The point of the marriage was to stop the royal family from forcing the dad into an arranged marriage and muscling the boys out of their inheritance/possibly just straight up murdering them when the new wife had a kid.
This is literally spelled out in the first couple of chapters, how did you not notice?
that’s such a bad excuse. there are infinitely many ways to handle that without all the nonsense. e.g.: telling the kids? literally the easiest way to handle this entire fiasco. not necessarily the killing part still. it affected the kids so badly that one of them literally clung to his mom’s grave. then telling one kid but not the other? what about actually trying to find out what happened to the mom? point is, this kids were never part of the contract and had no say. if I asked my best friend to take care of my kids after my death and you pull this shit, I’d be haunting you and waiting for your death to make you suffer. you can’t include being a mom in your shit contract if the kids aren’t aware of said contract and giving consent. what is so difficult to understand? she and that shit husband didn’t do shit except bullshitting the kids and dropping them. she is a horrible friend, and even worse mother, and seriously dumb af. she’s the one that introduced that shit plan without actually planning anything. husband could’ve just not married. or worse case: gotten a contractual marriage with some other woman. but nope. let’s have the mom’s best friend marry the husband. the literally only other person these kids looked up to so she can ditch them as well after making them believe their dad had an affair and their stepmom betrayed their mom. phenomenal plan! please. let’s use our brains before commenting
i’ve only read up to chapter 8 but i’m glad i found a comment that agrees with me. i feel like the story had so much more potential if we didn’t just randomly time skip the seven years. also, you’re telling me you had seven years and you still couldn’t figure out who the murderer was? or even a small clue besides “oh it could be the royal family” ? with that much time, i could get two college degrees.
i think the angst of them grieving and having to juggle with co-parenting would’ve been wonderful! even them trying to comfort each other because the person they love the most was unjustly killed. or even about the struggles of being a stepmother to children who are grieving. if i was nick, i’d curse them out too. like you BOTH didn’t cry at my mom’s funeral and now you’re married when it hasn’t even been a full year since she died? and i never understood the “oh they’re too young to understand” excuse?
yes children are fragile and more vulnerable than adults but that doesn’t mean you should deceive them. they had seven years to explain to the children and they still didn’t? “that is no way to speak to your stepmother” to your GRIEVING child who just lost their mother is insane. like you are a bad dad. idk, i was kind of expecting more development but the story falls flat because we had one chapter and then skipped 7 years. plus the author added in two new love interests. but i’m only on chapter 8 so maybe if i catch up, my opinion will change.
the more I think about this story the less any of what happened makes sense: it wasn’t clearly stated why this marriage is stopping any and every attack from the royal familiy. if marriage number 1 dind’t stop it, why does marriage number 2? And why the FL specifically? she has no status, money, political power or any influence. her power is being close to the kids and the previous wife. now how the f does this stop murder attempts? a political marriage with someone either influential or with a military background would actually make so much more sense. then we are made to believe that the royal family is after the children’s inheritance. it can’t be about money because the royal family usually has enough. so it can only be about resources and land. but those you didn’t get until the previous owner aka the dad died. so this aspect of the story seems like nonsense because in that case, the threat isn’t gone and the children are still in danger. but apparently the FL fulfilled her promise with that contract marriage, yet we don’t know how. at the same time she needed protection from her husband and she asked him to protect her. then we’re made to believe the kids are safe now. at the same time not really, as we don’t know who the threat is and what their actual goal is, since we only have the assumption of the previous wife as an indicator. so how the f does the FL know she fulfilled the promise if she still doesn’t know what the f the threat is? yet she left without “regrets”. we’re aware that she didn’t fulfill her promise on an emotional level as she already traumatized and ditched these children. but now I can’t even be sure she fulfilled it physically. how do you know someone is safe from some mysterious danger, if you don’t know what the damn danger is? but hey! she fulfilled her promise and took care of the ex-wifes family! let’s have a look at the state of it: kids are estranged from their father, they don’t talk to each other, are traumatized, have drastic changes in their personalities, and the husband is in shambles, desperately trying to get her back. but hey! she fulfilled her promise. XD either way. this is such horrible world building and the characters are shit. cause how the f does she still not know who killed her best friend yet has the time to dilly dally and have men circle around her like birds in a mating ritual? and now we’re supposed to forget this entire aspect and focus on her potential love interests? with the threat still out there? and no answers? please. FL and that husband are either naive/dumb af/ shit people or everything at the same time.
This is from novel updates spoiler about ken.
His behavior is understandable while he is a child, turn out he didn't change at all once adult. He learns about the contract to protect him and his brother, but doesn't care. He is still angry and want her to suffer. Well, he didn't do anything yet.
In the end, he is now an adult, he has the mental capacity to understand that we can't have everything we want in life and circumstances of both sides, in the army he should have seen this type of situation. But that doesn't apply to MC case.
He knows about the contract to protect him
he knows about her giving him space
he knows about her not going outside at all for 7 years
he knows about her name being plumbed to the ground
he knows about her leaving as soon as her job finished
But he doesn't care. He cares about
her taking the place of his mother
her trying to keep a good relationship despite taking the place of his mother
his dad and family becoming the target of gossip
He doesn't want to understand and even when he knows, he just blame her anyway because no ones asks her to do that (Well, turn out his mum did ask her). He doesn't change is point of view despite growing up and seeing her not being greedy in 7 years. That why people call him narrow-minded.
they were awful parents. 7 year contract? did they actually think that would work? ken’s response/anger as a kid made so much sense. and since those two took too long to actually explain anything, the damage was already done. ken already resented her too much and suddenly going back would be hard. especially for someone as stubborn and traumatized as him. and nick? he did literally nothing wrong. why is he being punished? it is obvious that FL neither wants to go back to the old house, nor continue playing his mother. I know she just wanted to fulfill her promise, but all she did was essentially traumatize these children and then discard them. you can’t swoop in, force yourself into the role of a mother and then suddenly just dip. she would have done less damage staying away from the kids then this shit. seriously. what was she thinking? and don’t get me started on the husband. spineless coward that took too long to explain the situation to his kids, took too long to get back the FL and is now forcing himself in her orbit after she made it clear that she didn’t want him in there. I dislike them both and honestly f them both because they came up with that shit plan. smh