The Princess Wants to Live (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 11
A swallow flies low through the crimson evening glow.
Those passing beyond the capital’s outskirts all hunched their shoulders and hurried along.
“Hey….”
“Uwaaaaah!”
“Ughaah!”
When a man screamed in fright at the sudden touch on his shoulder, the person who’d tapped him screamed just as loudly.
Realizing the one who’d touched his shoulder was his neighbor, the man sighed deeply, brushing a pale hand over his ashen face.
“What? It’s just you.”
“Why jump like that? You nearly made me faint too.”
His equally pale neighbor scolded him, and the man frowned sharply.
“It’s because of the rumors going around lately—what’s so surprising about that?”
“Rumors?”
The man eyed his puzzled neighbor up and down with disdain, then hunched his neck and whispered.
“They keep finding bodies, one after another.”
“What? Bodies?”
“Shh, shh! Honestly, you…”
He clamped down hard on his neighbor’s shoulder as the man’s eyes widened in shock, glancing needlessly around.
By chance or fate, no one else was nearby—just the two of them.
His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he swallowed hard.
The empty road under the falling night felt less eerie than outright grotesque….
“What do you mean, ‘bodies’…?”
“Ugh!”
“Uwah!”
Again, the startled man’s neighbor, who’d just tapped his arm, jumped just as violently.
How long had they stared at each other, eyes wide with shock?
Breaking the awkward silence, the neighbor grumbled.
“Ugh! You got me all curious, then just stood there spacing out into the distance!”
Clearly upset about being startled twice by accident, his voice and expression turned rough. The man glanced around quickly, then patted his neighbor’s arm.
“Never mind. I don’t want to talk about it here—let’s just go.”
Shivering, the man hurried off, and his neighbor followed, matching his pace while muttering complaints.
Another shadow stretched long over the ends of their shadows before vanishing entirely—and that night…
“Who—who’s there…? Hah!”
Someone chalk-white scrambled backward on their rear, trying to flee from a man grinning ear to ear—but their vision flashed bright, and they lost consciousness instantly.
-Thud.
Helpless time passed, and dawn dyed the edges of night.
-Scritch-scratch.
A sound of something being cut followed, and not long after, someone offered as a sacrifice to the ancient god was buried in yet another pit.
Morning came after a night thick with the mingling stench of damp earth and iron-rich blood.
Olivia, disguised, was just stepping out of the Imperial Palace.
She strode briskly along the servants’ entrance rather than the main gate and gave a slight bow to the guard posted there.
“You’re leaving early. Isn’t this the time everyone’s coming in?”
“Yes. They said they needed something urgently. Here’s my permit.”
The guard carefully checked Olivia’s calm reply and the permit, then opened the gate.
Still frowning slightly from the sun’s glare, she’d barely taken a step outside the palace when a low voice slipped into her ear from right beside her.
“Heading straight to the scene?”
Frozen in place, Olivia rubbed the fine hairs standing up on her cheek and whipped her head toward the left, where the voice had come from.
But the speaker was nowhere to be seen—only heat haze shimmered in the empty air under the sunlight.
Olivia opened and closed her mouth, then slowly turned her head back. She didn’t want to draw more attention with any odder behavior.
“Where are you?”
“In the shadows.”
“What? The shad—?”
The reply was so simple and swift that Olivia grabbed the back of her own neck, as if about to storm off, and demanded again.
That man wouldn’t suddenly wax poetic and say he was “in the shadows” metaphorically.
He must literally mean he was inside a shadow—but how could a human hide there without a trace?
“No, never mind. Right. You’re in the shadows.”
But then she abruptly remembered again—it was Cryer. Of course he could hide anywhere, not just shadows, if he wanted to.
Resuming her halted steps, she spoke.
“It’s not that the guards are sloppy—it’s that my disguise is excellent. I’ve been doing this for over ten years; it’d be unfair if it weren’t perfect.”
She flicked the tip of her hair and rubbed her tired eyes.
Her distinctive Bolshayk crimson locks were hidden under a dull straw-colored wig, and her piercing blue eyes were half-concealed beneath thick bangs.
Moreover, whatever magic or trick she’d used on her face made her utterly unrecognizable—even the servants who tended to her from head to toe wouldn’t have known her.
How could the guards at the servants’ entrance of the Imperial Palace possibly recognize Olivia?
Yet the reply she received was, unsurprisingly, pure Cryer—and far from ordinary.
“If changing your appearance slightly makes people fail to recognize you, aren’t they unqualified as guards? Even generously assuming they can’t catch your walk or gestures, your bone structure hasn’t changed.”
He’d somehow appeared beside her on the left, now walking alongside her as he added,
“Besides, just looking at your exposed hands makes it easy to tell.”
“I don’t know. Well, maybe some people could tell—but most don’t examine others that closely. Ah, ughhh.”
Without even glancing to see Cryer open his mouth, Olivia waved her hand to cut him off.
“Only someone like you could tell without looking closely—don’t argue.”
Cryer smiled faintly, but it vanished so quickly she didn’t even notice.
Easily slipping away from the palace, Olivia blended just as smoothly into the capital’s bustling streets.
“You said you leave the palace often.”
Appearing beside her as if he’d always been there, Cryer spoke naturally as they walked side by side. Olivia answered lightly.
“It’s my duty.”
There was no other reason for Olivia—Imperial Princess of the Bolshayk Empire and heir to the throne—to wander the capital alone, without guards.
Certainly not because she was curious about commoners’ lives or dreamed of freedom beyond palace walls—none of that soft, fanciful nonsense.
Perhaps, in some long-forgotten past—before all these regressions, back in her very first life—she’d briefly entertained such thoughts during her first incognito outing.
But every secret excursion since then had been driven solely by duty—the duty of those who carried Bolshayk blood.
“This time, though, it’s not duty—it’s the Emperor’s request.”
Several days ago, at dawn, the Emperor had summoned Olivia.
‘A… serial murder?’
Olivia tilted her head, holding the thin stack of documents the Emperor handed her—too few to even call a “bundle.”
‘Yes. People have mostly disappeared from the capital’s outskirts, and none have reappeared.’
‘Wouldn’t that be a disappearance, not murder?’
‘I’m entrusting you, the Imperial Princess, to verify that fact.’
Olivia obediently bowed her head at the Emperor’s decree.
Her thoughts, which had drifted into the past, snapped back to the present at Cryer’s question.
“Has someone from a prominent family gone missing?”
It was a natural question—after all, the Imperial Princess herself had been assigned exclusively to this disappearance case.
“No. I skimmed the documents—disappearances have been scattered across the capital’s outskirts.”
“Then why you?”
“Probably meant as a kind of punishment.”
“Punishment?”
Cryer’s eyebrows lifted slightly, and Olivia shook her head.
“It’s not that the disappearances and deaths of Imperial citizens are unimportant enough to dismiss as mere punishment.”
She massaged her stiff neck, hardened from sleeping only one or two hours a night over the past few days.
“It’s that more urgent matters—ensuring the safety and tomorrow of far more citizens—take priority.”
“That’s not why I asked. I know exactly how much you handle, standing atop every Imperial citizen’s head.”
Cryer answered, unconsciously brushing his collarbone.
“Well… I guess you barely sleep either.”
To be precise, it was closer to being unable to sleep at all…
In any case, since he also slept almost never, he’d been spending his days beside her, reading Bolshayk’s historical records.
“True. Sometimes I wonder if that dense mountain range made of documents will ever collapse.”
“Oh, that mountain range…? I’ve heard stories of someone getting seriously injured under it—was it His Late Majesty’s grandfather? Or maybe even earlier?”
She continued, piecing together the memory.
“He must’ve broken something around here.”
Olivia tapped her abdomen and added calmly,
“Of course, even in that state, he finished all the documents he needed to process that day.”
She spoke as if it were trivial, yet finishing an overwhelming pile of paperwork with broken ribs was hardly a minor feat.
But to Olivia, it wasn’t extraordinary or strange at all.
Being born Imperial Princess of Bolshayk meant enjoying many privileges—and bearing just as many duties.
Although after four regressions, she’d come to value her own life above all…
To survive, she had to preserve world peace—and thus, inevitably, the well-being of her people too.
Shaking her head, Olivia steered the conversation back.
“Anyway, this investigation is probably punishment for ‘forcing the Continental Assembly to be held early on my own whim.’”
She shrugged and, with perfect ease, tugged Cryer’s sleeve.
“This way.”
Cryer obediently turned left with her and asked,
“The Continental Assembly did open earlier than scheduled. Why insist on it?”
“Oh, no real reason. Just wanted to meet you a little sooner.”
To anyone unaware of the context, it sounded like a grandly romantic statement.
That the Imperial Princess Olivia would forcibly advance a national event—still unprepared—just to meet one man, Cryer.
But her next words were utterly devoid of even a trace of romance—purely pragmatic.
“Because to fulfill my duty as the dove of world peace, I needed to get you—whose very existence sparks political strife—under control as quickly as possible.”
And she really had done “whatever it took”… She’d even clung to the hem of his trousers as he tried to walk away.
The memory resurfaced vividly, and Olivia’s eyes grew hazy.
She really didn’t want to recall that—best to forget it.
“The dove of peace.”
His voice was barely audible, soft and tinged with laughter. Olivia smacked his arm repeatedly.
“Stop laughing already! Why do you laugh at everything I say? It’s really unlike y—”
She cut herself off mid-sentence, pressing her lips shut.
What had she been about to say? “Unlike you”?
What even defined “Cryer-like” behavior anyway?
Male lead first thought she played hard to get, only to realize she
really disliked him
Short intro:
What she can’t stand the most is the streets full of effeminate men, especially that so-called top beauty whom she avoids at all costs.
Shen Yaoxing looks at Jiang Mingyue, who keeps approaching her with coy shyness.
Shen Yaoxing: Bro, don’t be like this, I’m really about to throw up!
She fears nothing in heaven or earth, except for him getting close to her.
*
At first he thought she was just using the trick of feigning indifference to attract his attention. Later, he learned that she truly despised him.
This dealt a heavy blow to Jiang Mingyue, and he vowed to make her, like everyone else, fall at his feet in worship!
***
Synopsis:
Before transmigrating, Shen Yaoxing only wanted to find a reliable man to spend her life with. Who knew that after transmigrating, she would become a reliable woman herself…
A forced misandrist, highly skilled, and reliable female lead
vs.
An initially aloof and arrogant, later morbid, obsessed male lead
_____
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