not like the typical cliche that "He WaS tHe OnLy GoOd MeMoRy FrOm her SaD cHiLdHoOd, or He WaS tHe FiRsT pErSoN to To EvEr tReAt HeR gOoD, since before meeting him, she already had a nice friend so it's not like she never expirienced kindess so WHY'???

What even is this set up? For a while there, I sincerely thought I was the idiot because none of it made a single lick of sense to me. The ML, hereby known as Alexis, is the illegitimate son of the Emperor who is hated by the current reigning Empress because of the threat he poses to her son's (the Crown Prince) reign. Alexis hates his half-brother (who turns out to be his half-sister, but that's neither here nor there), hates the Empress, and is on the extreme defense when it comes to anyone he suspects of being on her side.

Because of the Empress, he suffers from the effects of a drug that strip him of his emotions, the effects of which can only be warded off with a certain kind of flower. His coldheartedness towards the FL, hereby known as Kathleen, is largely attributed to this.

With that in mind, this is how the story actually starts.

Kathleen, after being ousted from her home, becomes a kitchen maid for the pedophilic Duke whose eye she catches. Her friend, Emily, gets killed trying to protect her and through wonders, Kathleen manages to turn back time to before Emily's death. Determined to stop her friend from dying, Kathleen goes to save Alexis, the original heir to this position, to prevent his death and allow him to succeed the title instead.

Doing so results in Alexis becoming a massive horn-dog for Kathleen and they end up sleeping together. Honestly, the dub-con is seriously questionable because Kathleen was stated as "allowing it" because she "understood his feelings" but that was from Alexis' perspective and Kathleen seemed pretty shaken after the fact, but regardless.

Kathleen runs away but to no avail because Alexis discovers her identity shortly thereafter and forces her to become his wife for reasons that still feel like long stretches to me:

1.) He suspects her of being an agent for the Empress (even though she saved his life??) and wants to keep her by his side so that he can monitor her (even though there are way easier ways to do that besides marrying her??)

2.) He does not wish to have children and a Duchess with whom he cannot have children is ideal. But this point of order is SO STRANGE because he threatened her into marriage before he knew she was barren and could just as easily find another woman to fit the bill and just not sleep with her.

The whole lead up to them actually getting married makes no amount of sense to me. Suspend your disbelief with this one because I really don't get it. The fact that he still has so many doubts about her despite seeing her get berated by the Empress is so strange. I guess he still doubts her because she's close with his brother/sister but that just paints him like an idiot rather than a cunning man who served on the battlefield considering he's never able to properly look at all angles; instead choosing to run recklessly forward with his surface level assumptions.

The leads quite honestly have NO chemistry. I don't get why they love each other nor do I really see what is likable about them that would endear them into love with one another. Since we're walking in with the understanding that they'd going to end up together irregardless of the bad they've gone through, then you'd think we'd at least be given reasons as to why they're choosing each other again.

The moment where Alexis realizes Kathleen's love for him was true and that he loved her in return falls super flat. It didn't feel earned, in fact nothing in this novel really does. It's like watching dolls interact with one another; romance for the sake of romance; without any of the character building to make it feel worthwhile.

Neither of them have strong enough characters to actually carry the story, but I'd argue that Alexis has a stronger character than Kathleen does. I struggled to feel sympathy for her, not because what she went through wasn't terrible or because I felt like she deserved it, but because it's easier having sympathy for a tree being cut down. Her character is so weak that I just feel nothing towards her. It's like kicking a pebble down the road, I'm not going to feel sorry for a rock.

Building off the last point, their child, Luci, is pointless. He's only a infant which means he obviously isn't going to have much character in the story, but my god, he only exists to give Alexis a reason to impede on Kathleen's life. The way he clung to Alexis, a stranger, over going to his own mother is the weakest and laziest way to give Alexis a reason to stick around, not to mention it makes blatantly no sense.

You cannot sense blood ties. Blood ties are meaningless. I hate it when novels use any iteration of "oh, the child can sense they're related". No, they can't. Infants cry like the dickens when they're separated from what is familiar to them, so Luci choosing to stay with Alexis over wanting to return to his own mother just to force a bond between Alexis and Luci is unbelievably lazy writing.

There was a scene where Alexis decides to include Luci's name on the list of those who would be spared the Empress' purge, and it was supposed to be this magical moment where Alexis thinks back on the child and feels some kind of emotion for him, but it didn't feel earned at all. The connection was so forced by the narrative to give Alexis a form of humanity beyond Kathleen that it didn't feel genuine in the slightest.

she leaves him pretty early like 20 + chap. So ML suffering starts earlier which is a good reason to give this a try, and I must say I really love their child luci !! And there’s this great secret about crown prince !

I know being sick can not justify what the ML did to FL. But when I think about it over again, I guess he never directly intended to hurt FL and by seeing his actions after he's starting to get cured and realized what he did....... idk maybe I just can feel the ML's emotions and how he deeply his regrets are, and how he's really going to change and is trying hard for the FL that at some point my heart starting to feel his ache too :") I guess reading the later chapter also got me a bit frustrated with all the lacks of communications between the couple that resulting in me writing this review here now ;A;

edit: Reaching almost chapter 100 now and I promise its getting better and better now. still recommend! :)

The author just used Trope of 'numb to emotion' for ML to become jerk, cold, and indefferent to FL because he cannot feel love, but forget that he HATE the Empress, or he TRUST the butler&aide. Heck he even buy a lot of women clothes for FL when he still believe she are empress spy. Like, what?

and that just the ML alone, the FL, the Empress, even the prophecy are don't make sense

MC thought ML was cheating on her, she heard them inside a hut where ML was groaning and a woman was moaning, but actually that woman was a pharmacist who was only treating ML's wounds and the the woman is also getting hurt in the process (she even had scratches lmao that why she was moaning because of pain lmao) ML has this posin in his blood I think that needs to be treated, but I think MC could treat him coz she's a fairy? Ice queen ahaha

hope this gets translated soon.

Axe number: she says his life and when he asks her why, instead of giving a genuine answer she lies. She tells such a contemptuous lie I can’t even blame the guy for misunderstanding her and being suspicious. You tell me you’re a good digger and you think I’m not gonna treat you like one, get out. +Let it be noted she started the relationship on lies first

axe number two: she has a kid, runs off for three years and then lies to husband’s face and says it’s another man’s. If he was as heartless as her father just that would have gotten her head lopped off. But because he loves her he’s willing to tolerate the child of another man. Hats off to simp king.

axe number three: she boohoos and cries about him locking up her powers with the stones. Not even gonna mention the thoughtful reason why he’s actually doing the sh*t, this idiot FML doesn’t even remember all the times she tried to ditch him with said powers. So what if he contained your powers, it’s less about disgust and more because you’ve proven yourself to be a flight risk. What he was just supposed to trust you to stay when every giving moment you keep ranting about some priest, mind you said priest you claim is the real baby daddy of said child. Get outta here!

axe number four: fML manages to be gone for a whole year without her child. She’d selfishly rather off a cliff and possibly die than be with main lead and her child. I guess her personal freedom is worth more than her child, go figure. She was already proud to deprive him of a father so there’s that.

1. Definitely the going back to time at the start. Tbh, 54 chapters in and it wasn't mentioned again after 3 times. It's something that you'd think even the author forgot they put as a beginning plot, it's just that that plot device was so irrelevant to the way the story was going that you could actually avoid killing MC off and having her go back in time to avoid her death. 💀💀 This whole part felt so forced honestly. I mean granted, it did make her end up in another hole which was sleep with the Duke but there definitely were better ways to have her sleep with the duke than that way bc it just felt so off💀💀, like falling in a hole and getting out of it only to fall into a deeper hole type of off.

2. The aristocrat in disguise as a maid. Don't even get me started with this one💀 I don't blame ML for thinking MC as a spy because it's too much of a coincidence to have a maid sleep with him just so happens to be a count's daughter. I felt like there was a better way to approach this, either having MC as a maid/commoner or an actual illegitimate child (was she an illegitimate child? I dont remember)

3. Then we have the empress, whom im sure lacks the appropriate brain cells. If she knew that the reason for the natural calamities was due to the prophecy of the kingdom needing 2 royal biologically MALE heirs ALIVE with 3 of them including: 1 dying emperor (her husband), 1 crown prince that is actually female which she forced to act as a dude to get the throne (her child WHICH technically doesn't count seeing as the cp isn't biologically a male), AND the duke WHOM SHE TRIED TO KILL MULTIPLE TIMES, why did she still follow through her assassination attempts towards the duke/ML even after knowing that the whole kingdom would be destroyed after killing him? Dmb mf.