The general plot of the novel is that the FL, Evelina, is the daughter of a man who was responsible for the death of the ML, Kaiden's mother. Well, actually she's his adoptive daughter. She was adopted due to her striking resemblance to the Marquis' late daughter, but eventually he and his wife start to love Evelina as herself rather than just a replacement for their daughter. When Kaiden inevitably brings about the fall of her family, Evelina naturally assumes her death is coming too, but against all odds, Kaiden brings her in as a mistress/concubine/lover/whatever.

For example, Kaiden makes it very clear that he intends to make Evelina his Empress some day and that whatever child she gives birth to will become the future Emperor. He has even stated if she were to give birth to girl, then their daughter would become the sole reigning Empress with total claim to the throne. He made that explicitly clear on several occasions.

However, after his sister gets it in Evelina's head that there's 'another woman', she starts to bring those claims into question. So whenever he says 'whatever child the Empress gives birth to will take the throne in the future', Evelina starts to think 'Oh, I guess his other woman is pregnant.' It is utterly infuriating to watch this interaction happen at least three times.

The novel prefaces all of this by saying Evelina's trust in Kaiden is muted because she has reason to believe he would hate her on account of how her father was involved in his mother's death. And so she takes all of his kindness as being some kind of trick to bring her up to heaven only to throw her back down to hell as a form of ultimate revenge. However, in terms of his actual behavior towards her, Kaiden has shown her nothing but love, kindness, and support. At least up until the whole running away thing.

She claims she cannot trust him because he may harbor ill intentions towards her, but then she's so quick to trust the words of his harpy sister who clearly hates her?

From his perspective, he was completely in love with this woman, showered her with affection, making plenty of wonderful promises he intended to keep, and painting a rosy future with her, and when he thought she reciprocated his feelings, now he's finding out that she toyed with his heart and was pregnant with someone else's baby? I'd be angry, too!

Evelina kept telling herself she couldn't trust Kaiden because of this belief that he must hate her because of her father, but then so easily allowed the words of his sister and the Empress Dowager to cloud her judgment. Evelina not trusting Kaiden would make sense given the circumstances, but why was she quick to believe in the words of people who openly treat her like garbage and base her entire choice around them?

Rather than fake being in love with Kaiden, would it not have been better to just talk? Instead she utterly trampled on this man's heart when he personally gave her no reason to think he hated her. She just assumed he did based on information that was being fed to her by people who openly hated her.

+ Poor pacing

+ Poor character motives

+ Drawn out misunderstandings that are incredibly convoluted

+ Cyclical character development (they all end the exact same way they started, despite experiencing things that should change them)

+ Flat characters

Honestly, I hate delusional tr*sh female leads. She has lots of problems and all things happen because she imagines that ML would do this to her. When he clearly made himself clear from the beginning that he likes her. Otherwise, why will he forgive her parents who killed his mother, made his life hell, and tried to kill as well as inhumanely torture him since he was a baby.

I feel like the female lead is hypocrite. Her feigned family made his whole life hell, still just because he loves her, he forgave their crime. But here she's chanting every time to ML to let her family go. And using his feelings while pretending to love him so that he'll give her bit*h family power and they can go abroad. She's such a snide. I think this seems barbed to ML who lost everything for her family.

He expresses his love to her all time, but she doesn't believe him who always respected her but believes in half-sister's words who is humiliating and abusing her from the beginning. Like how much delusional can you be?

I understand how far her doubt goes, but this make me feel like it's a crime patrol scene where a person kills another just because he had a doubt. Only by talking it could be solved but she just has to run away and make the reason behind so many people's mu*ders.

I only rated 2 for Kayden and the hard work of translator. Otherwise, this novel doesn't deserve any rating!

his own children with FL.

Despite everything FL does, I found the way he treated her when she returned uncomfortable to read. He acts deliberately cruelly to get back at her, including killing innocent people and violently forcing her in bed (implied as dubcon but certainly feels like noncon). Rather, it proved she had good reason to be scared of him all along. I really don't get why FL wouldn't double down her efforts to run away at that point. She briefly considers that he might actually kill her, but then goes back to being in love. Because it was "her fault she made him that way". Like, it kind of was, but he's obviously still a madman who would easily snap a second time.

anorexic,

She wakes up from a seizure to ML sobbing over her body and thinks "wow he must be really sad thinking I died on my own before he could finish his revenge" like seriously girl???

The stuff about birds flocking around FL and the magic blood was what really made me roll my eyes at how "special" she is. Why do birds love her, to the extent that they choose to live with her cage-free and even hawks are affectionate with her? Who knows. Why does her blood purify water? Does it do anything else, like curing wounds? When was it first discovered? Did the Marquis know she had magic blood before he adopted her? Again, WHO KNOWS. This is by far the biggest dropped plot thread. The blood could be interesting but it just ends up being another reason for everyone to want her.