Trapped in the Mad Duke's Snare (Completed Main Story) - Chapter 1
Adeline did not want to die. She was merely running away because she wanted to live.
The rain, which had begun to fall gently, was now pouring down so heavily it completely obscured her vision—as if even the weather had turned against her.
Her shoes were buried in thick mud, utterly ruined, and the hem of her soaked dress had long since lost its color.
“Ha… ha ha.”
As if mocking the grandeur of her dress, the rain clung stubbornly to its fabric, refusing to let go.
Her waterlogged dress grew heavier and heavier without end.
Though she knew she had reached her limit, Adeline squeezed out every last ounce of strength to take one step after another.
She couldn’t stop walking until she reached the next village.
By now, Duke Torpeo must have returned and discovered she was gone—he would have thrown the entire castle into chaos.
He must have already dispatched knights to search for her.
‘I need to get as far away as possible.’
But her body wouldn’t obey her thoughts.
Before she knew it, rain was falling so heavily it blocked her vision entirely. The merciless downpour had soaked not only her dress but even her undergarments.
Fearing she’d collapse from hypothermia if she continued like this, Adeline frantically scanned her surroundings.
‘A cave.’
Just as she decided to take temporary shelter and stepped toward the cave entrance she saw ahead—
A deafening clap of thunder ripped through the pitch-black night sky, shaking the entire cave with its resonance.
Startled by the terrifying thunderclap, Adeline flinched and shivered.
This sound was on an entirely different scale from the previous one—so powerful that the ground and the whole cave began trembling violently.
Amidst the quake-like vibrations, Adeline staggered helplessly, disoriented.
When she finally came to her senses, she couldn’t believe what she saw before her eyes.
“Ha… this can’t be real, right?”
It was horrifying. Of all moments, why did this torrential downpour have to strike precisely as she was fleeing?
And why, of all places, was the cave entrance where she sought refuge now being buried under a landslide?
The world was unbearably cruel only to her.
“Do I… have to die for this to finally end?”
She hadn’t chosen to be reborn as Adeline.
Growing up as the young lady of House Credion in the Solatarius Empire, and receiving the Crown Prince’s proposal—none of it had been her will.
All she’d ever wanted was to escape the tragic fate tied to this life as Adeline.
When one knows their death is predetermined—when one lives on borrowed time—wouldn’t anyone desperately fight to stay alive?
She had fled the Crown Prince just to survive. She’d healed Duke Torpeo in Horn, and clung to him with desperate pleas, again just to live.
And now, she’d left with the resolve to abandon everything and run away.
“Why is it only so hard for me?”
Why was her life tangled beyond recognition—so absurdly, infuriatingly twisted?
Adeline sank limply to the ground.
What kind of karmic debt must she have accumulated in her past life to deserve this existence?
In utter darkness where not even a finger’s width ahead was visible, Adeline screamed.
She would surely die trapped here, unnoticed by anyone. It seemed her life was fated to end in such miserable despair.
Fear gripped her so tightly that breathing became difficult.
Adeline clutched her chest, her heart burning as if it were being consumed.
‘I want to live.’
Ironically, in this moment facing death, the only person who came to mind was the Duke.
How pathetic—of all people, it had to be Duke Torpeo appearing in her thoughts as she lay dying.
Adeline buried her face in her knees.
“…It’s over.”
Just as she was being swallowed by endless despair,
Footsteps echoed from the far end of the cave, piercing through Adeline’s ears.
At first, she thought she’d imagined it.
But the faint sound gradually drew closer, unmistakably heading toward her.
“…?”
Adeline lifted her head.
Could someone really have come looking for her?
“W-who’s there? Is someone there?”
Her voice, forced out with great effort, trembled faintly.
Yet she soon shook her head. She must have heard wrong. Of course—no one could possibly be here.
“Adeline!”
A familiar voice reached Adeline just as she was sinking into inescapable darkness.
That gentle voice—once the cause of her agony, yet also the reason for her fluttering heart—it was Duke Torpeo.
‘Ah…’
Tears instantly welled up and spilled over the moment she saw the Duke’s face.
Spotting Adeline, Duke Torpeo rushed over and pulled her tightly into his arms.
“I told you I needed nothing. That all I wanted was for you to stay by my side.”
His arms, which had first embraced her, now cradled her head.
Trying to restrain himself, the Duke spoke in a voice thick with suppressed emotion into her ear.
“Don’t run away from me.”
Overwhelmed by surging emotions, Adeline couldn’t utter a single reply.
Without waiting for an answer, the Duke picked up the lantern he’d earlier tossed aside.
In the darkness, Adeline met his eyes—glowing with a deep, flickering red.
A brief, self-mocking smile crossed Adeline’s lips.
Of all men, it was this one who had pushed through what amounted to a suicidal act, entering the cave only to reach out his hand to her as she drowned in endless despair.
‘A trap.’
She knew full well that the hand he offered wasn’t salvation—but a snare that would tighten around her throat.
She knew that if she let him catch her now, she’d never escape again—and yet, she couldn’t refuse.
Because with just a few words—“Don’t leave me”—he made her regret every moment she’d ever run away.
That was love.
Adeline closed her eyes. It was time to go back.
[This is the timeline separator]She was born an orphan. By the time she began to understand the world, she was already being raised in an orphanage.
Not knowing her parents’ surname, she was given the common family name Kim and the ordinary given name Ji Hye.
“Ji Hye, now that you’re an adult, you’ll need to live independently.”
The moment she turned eighteen, she was sent out of the orphanage with just two million won in support funds. Using a nursing assistant certificate earned during high school, she got a job at a hospital, gradually accumulated credits through a credit-bank system, and transferred into a nursing college.
After graduation, Ji Hye obtained her nursing license and—thanks to good fortune—secured a position at a university hospital.
Ji Hye truly worked hard.
She worked herself to the bone just to pay off her student loans, pulling overtime every day and saving every penny with relentless determination.
Romance, which everyone else took for granted, felt like an unattainable luxury to Kim Ji Hye—so much so that she never even attempted it.
Thus, she had never properly experienced familial warmth or the feeling of romantic love.
Ji Hye filled that void with romance fantasy web novels.
It was a late Friday night, no different from any other.
After a grueling shift, Kim Ji Hye stopped by a convenience store before heading home.
She walked down the street, sipping boxed soju through a straw, eyes glued to her phone screen.
‘This is what’s so popular?’
It was the novel currently holding the number one spot in the fantasy romance category for the sixth consecutive week.
Readers raved about it, calling it “betrayal layered upon betrayal upon betrayal.” Given its polarizing nature, it clearly had a devoted fanbase.
After taking a swig of soju, she glanced at the novel’s synopsis:
—
In the Solatarius Empire, the Crown Prince’s fiancée had already met an unexplained death—three times.
Even the young lady of the notoriously infamous House Credion couldn’t escape her fate on the day she became the Crown Prince’s fiancée—her twenty-fourth birthday.
—
A veteran web novel reader with ten years of experience,
‘Judging by this blurb, that insane Crown Prince is definitely the male lead—but killing three fiancées? Is he some deranged tyrant?’
Ji Hye frowned.
Just as she suspected—the comment section was a complete mess.
Nyum Nyum (xxxx* * *): Author, please tell me that insane Crown Prince isn’t the male lead?
Xsxd (xxxx* * *): Is Trashi just trash because his name sounds like it? Author, there’s a clear difference between a bad guy and actual garbage.
User00 (xxxx* * *): I’m the advance team. 50 chapters in, and the male lead’s a lunatic. No chance of reform—how is this supposed to be romance? Bought it on sale and now I regret wasting my coins.
Scrolling endlessly through the flaming comments, Ji Hye let out a dry laugh.
“Wow. That guy’s the male lead? And there’s not even a ‘remorseful male lead’ tag. If he never regrets anything, what’s even the point of reading this?”
As Ji Hye kept scrolling,
MeowNeedsLitter (xxxx* * *): Even if it’s a remote village, how is there no staff stationed at a duke’s villa? Is it really plausible that an injured duke would die from excessive blood loss? Clearly, the duke’s the real male lead—if he dies, this novel’s completely ruined.
└ User00 (xxxx* * *): Zero plausibility. I’m dropping this.
Noticing this comment, Ji Hye realized that even after 50 chapters, readers still didn’t know who the true male lead was.
‘Just as I thought.’
“I can tolerate a lot—but implausible writing? That’s unforgivable. I’m skipping this.”
She absolutely refused to get stressed out by web novels meant for escapism.
Feeling inexplicably gloomy, Ji Hye turned off her phone screen.
While others celebrated Friday nights with family, lovers, or friends, she stood alone, a boxed soju dangling from her lips—how pitiful she felt.
Watching seemingly happy people around her, lost in thought while tipsy, Ji Hye was about to cross the street at the traffic light.
Screeeech, BOOM! They say time flows differently at the moment of death.
Feeling her body lift off the ground, Ji Hye’s eyes landed on her phone screen.
The lock had apparently unlocked—and displayed was the novel’s synopsis she’d just read.
In that panoramic stretch of elongated time, one line seized her attention:
— On her twenty-third birthday, having become the Crown Prince’s fiancée, her fate was already sealed.
Why did that exact line catch her eye in her final moments?
In the next fleeting instant, Kim Ji Hye opened her eyes once more—in the year 296 of the Solatarius Imperial Calendar.
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
_____
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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MANGA DISCUSSION
4 Comments
Chapter Comments (87)
Why run away now? She had plenty of time. It would have been better if she had run away before her coming-of-age ceremony.
From the prologue, seems like cp and duke are mad characters 😂
Here’s hoping she is successful in her escape plan!
Inline Comments (41)
It was the hand of a newborn.
I actually prefer when the character tranmigrates/reincarnates as a baby. It makes me not feel bad for the person they may have possessed if the life hasn’t been lived yet and the family who loved said person not knowing that person is gone.
As time passed, Ji Hye gradually realized she herself was the tiny infant in the
Wow, a new cliché! She’s reincarnated as a little girl instead of an adult. I think this is a good opportunity to escape.
House Credion had not originally been a prestigious noble family.
All I can think of when I read the name Severus is Severus Snape. 😅😂
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Blairwoods
I also like to read comments on naver and kakao. I just read a novel which the male lead made me react like those comments 😂 ‘how can author make him the ml or he is trash thar can’t be recycled’ so real 😂
Apu
She said “this is love”- do you think this means she realized she loved the Duke. Or is she mocking the Duke’s love for her? A love she can’t escape never escape from.
Artemtisforaday
Here I am, reading a other transmigration novel… Will I stop? Nope. Let’s hope this one is a good one!
Miioo
Poor Ji-hye, why did she have to switch to a novel she hadn’t even read?