After the Sickly Hated One Awakens

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I lived for eighteen years before learning that I wasn't the biological son of the King of Beiyan. The real son was Xu Sangheng, an orphan adopted by a low-ranking stable hand in the prince's manor.

After reclaiming his identity, Xu Sangheng treated me wonderfully. While everyone else avoided me like the plague, he was the only one who would enter my secluded residence. He still washed my underclothes, coaxed me into eating and taking medicine, and when my fever flared, he didn't mind my cough at all. He'd cool his own body with ice before holding me close to bring down my temperature.

I loved Xu Sangheng and protected him. When he brought disaster upon himself, I even broke into the imperial palace, pleaded with everyone I should and shouldn't have, and willingly offered my life and body in exchange, taking the blame for him.

But just as Xu Sangheng cleared his name of treason, a dose of fever medicine claimed my life. I died in someone else's bed.

*

After being reborn, my awareness awakened, and I finally learned that the world I lived in was a story. I was merely a frail, despised cannon-fodder character, while Xu Sangheng was the protagonist. He had set me up so he could claim the throne of Beiyan in broad daylight.

As for me, I met a miserable end, dying in an instant.

I became a laughingstock.

*

In the third year of Yuande, the very year Xu Sangheng set a trap to take my life in the story, I asked to be sent to the capital as a hostage. The entire manor stared at me in disbelief. I had always been delicate and sickly, avoiding the world and making myself unpopular.

My adoptive father stared at me in shock and stammered, "Beiyan is under suspicion this time. If you go to the capital as a hostage, you'll likely meet with disaster. Once you leave, I'm afraid you'll never come back..."

"To repay the kindness of raising me, what does it matter if I remain in the capital forever, never to return to Beiyan in body or soul?" I replied casually, catching sight of Xu Sangheng in the corner of my eye, his eyes bloodshot and his lips sealed.

This time, I would still put myself in the middle of the game. I wanted to see what you could do to me now, Xu Sangheng.

*

Who would have thought that the very people who had avoided, despised, harmed, and humiliated me in my past life would all act as if they'd gone mad in this one, each insisting on clinging to me. I couldn't shake them off.

The story's plot began to fall apart.

The proud and restrained one bent his head for me. He cast aside all his pride and dignity, kneeling humbly before me, eyes wet as he confessed his love again and again, begging me to spare him just one more glance.

The womanizer cut off all his flirtations for me and became unwaveringly devoted. Lovesick and consumed by longing, even when delirious with illness, he clung to that broken piece of white jade and cried my name every night, hoping I would change my mind.

The aloof ascetic cast off his saintly facade for me. Mad with desire, he locked me in his arms like a starving stray dog with nowhere to go, greedily breathing in the scent of my neck. At last he raised his bloodshot eyes, worn raw from sleepless nights, and said, "Please."

The carefree one went even further, fighting his way into the imperial city with a blade and throwing the realm into chaos and turmoil, all for the sake of keeping me safe.

*

What a bunch of lunatics.

At last, they made me so fed up that I couldn't take it anymore.

I'd suffered more than enough from love and heartbreak. I wished I could rip out my heartstrings and become a block of wood, never falling in love or feeling anything again.

I'd already gotten revenge on everyone who deserved it, but unfortunately, I still couldn't tear out those heartstrings.

I couldn't forget, and I couldn't let go.

On top of that, my fever kept returning and my heart condition refused to improve. I didn't want to keep tormenting myself, so I simply left, hoping to find some secluded place to wait quietly for death.

*

But I hear that after I left, they went even more completely mad?

Frail, universally loathed uke turned everyone's darling x brooding, sinister, two-faced seme

Reader's Guide: 1. First-person narration [highlight]. The uke is frail, very much the weak type, and a bit dim.

2. The early chapters include some [memories] of the past life.

3. A bittersweet, melodramatic story with a happy ending. Multiple love interests go through a [redemption arc], but there is only one seme.

4. The cover was purchased from a premade cover group and is used with permission.

Theme: Even in difficult circumstances, one should strive to improve oneself.