Kretzman
Have you ever kissed a sibling?
I confess, I have touched Johannes once. Our young tongues intertwined like melting on a scorching summer day.
That day, I kissed him first. Johannes did not resist. His soft mouth tasted of the ice treat eaten in the morning. His slightly sweaty nape was damp. The sunbeams splitting the earth, the dust blooming hazily all around, the verdant green blazed and vanished.
The tree shade beneath the castle wall flashed like lightning. And then just the urgent moan of unknown origin and Johannes’ moist flesh that I had eagerly licked.
It was dizzying.
The memory of that foolish summer when I knew nothing of love and only curiosity rose like water. Sometimes when pricked by it, I desperately wished to die. Johannes knew everything and just grinned.
***
I am Giovinetta Isolde Yuricates Valdemar.
A direct descendant of the southern Dukomeng, I turned twenty-three this year. I am the twin sister of the current Duke Gustavus Johannes I, and also the elder sister of Winfrid, a monk of the Redempta Order. I have been married before. And I only recently learned that Johannes and I are not blood siblings. It’s a long story.
On an autumn day when I came of age and had my first period, I got married. The groom was the nephew-in-law of the late King Rodrigo the Strong. Meeting him for the first time on our wedding day, he was only six years older than me, and his features were quite handsome.
He was as arrogant as his nicely protruding chin, and as vile as his quick glances, but I was content with that. Perhaps I looked too relieved, as Johannes, who had developed a habit of teasing me then, laughed a little.
“To think you’re pleased with mere royal dregs. Since when did my sister lower her standards so?”
I did not agree with his joke at all. My standards low? Where else could I find such a fine groom? The man to be my husband was not only close to my age but even had a decently handsome appearance.
I dismissed Johannes’ teasing with indifference, as he barely reached the waist of my grown young husband. To be frank, I had no time to mind Johannes then. My expectations for the marriage were quite high.
Through marriage, I will finally fulfill my role as a person. Six years.
The end of a long solitude seemed to loom before my eyes.
That’s why I could endure the bed placed like an altar in the center of the banquet hall. I could bear my husband touching me behind the opaque curtains with dozens of witnesses watching. Perhaps we might have had a few children and lived well enough. If only he hadn’t been found as a corpse with his chest cavity pierced the day after our wedding night.
My husband was assassinated.
The assassin vanished without a trace. As the scene of his chest gouged and turned inside out by an unimaginable tool fully demonstrated the killer’s superhuman strength, no one at the scene suspected me. It was such a tremendous corpse.
Was this truly the work of a human? As if determined to kill horribly with all their might. As if struggling to tear out this person’s heart completely. The cross-section of ribs bent from the back to the front, with the center hollowed out, was chilling.
The unidentified assassin even tied the corpse’s neck to the bed’s crossbeam, suspending the body. Everyone said in unison that this was clearly a display. There was no other way to explain the excessive cruelty of the crime. In the cruel dawn twilight. The corpse was cold but the killer was gone, and even the rising sunlight seemed to crawl along the horizon as if appalled.
The enraged queen mobilized all possible means to track down the culprit. In fact, given the circumstances then, our house of Valdemar would have been the most likely suspect behind the meaningless assassination. Because thanks to the groom’s early death, we could immediately collect considerable wealth without having to wait long.
However, there was no evidence at all. When the royal knights were rummaging everywhere indiscriminately, no one dared to point fingers at the Valdemars.
The bloodshed ultimately did not occur twice. Only ashen speculation dried their mouths, and we were able to return home safely. Nevertheless, on that journey back, the back of my head felt hot.
I didn’t know the reason for those stares well. Only the metallic smell that wouldn’t leave my skin made me shudder.
“It is fortunate to me that your body was not harmed.”
Johannes said painfully in the quiet carriage where we were alone. His usually carefree face looked particularly haggard that day.
Devilish princess.
Rumors are snakes. Those that break through deceitful lips and crawl only along damp paths, feed on human mouths and ears to grow vigorously, gradually coiling around the entire continent.
The age of magic has ended. Immortality has set with it. It has been hundreds of years since the era of mortals dawned, where death is closer than life. Vicious famines and malignant diseases, wars big and small are numerous. Because of this, while widows who have lost their husbands still abound in the world, I, who lost my first husband to an untimely death, had to endure scandal for an unusually long time.
It was because the manner of my husband’s death was so horrific. The fact that Dukomeng, a family notorious for being possessed by devils, was my maternal family must have added credibility to those rumors.
No, perhaps the real problem was simply that I slept too well and woke up from the bed soaked with his blood.
Princess who kills husbands.
If fear is a sin, then I am a sinner. That day I saw everything but saw nothing, heard everything but heard nothing. In fact, my memories of that day and the following few years are all hazy.
From some point on, that night which would occasionally come back like a nightmare was pitch black, impossible to discern even an inch ahead. My scream that I couldn’t let out ate through my throat as it went down, completely crushing my heart.
Crack. Was the sound of branches breaking that echoed in my head actually the sound of bones twisting and breaking? The wetness seeping into this body was so hot it felt like it would cook all the flesh.
I was too young, and the wedding night was too long. I still cannot sleep in bed when summer comes and sweat soaks the mattress.
Princess who eats her husband’s heart!
Snake scales glinted. For years, I could not remarry. I, who was not allowed to go out carelessly, learned futile dances and did futile embroidery. Johannes, who had been the person most different from me both in body and mind, began to focus on his knight training in earnest after returning from my wedding, and it gradually became difficult to see his face.
Winfrid, who had a strong tendency to be a bookworm, chose the path of a monk early on as he was the second son without inheritance rights, and immersed himself in the study of ancient books, holed up in a monastery cell. Thus, without a single person to rely on, I once again became an unwanted object tucked away neatly in a corner of the women’s quarters.
How did it come to this? Whose assassin was it anyway?
On many days when early dusk covered the inner chamber at sunset, I wanted to grab anyone and ask. Not that I felt any particular anger I couldn’t handle. It was because I grew up hearing that this was just how it was for unmarried daughters. But sometimes, needles sprouted in my lungs.
A needle wind was blowing only in my bedroom. The wind was lonely. It was a loneliness of quiet weathering from the outer shell, with not a trace of moisture, as the living body eroded.
Then one day I looked out the window. It was a day when sharp beams of light fell indiscriminately, and young squires like new buds were gathered at the well outside. In my pitiful widowed state, I blandly watched their separate world. Their irrelevant entertainment was noisy there.
The boys who had thrown off all their armor laughed cheerfully, and soon began pouring water on each other’s bodies in turns. Soon a platinum-blond boy stood up resolutely as if it was finally his turn, leaning on the edge of the well and bowing his head.
Johannes. Like a suddenly sinking heart, the water poured down.
There, close enough to reach if I jumped, but somewhere I could never go, Johannes’ wet back was shining. Seeing his back for the first time, I was frozen by its unfamiliarity. Only the water droplets shattering in all directions were brilliant.
I don’t know.
Johannes, who had been washing his back for a while, suddenly turned his body precisely towards me. Our eyes met in an instant. Perhaps I had picked up something within reach and aimed it at his back. I don’t remember that day well either. Only that I resented that back, was furiously angry….
I closed the window.
I turned my back to the window and stood, then my limbs trembled so much that I collapsed right there. Strangely, I was out of breath. Like someone who had just finished a round of horse riding, it felt like my chest would burst from the inside.
Somehow there was a commotion outside the women’s quarters, but it all felt distant as if happening somewhere else, not here. So my consciousness was trapped in the sensations of my body. Such passionate coolness, I felt like I would shatter at any moment. Like a glass that had just been emptied of hot water.
I did not know the reason. Stubbornly so.
The years flowing recklessly, leaving me behind, seemed slower than the clouds beyond the window. After slowly passing seventeen, even seeing Johannes from afar became rare. This was because Johannes, commissioned by Father, traveled abroad for a whole season.
Johannes would return and stay at the castle occasionally, for a briefly shining spring or a quickly fading autumn. As estranged family is more uncomfortable than complete strangers, we would just ask about each other’s recent circumstances when we happened to meet.
Uneventful days continued, except for the occasional times when Winfrid was driven out for the crime of reciting forbidden books.
Thus I turned eighteen as water flows and time passes.
War clouds gathered.
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
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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.
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