord seized farmland and even tried to drag Julian away, she fled for her life, leaving behind her village that felt like home.
That was the novel’s beginning—and the start of Julian’s trials.
Yet Julian never lost her inner strength and optimism.
In fact, she even healed Ian—how incredibly admirable that was.
“I envied her.”
Summer smiled faintly.
Following Julian’s story, she’d often shed tears of overwhelming emotion.
While I struggle with just one workbook problem in front of me, how did you manage to rise so firmly through such harsh adversity?
It was an absurd thought, but if she ever met Julian, she wanted to ask.
And she’d prayed:
May the protagonist find happiness and success. May she face no more hardships and enjoy peaceful days forever after.
The romance was merely a secondary element for that purpose.
“Protagonist.”
Yes—the protagonist. As the main character, something about them had to be different.
Perhaps… they even held the key to returning to her original world.
After all, isn’t it a universal story cliché that all major events inevitably happen near the protagonist?
Unlike herself—an extra—protagonists were special. If she could forge a connection with them, maybe something would finally be resolved.
“I’ll meet Julian and check out the parties too.”
Satisfied with her plan, Summer quietly curved her lips.
With the social season just beginning, balls and parties of all sizes were happening everywhere—it wouldn’t hurt to visit a few.
Though to maximize her chances, she should wait for the imperial ball where both protagonists appeared—but by then, the novel’s plot would have officially started, and the preset settings might become even stricter.
“Once the original story kicks off, I might not be able to approach them at all.”
At the story’s start, the protagonists would be swamped with urgent events—no time to spare for some random extra suddenly popping up.
Summer tapped the desk lightly with her pen. Her decision didn’t take long.
She had to meet the protagonists.
Male lead is reincarnated to save his wife
I’ve also read this one twice already. The female lead is kinda soft and gets embarrassed easily—not really my type, but the plot is definitely worth reading. Hurry up and read it, y’all!
Intro
When Shen Yuan encountered Su Jin again in his previous life, she had already become the Prime Minister of the current dynasty. As for him, the former top young master of the capital, he had long since fallen into the abyss, becoming a singer on a pleasure boat.
After a song ended, he was redeemed and sent to the Su Residence.
Su Jin respected and cherished him, gave him a roof over his head, and bestowed him with warmth. Shen Yuan fell deeper and deeper, but before he could express his feelings, Su Jin passed away.
Shen Yuan died to follow her in death, but instead, he returned to when he was fifteen years old.
At that time, he was not yet engaged, and Su Jin was just a poor scholar.
Shen Yuan gritted his teeth, casting aside all his pride, and thought of ways to coax and entice her every day.
The colder and more indifferent Su Jin was towards him, the more proactive Shen Yuan became.
He was not afraid of being mocked by the world, only wanting to marry his Wife-master early, to hold her hand and never let go for a lifetime.
[Note: This story will not specifically point out the male lead’s reincarnation time point; it’s all in the details. Whenever you feel that the male lead is acting strangely, he has most likely been reincarnated.]
[Touch the gear icon in the bottom right corner of the screen to move to the next chapter if you want.]
Hahaha what a stubborn male lead, leave her alone.
They’re always like this, thay think it is always about the male lead.