Becoming a Monster - Chapter 4 - : Playing with Fire

After rebirth, Long Xiaoyuan went into raptures because he was in poor health in his previous life. However, he suddenly found that his soul was in the body of a fatuous and self-indulgent emperor.

This fatuous emperor put sycophants in important positions while executed the faithful and the upright!

This merciless emperor married the son of a general and kept torturing him!

How could he be reborn as such a person?

The empress was pretty handsome and smart. Since the former soul of the emperor didn’t cherish such an excellent man, Long Xiaoyuan would love the guy and save himself by the way!

Betrayed by the kingdom he bled for. Executed by the brother he once protected. Daemon died a war hero—branded a monster.But death isn’t the end. Not for him.Reborn on the day of his cursed birth, under the same blood-drenched eclipse, Daemon remembers everything: the lies, the poison, the crown soaked in his mother’s blood. This time, he won’t beg. He won’t protect.He’ll burn the empire from the inside out.His twin brother Gabriel—the golden child, the “righteous” king—stole everything. So Daemon will take it all back, piece by piece.The nobles who cheered at his execution? Dead.The soldiers who held him down? Ash.The kingdom that worshipped a fraud? Buried under screams.This isn’t about justice. This is about revenge, and Daemon’s not stopping until his brother’s skin hangs from the palace gates.The empire made a monster.Now it gets to meet him.

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

The world is in ruins. Extreme sub-zero temperatures suffocate the surface, making even simple survival an ordeal. Frozen derelicts of bygone eras span across massive ice wastes. And the survivors closely guard any technology rediscovered within.The only escape from the deadly climate is beneath the surface. But it’s another disaster underground. Monstrous machines lurk in the depths. Unhinged demigods war against them, dying over and over, treating it all like a game. The land itself shifts over time, more contraption than rock. And an ominous prophecy states that the key to everything waits on four heroes - but nobody knows who or where they are.When an expedition into the far uncharted north goes terribly wrong, Keith Winterscar and his father get trapped together in a desperate fight for survival. Stumbling upon an ancient war of titanic scale; the two will need to set their differences aside while they struggle against Gods, legends, and the grand secrets of the realm that lies below.