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 pe*ophilic 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 !

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.

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.

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.

The priest. She says he's the father of her child. How ridiculous is it that she was okay with that?! She's a married woman to an imperial member and told her husband that she cheated and got a child. That would be a death sentence for her, her "lover" and her child. That's the worst way to get away from him. The imperial family and ML could have executed them and nobody would have refused. Because that's the kind of society she lives in (her mother was kidnapped, rapped, and treated like a toy by a powerful noble. Shouldn't she remember how power is everything here?). And by saying so even if her and her child is okay, a priest who went against his oath and became the lover of a married woman, an imperial woman at that. He would be burned to a stake by it's own religion if not humiliated, tortured and died a dog death... But it's okay for her because he wants to help her and he's nice. I felt angry that she just feel she's the miserable one there.

The child. She changed his face and confess his not his so that ML doesn't know he's his son. She and ML are both illegimate children and now how they are treated in society and how much it brought her pain but she's totally okay with her child being treated the same way. I'm speechless. I suppose she thought that her love for a child is enough or that she could escape. But it doesn't feel right to me that she gamble on her child life and happiness. She could have totally said that she felt afraid that he won't let her keep the child, then tries to run away. I don't even want to talk about how she left him to ML when she didn't believe ML loved her (like did you leave your child to a man you told you cheated and that is not his?)

Not that bad actually and he has it worst than her. He was not loved and treated as a enemy by his familly. Got poisonned from 6 to 17 y-o (11 years !!), and thow to a battlefield. How could a child feels thinking he would die everydays and that he's not needed. Before losing his emotions, he had no positive ones (only distrust, despair, hate and self-loathing) and after he lost them, he would have felt rational but with a base of negative feeling to himself and others. It's a miracle that he didn't turn much more twisted.

And he didn't trust her, can we blame him? She slept with him when he was attacked and rather than saying the truth (even without telling the true identities of the villains) she lies she loves him. First it's a bad move because it left the villain to roam free. Second, it makes her suspicious. He think she's a spy and I would totally think so too. She never learned his trust (keep saying she loves him when her first declaration was a lie... a bit cheap to believe her, especially when she sees him little and when she did, he's sarcastic (at last that how it would feel if we didn't read the FL inner thougths)). She never tried to gain it either only confessing her love to a man who have never felt any kind of love.

He claims to be good and to love is brother but actually feels like an hypocryte. He hurts his brother with his words, helped her sister-in-law knowing how desperate the ML searched he hides the truth. Says the child can be his son (and never told him it was his before ML learns the truth himself).

Also at some point he learned what his mother did. And went to ask forgiveness to FL *silent scream* maybe I didn't read it but he never said sorry to his brother when HIS mother harmed and HE harmed him himself. Unbelievable. His confession was just to be forgiven by someone unrelated and make him "right" to side with FL. Yes ML is tr*sh sometimes and FL needs help but that the help came from him gives me a bad taste. He should stay by his brother side for once. He lived happy and protected (well not entirely but far more than FL or ML) and got power through his brother pain and sacrifice.

And actually, he could have given advices to FL and ML, tried to help them by bringing them together but no, he mostly stays as a bystander and only help FL run away.

I'm not saying he shouldn't help FL (but not like that), to say he loves his brother when all he did his whole life was hurting him intentionnally or not... that's the worst. The ML might be bad for what he did to FL but he has never been loved, can't feel emotions in 1st act and when he did he told the FL he was sorry and slowly tried to gain her trust and love back.