Narrow alleys lined with shabby houses.
The rain that had fallen from the night before to noon left traces everywhere.
Little feet busily fluttered over small puddles formed here and there on the uneven ground.
“At this rate…….”
The sound of feet slapping the wet ground stopped.
The girl crouched on the ground and looked at her face in a broken mirror from various angles. The girl who was looking intently at the mirror soon became tearful.
“What is this?”
She started crying involuntarily.
Her cheeks were gaunt from living on the streets for a long time, and due to the noisy sky all night, she had black shadows under her eyes from lack of sleep.
As if that wasn’t enough, her forcibly cut hair was disheveled and unruly.
The girl gripped her jaggedly, messily cut hair.
It seemed like her somewhat feminine appearance had completely disappeared, and she felt sick to her stomach.
“I hate it.”
The girl, dissatisfied with her appearance, propped her chin between her knees and sighed deeply. The squalor that caught her lowered gaze was even more pitiful.
The ragged clothes covering her skinny body were grubby, and what was on her small feet was barely worthy of being called shoes.
‘I’m awful.’
There was much about her that was awful, not just what was reflected in the mirror and what she saw with her eyes.
Her body showed almost no secondary sexual characteristics, due to not eating properly, making her seventeen years of age meaningless, along with her small height and somewhere stunted behavior and voice.
Different from her peers, immature in everything, the voice of the pickpocketing gang leader floated in her mind.
‘You’re just right now. You can’t grow any bigger. People will pity you and give you more money if you look young. Act like a younger child. Do as that child does, follow her.’
A conveniently small height, an appearance that made it difficult to determine her age, childish behavior.
‘Yes. This appearance is better for gaining sympathy.’
It was better to survive like this.
Even thinking this way, the girl clenched her chapped lips and gritted her teeth.
Every day inside her, the desire for a better life and growth fought against the fear of the leader and the determination to obey him.
In the end, the latter always won in the miserable reality.
The girl’s unusually large eyes filled with tears at the frustrating realization that she had no choice but to succumb to reality, but knowing that crying with such squalor would only make her look more pitiful, she forcibly swallowed her tears and moved energetically.
“Uh! It’s cold.”
The girl who reached out her hands to catch the falling rainwater flinched. The falling rainwater was quite cold with her dry hands, but she didn’t draw them back, even though they were trembling from the cold.
The girl who stubbornly caught the water washed her face with a puffing sound.
“Eeeew.”
The sound of pain escaped, and her dried cheeks and tiny, protruding nose turned red.
If she were too dirty, people would avoid her, so the girl didn’t stop and bustled about.
The girl who had scrubbed her face satisfactorily looked down at the broken mirror again.
“Is it a little better than before?”
Perhaps because her skin had turned red, it seemed to have more color than before.
Turning her face this way and that, comparing it to before, she heard the sound of a bell tolling in the distance.
The bell tolling to tell the time resonated in the cold air of the northern part of the Aserion Empire as winter approached, in Avalon.
Four bell tolls. It was already 4 PM.
“I don’t have time for this. I have no hair to sell now, so I must hurry.”
The girl had grown up in a pickpocketing den, but she had no talent for pickpocketing.
However, she had no place else to go, so she filled her quota by begging and clinging to the pickpocketing den.
The pickpocketing gang leader always scolded her with, ‘You useless thing with nothing to show for it but a sullen eye! I’m going to sell you!’
‘I’m worthless, who would buy me?’ she would think, but fearing she might fall into a worse place, the girl ran out of the shabby alley in a fluster.
“The rain was just falling a while ago; it would be nice if today would be a little forgiving.”
The girl sighed and clutched her starving belly, adding force to her hopping.
It was already late, so she had to move a little faster.
Otherwise, she would not only get scolded by the boss but also fail to get a single piece of dry bread.
There were no traces of disappointment in her own hunger on the girl’s face. Only desperation for life remained.
‘A little faster. Faster.’
Her small body skillfully wove through people and passed by.
Between her tiny lips, white breath leaked out, creating a faint trail before disappearing.
“Haa. Haa.”
A faint white mist repeatedly formed and broke from her dry lips, and when her wornout shoes became a bit more torn, the girl, who had been running strongly, suddenly stopped.
“Eh!”
Her already large eyes grew even larger.
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
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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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