| Korean Title | 변주곡, 회귀물의 최대 피해자에게 빙의했다 (Original) |
| Author | Cremona |
| Tags | Age Gap Couple, AU/AR, Antagonist/Evil Role/Evil Woman, Big Taffy, Contract/Strategic Marriage, Control/Fixation/Obsession, Girl Crush, Lust to Love, Munchkin, Possession, Puppy & Kitty, Regrets/Regretful Male/Female, Reincarnation, Roll the Male/Female, Secret of their birth, Time Reversal/Timeslip |
| Status | Read through it all |
| Sweet potato/Cider ratio | Some kind of a weird mushy sweet potato |
| Media mix | Webnovel (Complete) |
| Notes | I hope you have some painkillers for a headache before reading this. |
A detailed run-through of the storyline:
A late 20s/early 30s Korean lady by the name of Yeon-Ah, freshly murdered by her boyfriend, has awoken in the body of Yvgenia Castia, daughter of Marquis Castia. It was right at the moment her fiance, Duke Hayden Leatore, came over to her to announce breaking off their engagement as well.
In a weird case of “ehhhhhh is this possible even”, the lady immediately forgets her original name, and seamlessly identifies as Yvgenia to the point of forgetting her name. First of all, she agrees to break off the engagement (and in the process asks her father and her older brother to sue the Duchy into the ground in breach of contract). Then, she basically rolls around in the house doing absolutely nothing for a month while narrating (or going over in her head, I guess) exactly what is going on.
According to the protagonist, she is a minor side character in a romance/fantasy novel set in 18th Century Europe with ~magical powers~. The main protagonist is a girl named Elizabeth, and the novel tells the story of Elizabeth, who at one stage was a Baron’s mistress, then goes through trials and tribulations to become the wife of Hayden and eventually be recognised as having the royal bloodline, and becoming Emperor. Yvgenia’s role in this? After having her engagement broken off by Hayden, she dies a few months later, presumably by suicide from being heartbroken. In-novel Yvgenia and Hayden were childhood friends with close bonds who grew into lovers, allegedly. Until Hayden met Elizabeth and fell in love with her.
Well, New And Improved Yvgenia(TM) doesn’t want any of that shit really. She wants to live, but she has no illusions about High Society which she finds annoying and greatly bothersome, and all she wants to do is laze around the house and read – which is fine and fair enough of today’s women who are born into wealthy and powerful households, not so much for Rococo-Era ladies who were already previously engaged and expected to marry to a suitable household.
As part of the settlement negotiations of that breach of marriage contract, a company that purely exists for the purposes of importing, storing and supplying tea to the imperial palace is given to the Castia family, who in turn bestows it solely in Yvgenia’s name. This is an extremely unusual approach at the time (both historically in our universe and in the setting), given that women often did not directly own property.
You would think the moment “I am not going to off myself” was a possible option and not enforced by the novel would tip off Yvgenia to the fact that HEY SOMETHING IS DIFFERENT, but unfortunately, no. Actually, a lot of things are different. To begin with, Elizabeth is not introduced as the mistress of Baron Spece, but as the Baron’s adopted daughter (and not too long after, Baron Spece passes away of what is externally known as old age + combination of longstanding degenerative medical conditions) and successfully becomes engaged to Hayden Leatore as well as using Hayden’s influence to win the succession rights to become Baron Spece. Elizabeth reaches abnormally fast levels of growth compared to major events in the novel as well – without being taught the manners and etiquette of nobility, she is able to perform it perfectly.
Hayden Leatore for his part, despite the fact that he burst into Yvgenia’s house to announce breaking off the engagement and externally proclaiming to be madly in love with Elizabeth Spece, is cold and standoffish, even snappish to Elizabeth in private and uses the handover of the tea trading company to Yvgenia to cling on to her and try to apologise and suck up to her (earning Elizabeth’s ire in the process). It is quickly revealed that Elizabeth turned up one day and gave Hayden tips/predictions based on what she knew of the future, and informed Hayden that Yvgenia will die soon, and the only way to prevent her death is to break up with Yvgenia.
Elizabeth, through an internal monologue, reveals to us the reason behind her abnormally fast character development at odds with the pace of story progression: this is something like her nth time reversal, and just as she was able to settle into her best life with her loving husband et cetera, one day she would wake up back before she gained it all. Through repeated lives (playthroughs?) she has figured out several things, including the fact that the presence (or absence of) a certain ring that was normally stored in the imperial vaults may have something to do with it. Throughout her lives, she also became increasingly obsessed and attached to the fiery love and relationship she shared with Hayden, her status as Crown Princess and eventual Emperor, and any factors that would get in the way of those things. Accordingly, she saw Yvgenia as a thorn in her path who must die in order for the timeline to progress normally, as well as becoming increasingly anxious at the fact that unlike previous lifetimes, Hayden in this timeline does not care for her at all and only goes after Yvgenia.
While all of this is going on, Yvgenia… does nothing. She attends a few tea parties? She somehow encounters Grand Duke Elliot Fitzroy, who was, as far as the webnovel she read, was a villain role who eventually tried to stage a coup against the throne, failed and was executed by Elizabeth.
Grand Duke Elliot Fitzroy has a strange position in the novel. For years, the right of succession has been to the royal offspring who was capable of manifesting magical powers, inherited from the female founder of the empire, who is deified within the empire but is heavily implied throughout the novel to be a sage from the Kingdom of Loxio.
As the vast majority of royal offspring are capable of manifesting some level of magical powers (it seems the trait is hereditary and dominant), the type of magical powers being manifested also had an effect on where you placed in the line of succession. Elizabeth, for example, manifested light, which was considered to be a top tier rank for whatever reason.
Elliot, and his father prince Gabriel Alviter Helleas, both manifest the power of fire. Due to there being a tyrant some time in the Empire’s history who wielded the power of fire (despite the fact that there were also emperors widely praised to be good also wielding the power of fire), any wielder of the power of fire was seen as a bad sign and poor choice to succeed the throne.
Nevertheless, it is worth noting that in Elliot’s father’s generation, prince Gabriel was the only person who was capable of manifesting powers at all (even if it was fire) and the late Emperor declared Elliot’s father would succeed the throne, but before being able to make an official proclamation, passed away. The throne was accordingly usurped by the current emperor, prince Gabriel’s older brother (who is simply referred to as The Emperor throughout the novel and his actual name is not stated until like, nearly the end, which is Richard Charles Alviter Helleas), and Elliot’s father was chased away to Grand Duchy Fitzroy, which is an isolated region surrounded by mountains and deserts, basically for the purpose of exiling away any conflicting claims to the throne.
Due to the fact that the present Emperor did not have any manifesting powers, and also due to the fact that he did have an heir, Prince Louis, who also did not manifest powers and was sickly with constant, possibly congenital medical conditions, the Emperor sought to solidify his claim by exterminating the entire family line of Fitzroy, and at least for the purposes of the novel, quickly recognise and accept Elizabeth’s claim to the throne and declare her Crown Princess, and securing her position to the point of chasing his own son away to a region owned by the Emperor personally for the purposes of “hospice”.
By the time of the beginning of the novel, or at least this timeline Yvegenia was in. The Emperor was successful in murdering Elliot’s parents, and was constantly agitating or aggravating Elliot politically or economically in order to make an excuse that Elliot may become a traitor to the throne if he refuses any of the outrageous demands. Yvegenia, knowing this general situation, did not want to deal with it and therefore did not want to deal with Elliot either.
Once again, much faster than the original webnovel’s timeline (or previous lives Elizabeth had), Elizabeth proves her magical powers and she is immediately and quickly proclaimed to be Crown Princess, and once again Prince Louis is chased away out of the palace.
Despite the fact that Elizabeth is now the Crown Princess, which makes being engaged to Elizabeth extremely attractive, and the fact that Elizabeth being the main protagonist of the webnovel is the usual beautiful and wonderful yadda yadda, Hayden is sick of Elizabeth. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the main one seems to be that Elizabeth kind of took Hayden eventually falling madly in love with her for granted, and the behaviours and actions of someone who takes your affection for granted is extremely grating on someone who does not already love you.
Elizabeth for her part was getting extremely anxious. She believed that Hayden would come to love her, except that was being prevented by Yvegenia’s existence, and her death will be the catalyst that frees Hayden to love her. Of course, Yvegenia… still hasn’t died. No, she was quite obviously alive, mostly due to the fact that she was lazing around the house reading for the most part having weirdly worked in her favour.
So what did Elizabeth do? Attempt to murder Yvegenia several times, through trying to trigger Yvegenia into depression by hamming up lovey dovey acts with Hayden in front of her (Yvegenia didn’t care, primarily due to the trauma of being murdered by her boyfriend) and attempting to poison Yvegenia several times (this plot was foiled by Elliot who happened to attend the same social outings). To add insult to injury, these plots were noticed by Hayden, who was not only getting tired of, but quite disturbed by how far Elizabeth will go to make her ‘predictions’ come true, and begin to even suspect her hand in previous ‘predictions’.
At the end of her rope, Elizabeth petitions her father the Emperor to force all these people who are clearly beyond her sphere of control:
- She gets her father to blackmail Yvegenia Castia to marrying Elliot Fitzroy. As it turns out, the Castia family were traditionally the shadow servants of the Crown and currently basically the dogs of the Emperor, and worked for the purpose of not dirtying the Emperor’s hands in many dark plots, including the murder of Elliot’s parents. Yvegenia is blackmailed with her father and older brother’s lives, while her father and older brother is blackmailed with the list of all the things the Castia family did for the sake of the Crown.
- Elliot Fitzroy for his part, the forced engagement was part of the way to control/plant a spy in the Grand Duchy and also exerting control over him by forcing him to marry with a family who openly supports the current Emperor, and rejection of this being taken as a sign that he will betray the Crown and therefore an excuse to eliminate him.
- She forces Hayden to marry her. At this point in time, Hayden had humiliated her several times by openly declaring his distaste for her in several occasions and trying to cling on to or embrace Yvegenia in public, and the Emperor’s attitude to this was “do you really want this guy who wants nothing to do with you”. Elizabeth, fixated upon the past illusions of Hayden’s love for her in previous lifetimes, demands this.
Elliot meets with Marquis Castia and Yvegenia’s brother to negotiate the marriage contract. A curious clause is included in which it states that if Yvegenia wishes to break off the engagement for any reason whatsoever, the engagement will be broken off without any breach of contract to either party.
Apparently in the Empire, the popular tradition/custom is for the bride to visit and live at the groom’s house for a while (until the marriage ceremony preparations are complete) to learn the traditions, duties and whatnot of the family she will be marrying into. Yvegenia follows this tradition, and travels to Grand Duchy Fitzroy with her retinue, which both Yvegenia and Elliot strongly suspect include assassins and spies sent by the Emperor or Crown Princess Elizabeth and hatches a plot along the way to get rid of them.
Separately to this, Yvegenia informs Elliot that she is not in a position to be able to accept love or return love to anyone, and while she will fulfil her duties as Grand Duchess, she will not do any more than that. Elliot, at this point beginning to clearly fall in love with Yvegenia, basically nods along to placate her and thinks about how he could get her to love him in the long run. This discussion/condition Yvegnia sets out returns to bite them back later.
Yvegenia and Elliot arrive in the Grand Duchy, and although Yvegenia is initially seen as potential political enemy, she quickly ingratiates herself into the associated nobility. Her impeccable lineage, manners, the way she carries herself and her intelligence and ability to pick things up quickly impress her teachers (noble ladies who are tangentially related to royalty since Fitzroy, after all, is royalty), and everyone agrees the two are a wonderful match (except perhaps the minor nobles attached to the Grand Duchy who hoped to marry their daughter to Elliot – which makes, honestly, no sense whatsoever given that Elliot is effectively first in line to the throne and any noble who owe allegiance to a Grand Duchy are by default Count or lower, but whatever).
Yvegenia successfully pull off the plot to filter out all the spies/ assassins by pretending to be caught writing letters back to her parents which included trivial security information (eg guard schedules). This information is relayed back to Elizabeth and the Emperor separately, who are both incensed, and they both separately attempt to hatch plots to assassinate Yvegenia and Elliot.
The Emperor’s plot to assassinate Elliot comes first, when Elliot and Yvegenia do a tour of the Grand Duchy and its major trading hubs/ports as part of her bridal lessons. This is a straight up explosion in one of the foundries/metal working areas, which only causes minor injuries to both due to a scheduling change and immediately exposes the spies.
Elliot and Yvegenia then move to tour a port city, where coincidentally, the king of a neighbouring nation has been kidnapping women who have blonde hair and blue eyes (the reason for it is rather complicated and irrelevant, and vaguely involves being obssessed with a former love the king abused/mistreated to death). It is further stated that this is actually an uncommon combination in the Empire, but more common in another neighbouring Kingdom of Loxio, which faced the brunt of the kidnappings until relatively recently when Loxio increased their security. Prince Jeremiah Caligo from the Kingdom of Loxio, brother to the Queen of Loxio and a master wizard, was in charge of the investigations and was pursuing the kidnapper in the port city.
The port city is under the control of Count Murray, who reports to Grand Duke Fitzroy. Count Murray has two daughters, the eldest of which, Adriana, was largely expected to/is deluded into thinking that Elliot promised her hand in marriage, and was expecting to announce her engagement to Elliot alongside her social Debut this year. Naturally, she was upset to discover Elliot came with a fiancée and with some gentle urgings from Crown Princess Elizabeth, sought to peel away every bit of security detail from Yvegenia, made her to be separated from Elliot and her parents then enticed her out on to a shopping trip by egging on her younger sister into becoming stir crazy and wanting to go out for fresh air.
It is not explained fully exactly how Adriana Murray believed that 1) murdering Elliot’s fiancée would somehow make Elliot want to marry her or 2) how she expected her or her family to withstand Marquis Castia who successfully sued a Duke for breach of contract, and what with it being an open secret of how Marquis Castia was the one who murdered Elliot’s parents. The fact that Adriana is 16 this year (doing her Debut) may lead to the fact that teenage brains are stupid, but I rather lean more heavily on the idea that the author just likes to write these one-dimensional characters who literally have no thoughts going on unless they express it on the page.
Yvegenia spots a little crystal ball with a rose in it, said to be imbued with magical powers, and tries to buy that from the store when she is separated from Adriana and her younger sister just as according to keikaku or something. At this point in time, she encounters Prince Jeremiah Caligo, who advises her that the magic imbued in the crystal ball is badly done and is more likely to harm the owner than to benefit the owner, and that he will fix the magic on it.
Yvegenia has a random ass freak-out towards Prince Jeremiah, and starts having a bitch fit because clearly a well-dressed, loud person who draws attention upon themselves is the type to have been pulling off kidnappings. No, nobody in this entire fucking novel has two brain cells to rub in their heads. Coincidentally, actual kidnappers (and assassins hired by Crown Princess Elizabeth who wishes to use it as an excuse to get rid of Yvegenia) also happen upon Yvegenia right then and there, and in the chaos and confusion, Yvegenia threatens to jump off a cliff, is then pushed off the edge of said cliff, and is saved by Prince Jeremiah, upon which she promptly faints like the delicate noble flower she is. Ugh. I don’t know.
On account of the fact that Yvegenia threw a massive bitch fit and didn’t actually tell Prince Jeremiah who she was, Prince Jeremiah takes her unconscious body to a local hotel so she could recuperate, and shortly thereafter is captured by Elliot and Count Murray’s forces. As it happens, Marquis Castia and his wife also happened to be in the port city to broker a trade deal, and they essentially arrived and met with Elliot to find out that their daughter had been kidnapped.
Prince Jeremiah is accused of being the kidnapper who put Yvegenia in danger, and is put in handcuffs that restrict his magical abilities. This makes no fucking sense on eleventy different levels and once again shows that nobody here has a brain.
As previously mentioned, display of magical abilities is rare in the Empire, and as such, Prince Jeremiah’s abilities in and of itself is an irrefutable proof of his identity, even though Prince Jeremiah had no proof of identity on his person at the time. Placing handcuffs that restrict his magical abilities mean that they accept his claim that he is Prince Jeremiah of the Kingdom of Roxio at face value.
Furthermore, it is quickly revealed they were able to access the entry records of to the port city, and were able to identify him, as well as knowing the reason he has entered the port city (a diplomatic missive from the Kingdom of Roxio). Apparently, nobody cared to even open or read the diplomatic missive, and just let it rot there for however long.
To put it another way, they put on handcuffs on a foreign royalty with a diplomatic missive about a massive kidnapping problem who saved a noblewoman of their country for no reason whatsoever. Elliot retroactively justifies it as “he flirted with Yvegenia” while Yvegenia does nothing to help because 1) somehow she is still convinced that HE is the kidnapper/assassin (at this point in time, you have to wonder how does she not die of asphyxiation from forgetting to breathe) and 2) she finds him annoying.
The two have caused a major diplomatic incident that could potentially go to war, because they find this man mysteriously annoying for plot purposes. There is no rhyme or logic to this.
Shortly after this, an event occurs to entirely negate and nullify Elliot and Yvegenia’s entire justification of why they are being so stupid about this (namely, he is getting in the way of their blossoming romance, that thing they mutually agreed to not happen in their marriage).
Adriana Murray’s 16th Birthday/Debut ball is going ahead, and Adriana Murray has dressed herself as the splitting image of Yvegenia in dress, hair and style as Yvegenia was at her engagement party to Elliot. They even chose the same music to dance to. Due to a long-standing promise which Adriana insisted upon, Elliot is expected to escort Adriana who is dressed exactly like Yvegenia at her engagement party to the ball (though, I suppose, without the subsequent originally planned engagement announcement), and at least dance the first dance which is the same music. Even the halls of Murray Castle are decorated with the exact same colours and decorations as ones done in Yvegenia’s engagement party.
Nobody, literally nobody, raises a hand at this point up to say “Hol up, this is some fucked up shit yo”. Everyone who knows what is going on and is capable of saying no is in on this for some reason. Even Yvegenia, who realised what was going to happen because Adriana invited her to a dress fitting session to rub her face in it, shrugs and says “she can’t be expected to have a whole new dress done for her on such short notice so I won’t say anything”. Plus, she tells herself, the entire setting of the engagement party was under the guidance/preferences of her teachers and did not reflect her personal tastes at all, so it wasn’t like Adriana was really copying Yvegenia.
Marquis and Marquess Castia, who were not present at the engagement party held at Fitzroy Castle, would probably have kicked up a stink if they knew, but Yvegenia purposely did not tell them. Prince Jeremiah is nominated to escort Yvegenia on account of the fact that Elliot is escorting Adriana, and when Prince Jeremiah realises what is going on, he quietly expresses a what the fuck are all of you people smoking to Yvegenia and tells Yvegenia that this is not an engagement worth continuing, and she should seriously consider coming to Roxio with him, where she will live free to do whatever she wants.
Of course, because this novel has no concept of like, a coherent storyline or character development or even reasonable spacing for developing any attachment to a character whatsoever, Prince Jeremiah right after this lukewarm proposal knocks Yvegenia out, places her in a secret chamber and magically transforms his aide into Yvegenia (yay crossdressing!) to use as bait to flush out those kidnappers.
Elliot realises Yvegenia has disappeared at some point and immediately suspects the kidnappers. He launches a full on investigation and pursuit of those kidnappers, while Jeremiah meets up with the kidnappers to hand his aide who is transformed into Yvegenia over. Jeremiah suspects foul play, and literally blows out of the meeting, which exposes the meeting place that was a secret chamber behind a false wall in a gambling den. The ruckus alerts Elliot to the location, and they are soon able to hunt down and round up all the kidnappers.
All of this is reported back to the Queen of Roxio, who sighs, shrugs and says “do what you guys need to settle the score between yourselves”, while sending a formal apology to the Castias for what happened to Yvegenia. As a result, Jeremiah tags along with them and his magical abilities are used like a workhorse to install and operate various irrigation systems around the Grand Duchy in preparation for the oncoming drought (something Yvegenia randomly remembered as the cause of Elliot rebelling in the webnovel).
Yvegenia and Elliot (and Jeremiah) return to Castle Fitzroy and Elliot professes his love for Yvegenia in a grand fashion. Yvegenia has a full on panic attack and meltdown, then with the help of Jeremiah, escapes Castle Fitzroy under an assumed identity overnight and runs all the way back home to the Castia Estate and demand that her engagement to Elliot be broken off. Marquis Fitzroy is confused and upset, but for the sake of his daughter, enforces the escape clause and issues an intention to break off the engagement to Elliot.
Elliot rushes back to the capital where Castia Estate is, and demands to see Yvegenia to try and talk to her every day, but is turned away. Yvegenia at this point in time becomes deathly ill from the stress of being on the run and whatnot, and slips in and out of consciousness, upon which the author takes a segue to talk about Yeon-Ah’s life.
Yeon-Ah is explained to be of a girl who had uncommon beauty and accordingly, had a difficult life due to her beauty wherein all the girls were jealous of her and refused to take her seriously, while all sorts of men attempted various forms of sexual harassment and abuse at her. Particularly egregious were her string of boyfriends, one after another, emotionally and verbally abusing her or mistreating her in front of others to assert their dominance over her/showing her off, and eventually cheating on her and breaking up with her and then spreading rumours that she is an easy slut. Everyone around her is depicted as cruel and capricious and uses and abuses Yeon-Ah for their own means and ends, and does not care for the heartbreak she goes through.
Well, that is more the author’s take on the situation trying to present Yeon-Ah/Yvegenia in a positive light. Objectively reading the accounts, Yeon-Ah/Yvegenia is a shitty friend and an even shittier romantic partner.
Yeon-Ah literally does not care about the emotional aspect of anyone. When her friends compliment her looks, she takes it for granted and never compliments her friends back. When her friends call her out to meetups and group hangouts and whatnot, she never invites her friends over in return. When her friends call her or message her, she never calls back or initiates conversation.
The worst part out of all of this is, when her friends tell her things, she never listens. She consistently accepts and dates people her friends have said they are interested in, and introduced to her as someone they are interested in. It is also never explained why her friends show off Yeon-Ah to their boyfriends, if she has such a track record of ruining relationships. At the very least, it seems that near the end of it, only 2-3 friends stick with her after the gauntlet of friendship-testing.
Likewise, for every single one of her past romantic partners, she puts zero effort altogether, and acts as though her pretty face should be able to more than make up for everything. In some cases, she doesn’t even do the “bare minimum” like getting a birthday present for the guy she is dating, or even do so much as act happy and grateful in receiving a gift. Then she acts surprised/shocked when each of these boyfriends eventually betray her.
Which comes to the next point, Yeon-Ah never actually pursues anyone. She simply relies on her pretty face to lure all the guys in, and agrees to date whoever asks her out. Although it is not stated explicitly in the novel, it is heavily implied that the only reason she didn’t cheat on her previous partners is because of her 1) nonexistent libido and 2) it just so happened that nobody asked her out while she was in a relationship with someone else.
Which comes to the point of Yeon-Ah being murdered setting the beginning of the novel, as well as an explanation of Yeon-Ah/Yvegenia’s vague and frustratingly random trauma towards romance that made her break off two engagements.
Ever since high school, Yeon-Ah had a Nice Guy Best Friend Orbiter named Yeon-Woo (yay similar names), who saw her through all her painful romantic relationships and be her emotional dumping ground until she dates some other chad again, but kept his distance (and same for Yeon-Ah) because they didn’t want to ‘ruin their friendship’.
After a particularly harrowing breakup, Yeon-Woo can’t take it anymore and tells Yeon-Ah that he’s going to fuck off out of her life unless she dates him too. Yeon-Ah explicitly states her sexual orientation of “I will be a very prettily painted emotional vampire” to which Yeon-Woo says it’s fine.
Fast forward 5 years of them dating (much to the enduring support and relief from Yeon-Ah’s friends, who are constantly depicted by the author as scummy gaslighting cunts for zero reason). Just as Yeon-Ah starts thinking about “maybe I can actually start reciprocating in this relationship”, Yeon-Ah discovers that Yeon-Woo is cheating on her in a rather dramatic fashion wherein “the other woman”, several years his junior, approaches Yeon-Ah and asks that her emotional vampirism is killing Yeon-Woo and she should just let go.
Yeon-Ah has an explosive “how could you” moment with Yeon-Woo. I know, amazing. Yeon-Woo goes quiet, then admits yes, he has been cheating on her, yes, it has been very difficult those past years being her orbiter than direct victim of her emotional vampirism, and while he still loves her, he understands it is not working anymore and wishes to break up with her.
Interestingly and weirdly enough, this was the first time Yeon-Ah got dumped by someone. Yeon-Ah does the whole block Yeon-Woo from everything and scrub him out of her life thing, while Yeon-Woo realises that the girl he’s been cheating on Yeon-Ah with is purely there to provide the things Yeon-Ah would probably have given him eventually and goes back to Yeon Ah’s apartment with a knife to I don’t even know what because have I mentioned how intellectually bereft every character in this novel is.
Yeon-Ah and Yeon Woo have a confrontation, and talk it out, and they settle things. It’s kind of ambiguous as to whether they are now back to being friends or whether they are an item again or they just sought closure by talking it out. Yeon-Woo hugs Yeon-Ah, and because he was still holding the knife in his hand that he totally forgot about, he stabs Yeon-Ah in the chest and Yeon-Ah bleeds out to die while Yeon-Woo calls the ambulance.
It is also worth noting that this scene is entirely different from the flashback narrated way at the beginning of the novel.
Yvegenia recovers from her fits of unconsciousness and accumulated illness and somehow comes to the realisation that she loves Elliot back, but woe is her, it’s too late she already told her father that the engagement should be called off. No I don’t know how this process works.
She then immediately goes out and meets up with her ex, Hayden and flirts with him. This is splashed all over the newspapers and gossip rags. Incidentally, Hayden is now married to Crown Princess Elizabeth and uh, them two being around together and earning Elizabeth’s ire kind of triggered 80% of the troubles, but Yvegenia never fucking learns anything.
Elizabeth is mad and orders Yvegenia’s death by oleander poisoning, which she facilitates by placing the poison in an incense diffuser in her room, then sending Yvegenia to rest in that room. Yvegenia survives the poisoning, and in the process visits the sage and founder of the Empire, who informs her that she has been an unwitting victim of Elizabeth’s selfish repeated time reversals to get the “perfect life”, and this time, she is able to use her powers to intervene and stop the cycle.
Elizabeth also uses the fact that her room was where Yvegenia was poisoned to trap Elliot and Marquis Castia in a plot accusing them of trying to murder Elizabeth. A trial is held and Elliot successfully defends himself via the use of the crystal orb that Yvegenia bought ages ago at the port city and re-enchanted by Prince Jeremiah, who also attended the trial and brought out witnesses and Elizabeth’s co-conspirators.
Elliot also uses the publicity of the trial to drop a bomb: he was always aware of the Emperor’s plot to murder his parents and him, and he also held the decree that the late Emperor signed that stated his father should be the next Emperor.
In this variously messy and gross situation, the Emperor steps down and returns to his private estate with his Empress, where Prince Louis has been in hospice care. Elizabeth is imprisoned in a separate palace of exile, where the strain of all the previous time reversals combined with her utter failure in this life drove her insane. Hayden divorces Elizabeth, and declares he has had no part in all of this.
Elliot ascends to the throne as Emperor, and is heavily pressured by his court to break off his engagemment for good with Yvegenia, and marry Ariana Murray (why). Yvegenia is mad and sad that she dumped Elliot but she doesn’t actually want to fix the situation so she spends her days creating more scandals with Hayden.
Prince Jeremiah drags Yvegenia into a confrontation with Elliot, and in return, is able to visit the insane ex-Princess Elizabeth in the palace of exile. In the midst of her insane ramblings, Jeremiah is able to catch a few keywords about a ring (which, in this continuity, Elliot had), and fascinated with his suspicions of what is going on, returns to Roxio with the ring.
A few months later, Jeremiah sends a short message to Yvegenia stating simply that “the trigger for the ring’s activation is death”, and then an announcement of his passing is reported. It is heavily implied that Jeremiah killed himself to activate the ring and turn back time to save Crown Princess Elizabeth (to whom he has literally expressed zero attachment to, and at least in the context of this novel’s continuity, has met her for the first time at the trial).
Yvegenia randomly muses that while she was dying from oleander poisoning and met the sage/founder of the Empire, the sage/founder stated that the cost of time reversal, separate to its activation mechanism, is love – that they lose their lover. The author uses this moment to heavily imply that the reason Yvegenia had a difficult time loving Elliot was because Elliot used the ring in a previous iteration, and the reason Elizabeth could never obtain Hayden’s love was because she used the ring most recently. This part makes no sense, but really, what part of this novel made any sense?
Yvegenia and Elliot reconcile and marry, presumably living happily ever after, because clearly Yvegenia showed emotional development and maturity to not live as an emotional vampire and this is clearly the best outcome of the situation.
Opinions & Commentary:
People liked the author’s cool, calm writing style and the general development of the plot right up until… Yvegenia became engaged to Elliot. Most commentators agree that the novel reached its lowest point at the extremely random segue, and that the ending felt extremely rushed.
Opinions between readership split in two sharply. There were the people who were infinitely understanding of Yeon-ah/Yvegenia and empathised strongly with her “I had a difficult life because I was too pretty for the world”, then there were many mother others who commented on how nobody in this entire novel had two brain cells to rub together, and they could not stand it.
A lot of the characters’ stated thoughts and then the actions they proceed to take make no sense whatsoever, and it is difficult to even gauge the emotional state of a character because clearly nobody means anything they think or say in this place.
Final remarks:
I have never felt so strongly in a novel wherein my entire thoughts and opinions on something is “I read it so you don’t have to.”
Romance Reviews Extraordinaire 