I read the novel here's spoilers be warned

I read the novel and don't plan to read the manhwa till it's done but im here to spoil people. It's pretty interesting.

I'd say Ian is twisted AF but that's due to his past(we get vivid snap shots of it, not gratituous, just sad and realistic). I see a lot say there's a lot of suffering for Michelle but Itd not in the way y'all are thinking? Spoilers, but he never actually finds out about their backstory or why his family falls into ruin(his dad dies and one of his older bro dies and another gets addicted to gambling etc, the house title ends up falling to Michelle, the last functioning member of the family). He simply believes the family is unlucky and Ian reiterates this by even attending the bros funeral in his place and drugging Michelle to fall ill so he can't go, saying hes glad Michelle didn't go so he doesn't have to be infected by their bad luck lol. Ian just never tells him, not a word. Michelle lives in blinded happiness the whole book regarding Ian and his own family. The angst comes instead from 4 aspects.

One, from the glimpses of Ian's past we see. These are scattered throughout and some are only mentioned while there are entire scenes for others where Ian is referred to as just a northern slave Ain, not by his current name, as if it's another person. It's miserable, it's real. 2nd, Ian having a hard time accepting he actually loves Michelle, the son of his enemy. His feelings go back and forth in denial, Michelle can sense this, and the two bridge that gap. Michelle is made aware of his background as a sex slave and his identity as a bastard child, and those are addressed. So it's not too bad to me. Third piece of angst is the various murder attempts on their heads bc Ian has enemies. Michelle even has to kill someone and there was a rape attempt on both of them that thankfully didn't go through. They go thru a lot.

Fourth goes hand and hand with reason three, in the later part of the novel in what feels like an au but is canon, Ian gets a psuedo pregnancy. This is the most angsty part of the whole book. Michelle is very happy, as Ian had once said that perhaps even men could get pregnant if they love each other enough(and he believed it lol). Ian is skeptical and planning to abort it, believing its some weird curse or disease. But bc Michelle is so happy, buying baby clothes, wondering about the baby, Ian falls into a strange state of looking forward to it and keeps it for longer and longer. Ian has really bad pregnancy symptoms like vomiting everything he eats, fatigue, sleepiness. He has to be away from the public eye for months. Then his sister sends an abortion medicine in her letter upon learning he's pregnant. Ian contemplates abortion again. On Christmas I believe, Ian gets stomach pain. He can't even crawl to get help bc everyone is out celebrating the festival. But he does have a bell on the side table, but decides not to wring it in the end after mental struggle. He dreams about a child, a girl that resembles Michelle. When he wakes up he fears he's near death, crawls to the meds, and takes the abortion meds.

Michelle goes upstairs and finds him bleeding out. The doc makes Michelle leave, bc he knows Ian took abortion meds and didn't want Michelle to know. Ian survived, but is severely injured. He needs time to recover. Michelle goes thru his darkest period, even confessing he occasionally wished the child didn't exist when he saw how much ian was suffering and how he nearly died. Michelle says he believes the child really died bc he wished it. Ian comforts him. Later, Ian has a convo with some kind of witch who had been gone for months. Witch tells him he's lucky he aborted it bc it wasn't even human, it was a curse from some enemy, and took the form of a half dog half human. If he gave birth he'd have died. Ian asks the gender. It was male. Ian is glad his mother remains the only woman he has ever killed, so he doesn't have to remember this child forever. He also laments that his earlier thoughts were accurate and that if the witch hadn't been away he wouldn't have gone thru all this since he would've known it was just a curse.

Michelle is still grieving the loss but putting on a brave face for Ian. He puts all the baby stuff in a room, cries, and then covers it up and shuts it away. He slowly recovers.

Other angst points are like Michelles bros death, which he grieves for a long time. Ian gets him out of it(yes he had a hand in bros death and yes he also comforted him lol Ian is twisted). There is a side story with a real au of what if Michelle knew Ian was a servant of the family(not his dads sex slave) and they grew up together, and then the two run away together under Ians instigation.