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MC - Navier, The Empress - A calm, intelligent and an inspiring empress a country wish to have. A good colleague whom you can depend on any situation - and a workholic.

Due to that she failed in "lovely wife" aspect and sov (her ex-husband) not understanding her, even though they practically grew up together - is an unforeseen misfortune in her (& their) life. But People who understood her, starts flocking over her like bees over flower -Eg: Princess Sue, Grand duke Kaufman, Prince Heinley.... Etc

Sov, the Emperor (MC's ex-husband) - Though he certainly has qualities to be an Emperor, he acted more of a spoiled brat, when rashta got involved. His "new pet" syndrome is too severe. I really wonder what he learned during his crown prince education, at times.

Even after witnessing the dirty war which generally happens between Empress & Concubines - he brought a concubine and placed unreasonable requests and thus made arguments with Empress. He is idiotic. And everything went out of his control, before he realizes his mistake and reconcile with Navier..... Thus drastically altering (affecting) his and his people's future.

Rashta - a former s*ave (s*x s*ave?) to Empress of Eastern Empire. She had her 'reasons' to do whatever she did, though her mindless jealousy/ignorance caused many problems, whom to blame she didn't had a proper upbringing. Lived and grown with low lives, thus she accustomed to low lives habits.

It's a shame, she avoided good people's counselling in her Palace time. She had a chance to live a safe and secure life with dignity, which she always wished for.... Alas, she wasted it.

Heinley, ML - a calm, cheeky and cunning schemer yet has a 'good' side to him. Though he is devious and manipulative, he is 'true' to Navier and his lovesick tantrum were fun and refreshing for MC.

First, you have your typical green tea bit*h Rashta, a runaway s*ave either born into s*avery or a former criminal, it's not really clear yet and may never be addressed. Her only real skills are knowing how to manipulate men and make people sympathize with her. Not bad, but it leaves her rather unprepared to deal with actual politics and when this side fails it leaves her with no other cards to play. You can see that she actually kind of admires Navier and wants to imitate her, but Navier's attitude and abilities were cultivated over years and can't be picked up that easily. She isn't s*upid, but she IS ignorant, and it's a major hurdle for her. She doesn't even really seem to be aiming for much: She just wants to live a comfortable life where she's respected by the nobility and free from being ab*sed. For a former s*ave, that really isn't asking for anything crazy. At this point, she isn't aiming to be empress because, well, she doesn't need to be empress to be happy. She just wants someone to care about her and doesn't really mind dragging other people down to bring herself up, such as her slander against Tuania or making Navier look bad. The son of a relatively minor villain put it best: You want to save her because she seems trapped in the mire, but when you get close you find out she IS the mire.

Second, emperor Sovieshu, Navier's husband. While early on it seems as though he cares very little for Navier, the reason for his affair is at least understandable. While rather selfish and hypocritical, there are a lot of points where he shows that he depends on Navier and tries to reach out to her only for her to fail to respond, which leaves him feeling unloved. Mostly because he is unloved. As he points out, he would like to have an actual spouse and not just a business partner, but Navier's feelings only rise to the level of friendship and trust, an attitude that slowly degrades until she comes to find his mere presence saddens her since he's always showing more concern for his concubine. But the concern he shows for Rashta actually seems rather superficial in some ways. Who does he open up to? Who is the one that makes him jealous even as her conduct is much less questionable? Who does he actually respect? Navier on all three points. And if he trusts her less, it's only really because he's been blinded by some woman who keeps telling him exactly what he wants to hear. And as time goes by you can see him gradually growing suspicious of Rashta. He dotes on Rashta, but Navier seems like the one he actually loves. But he and Navier aren't compatible because he wants things from her that she can't and won't give him.

I pity him, a little, because at best he's going to destroy his relationship with the woman he actually loves and will be left alone and loveless through no one's fault but his own. After all, even if he felt unsatisfied with his relationship with Navier, taking in a concubine was not the way to address the situation. At worst, he's going to go berserk and end up dead.

Rashta totally lose her sh*t and go full on Caligula within like ten minutes without it even feeling like she's breaking character She's just going through a major breakdown after her paranoia and obsession with Navier and Sovieshu get the better of her and her old tricks don't really work anymore once she's an empress. It really shows the difference between wisdom and intelligence because Rashta is not s*upid, but she has no idea how to actually handle things or who to trust. Meanwhile, Sovieshu himself actually pulls himself together and is clearly deeply regretful of everything he has done and has finally realized what Rashta is truly like but... now it's too late. He's stuck with her.

... still I don't get with the high ratings, the plot isn't getting anywhere, the MC just like a dull mannequin... the rest are nah, gotta drop this click bait novel and what a waste of long and dragged chapters but still grateful to the translator.

(s*ave girl rescued by emperor who is married to cold, aloof empress; she is a breath of fresh air, a natural balm to Soviesh.i.t who doesn't get much love from his empress. They fall in love, get pregnant, and gets rid of the cold empress)

secrets notwithstanding,

Currently I found this book and binged even the mtl translated parts so right now I'm caught up to the actual number of releases..

Despite my apparent fervor for this book, it's not quite giving me what I want satisfaction wise.

Inside of the translated version it takes around chapter 158 for the topic of divorce to even be discussed... thus for the previous 158 chapters (split of course) you have to suffer through an "innocent" s*ave ascending the throne as the empress and emperor who's delusions is probably as big as his kingdom. I'm not sure if this would be a problem for others, but my heart hurt for our MC, Navier. She had to deal with the white lotus constantly getting her in trouble (which most of the time she didn't even do) and the emperor defending the white lotus. Even after her re-marriage to the ML does the the s*upid emperor and the vicious empress try to harm her.

I essentially just wish we had more pay off with these characters instead of all this dragging around. The most I have gotten as remorse is the emperor crying saying that he misses Navier (while still being with the white lotus and excusing every evil thing she tries to do) and set ups to what is hopefully the downfall of the white lotus.

I might continue reading this book for now it gets a 3 by me.