MTL - He Holds a Rose from the Abyss - Chapter 38 Extra 4: Year-end assessment (1)

On their wedding night, she gnashed her teeth, yelling, “Your Highness, that’s shameless!”

Set off by the flickering light of red candles, he curved the corner of his mouth into a wicked grin, “Actually, I can be more shameless…”

…

When they met for the first time, he was the young prince who lived in his day of brilliance, while she was the pampered princess of the adjacent state.

When they met again, he became the crippled underdog suffering from frustration, while she became the lackluster hostage stranded in an alien land.

In his mid-life, he was defeated in the fight and had his legs broken; his wife passed away and he didn’t have anything left except his father’s detestation… After constant blows took the edge off his spirit, all he wanted was nothing but serenity.

In her teen-age, her state perished and her home lost; she lapsed into an awkward situation after being abandoned and having her marriage annulled… As endless hardships isolated her from happiness, everything she wished for was no more than peace.

…

“Lu Zhishan, when I first met you, I didn’t think I’d marry you…too old,” after years passed by, one day, she lay on his laps mumbling, with a kind of hazy beauty on her boozy face, “and lame.”

“Mu Nanzhi, you have the wrong memory. At our first meeting, I’m neither old nor limp.”

“…When was that?”

“When people were celebrating your first birthday,” that man assumed all gentleness and joy crept on his eyes and brows, “On that day, you were ‘drawing lots’ in the rear hall. I also sneaked there to have a look. But, out of my expectation, you directly grabbed my true-love knot.”

…

How vivid the red love pea is embedded in the exquisitely carved dice,

Just as my feelings for you deep in my bones.

- Description from Novelupdates

My past life: Ordinary. Mediocre.

Three thousand years of bowing down to the Demon Lord, I would rather be a mortal than a celestial being when looking back, but for her I will… become one who controls life and death!

I reincarnated as the villain’s younger sister who will be punished by the male lead. It was a forgone conclusion that both of us will die to the male lead if my older brother continued his evil ways. So I tried to live quietly while trying to change my wicked brother, but for some reason the male lead is lying in front of our villa? I can’t let him die, so at first I helped him up, but…the male lead’s condition is a bit strange.

Wait a minute…did it start already? The male lead’s mana poisoning? There is only one way to calm the enormous amount of mana within the male lead’s body. Immediate physical contact…

But that’s the female lead’s job!

Aren’t I the villain’s sister? Why me?! What the hell is going on?!

“Rose…Please, I need you. Save me…”

This is driving me crazy…I can’t turn a blind eye to the dying male lead, and there’s not enough time to find the female lead!

…Gosh, I don’t know!

Let’s save the male lead first! I’ll help him, then once I find the female lead, we’ll break up! I quietly approached him and we kissed. But as if that alone was not enough, with a deep sigh, he spoke.

“Let’s have a deeper relationship.”

“Deeper…relationship?”

“Kissing, and other things…”

He looked at me sorrowfully. I couldn’t take my eyes off this great beauty when he looked at me in such a somber way. Absentmindedly blinking my eyes, I inadvertently nodded my head. Then he pulled me in and locked his arms. With a dazzling gaze and a bright smile, he spoke.

“Rose, you’re my first.”

No, I can’t be your first time!