“Are you suggesting we discuss stale old tales now?”
His gaze, looking down at me, was persistently demanding a response.
But I couldn’t give him any answer he wanted.
Especially if he was feeling the same strangeness I was.
“It might not be an old tale.”
“……”
“If at that time, there was a reason.”
“I was simply afraid of death. And I wanted to live that much. By any means. That’s all.”
Laughing is easy. Since that day, the laugh that I had started practicing until it became spasmodic, now came out easily without effort.
I folded my hands, keeping a smile on my lips.
“Just like the rumor. I was taken to the emperor, and in fear for my life, I betrayed you. And to live, I married the man he demanded. That’s all.”
“……Really? Is that all?”
“I even begged the emperor, who promised to save you, to kill you.”
“……”
It wasn’t a complete lie.
I took a breath, exhaling slowly, and clenched my fingertips.
“I don’t know what you’re expecting, but it’s not what you think.”
Seeing the resentful eyes looking at me, I realized that something was wrong.
But it was too late to go back to the way things were. Too much time had passed.
I kept a calm smile on my lips.
“Nothing at all?”
“The past is just the past. It doesn’t change. And, after all, why is it important?”
Everyone is dead. Your family, my family. All of them.
I muttered under my breath and closed my eyes.
Just recalling the memories of that day, my breath was choked off by the feeling of my throat being strangled.
While the faces of those I wanted to remember were gradually blurring, on the contrary, the terror of that time remained vividly clear, pressing down on me every moment.
“Lucky. That you’re not making excuses.”
“I think I’m paying for my sins. That my daughter ended up this way because I didn’t die then.”
“……”
“So resent me as much as you want, and take advantage of that. That’s why you decided to join hands with me.”
“……You’re frail.”
Caught off guard by the unexpected answer, I reflexively lifted my head.
The man was still looking at me.
“If you were going to exploit the person you resented, you should have lured him with sweet words. Even if it was a lie, you should have been tempted not to betray.”
“That’s.”
“You must feel it too. There was a problem 10 years ago.”
I made a mistake.
Seeing his deeply shining black eyes, I reflexively shrank back. The man who came back alive from hell felt much larger in my memory than he looked.
But rather than being scared, another thought came to mind first.
“I never betrayed. Not even once.”
The face of Duke Pieren, shaded in the shadows, looked grim with anger, but the areas around his long eyes were red. The veins visible in the whites of his eyes were red, and his tightly bitten lips were also completely red.
So I kept thinking that.
He seemed like a wounded, bloody beast.
“And that’s still the case.”
“……”
“Even if it’s a hope less than straw, I want to gamble everything on it to the point of madness.”
“……”
“So tell me. You didn’t betray me.”
It was more of a tone demanding a predetermined answer than a question.
I couldn’t say anything and kept my mouth tightly shut.
“……Can you trust what I say?”
“I trust.”
“……”
It was a lie. He didn’t trust me.
He just wanted to believe.
That’s when I realized.
You haven’t changed. But I have.
I loved, hated, and ultimately decided to forget.
I couldn’t look at Duke Pieren anymore and lowered my gaze, instantly regretting it. At the end of my line of sight, I saw Duke Pieren’s hand twitching several times, hesitating to reach out.
You called me fragile, but in the end, you were really the frail one.
Just as all colors mixed become black, his pitchblack eyes were dyed with countless emotions.
Recalling the man who used to smile at me, I tightly clenched both of my hands.
My feelings are not the same as his. I didn’t have the room to start again.
Since the day I faced the burnt corpse of Meriel, everything in me had burned out and only ashes remained.
Every night, I dreamed of my dead daughter.
“……I didn’t betray. Me too.”
“……”
“Calix, just like you.”
And because of that, the answer I could give had been predetermined from the start.
I needed Duke Pieren.
[This is the time separator]“You know it’s a lie?”
“……”
“Don’t make that face. In my territory, you’re obviously supposed to listen to what I say.”
Luzen did not care about the glances that came his way. He grinned and hopped through the window.
It wasn’t a behavior befitting an emperor, but it was an exception here.
There were a few blind spots in the imperial palace that the emperor himself calculated and deliberately set up, and this place was the most typical of those.
Only a few dared to make a racket near the emperor’s office. Not daring to try unless they knew the exact location of the blind spot.
“So, what are you going to do?”
“……”
“You’ve met everyone already. And they all answered the same. Duke Craiton told the emperor to kill Duke Pieren.”
“……”
Male lead fell into her trap — and shattered when she walked away
This is also on my reread list!
This one is a slow burn, but when it burns, it burns hard.
Definitely worth a read, y’all!
The story follows a thousand-year-old seductive spirit who, on a bet, sets out to charm the male lead—a once-promising but unfortunate cultivator.
But just when she succeeds in making him fall for her, she heartlessly leaves, driving him to madness.
Determined to find her at all costs, he captures her, keeping her by his side no matter what, even if she hates him.
I love this kind of trope—I enjoy watching the male lead suffer in agony.
The ending drags a bit with unnecessary filler, but that’s fine.
As long as I enjoy the beginning, I’m good.
Intro
As an enchantress, Su Heng possesses captivating eyes and charming beauty, easily manipulating the joys and sorrows of living beings at her fingertips.
But to enchant a god, making him taste the bitterness of love’s separation, long-lasting resentment, unattainable desires, and inability to let go…
Do you dare?
Su Heng assists a divine lord in his cultivation, aiming to make him experience all the sufferings of love, so that he can attain the Great Dao.
Only after being chased down from the heavens by the divine lord, confined and completely possessed by him, does she realize how successful she has been.
The once gentle and polite youth has transformed into someone she no longer recognizes.
[Touch the gear icon in the bottom right corner of the screen to move to the next chapter if you want.]
