Card Room - Chapter 428 - The Past

After being torn from the only life she knew, 16-year-old Margo is forced into a new home with strangers who call themselves her parents. Haunted by memories of her past and consumed by feelings of isolation, she struggles to adapt to her unfamiliar surroundings. School offers little relief—until she meets Lucien, a mysterious boy who appears just when she needs a friend the most.Gabriel is everything Margo needs: kind, attentive, and always ready to whisk her away from her troubles. Each night, he invites her to secret places—an abandoned playground, a fog-choked garden, a crumbling train station at the edge of town—each more unsettling than the last. Yet with every chilling rendezvous, Margo feels more alive... more seen.But something isn’t right. Gabriel never comes to school during the day. Her adoptive parents never see him. And when they catch her talking to thin air, their concern deepens into fear. They say Gabriel isn't real—that he’s a figment of her imagination. Margo wants to believe them, but Gabriel feels real. More real than anything else in her life.As the nights grow colder and more twisted, Gabriel’s true nature begins to surface. Shadows move where they shouldn’t. Time warps in his presence. And the places they visit seem to echo with whispers from another world. Margo is forced to ask herself: Who—or what—is Gabriel? Why does he only want her? And what will happen on the final night he asks her to come with him?As the line between reality and delusion begins to crumble, Margo must make an impossible choice: stay in a world where she feels loved, or return to one that barely feels real.But one thing is certain—some friendships never let go.

The pessimistic and negative daughter of a concubine living in the ancient times thought – since life is so difficult, why should one invest serious effort in struggling to live?

The life of an ancient noble woman is often determined and controlled by her family. Moreover, one’s actions often implicate one’s entire family – thus, it is fairly common to see an unexpected calamity result in suffering borne by one’s whole family. Managing to live a good and successful life while retaining one’s dignity is simply too difficult to achieve.

Ah, living in the ancient times is simply too dangerous – we should all just sleep till we die.

- Description from Novelupdates

Traversing to another world, Lin En is captured right from the start. The captor is the antagonist princess from the original work, intending to control him by using him for hypnosis experiments. In a critical moment, Lin En comes up with a quick-witted plan, feigning the success of the experiment and deceiving her with his acting skills. But this was only a temporary measure. Because in the original story, her ending is very tragic, and none of her associates meet good ends. Hence, Lin En must pretend to be under the hypnosis while secretly being ready to flee at any moment. But gradually things start to take an unexpected turn. ... The Princess’s Diary [The experiment was a success!] [As the sole specimen, I’ve decided to keep him by my side.] [Due to the curse mark on my face, I am loathed by the public, but he says I’m beautiful.] [I’m happy because people tell the truth when hypnotized.] [Alone with him, I impulsively kissed him.] [The feeling was strange and made me lose my composure, fortunately, he won’t retain any memory of it after the hypnosis is lifted.] [So, it’s okay to be a bit bolder, right?]

Dong Xi transmigrated, but she was neither the female lead nor the villainess, but a tragic side character in a book. Even though she was a proper rich daughter, her mother used her as a substitute for her youngest sister, and sent her to train as a cultivator at the top cultivator sect in the world. Though she was initiated at eight years old and trained for eight years, she was talentless and didn’t have much experience. Eventually, her younger sister was recruited because of her outstanding talent, while Dong Xi was banished after it was revealed that she was just a substitute.

After that, someone caught her, imprisoned her, and tormented her for two years just because she was attractive. Though she was rescued by a senior disciple from the cultivator sect, it turned out that he did it to avenge her younger sister, and tortured her to death. When Dong Xi transmigrated, it was just after she was initiated and began life as a cultivator. She decided that she would do her best, improve her cultivation, and survive! Eating? Sleeping? All that was a waste of time! If there was a cultivator who practiced sword cultivation a thousand times per day, she would do two thousand!

Eight years later, when her younger sister was recruited for her talent, Dong Xi promptly packed her bags and left, leaving the cultivator sect panicking and wondering who had taken her away! Su Cheng, the most powerful demon lord: Who dares harm my beloved wife?! This means war! Dong Xi, still running away: What? Who are you? Su Cheng: Don’t you remember the snake you counted stars with years ago, beloved?