Pereshati Zahardt is a count's daughter who got remarried after her mother’s passing. When her father died, he left her all his fortune. Then, Pereshati's greedy stepmother and stepsister conspire with Pereshati's lover to kill her. However, under mysterious circumstances, Pereshati is brought back to life and travels back in time before her murder. To buy some time before getting her revenge, Pereshati visits the handsome yet notorious grand duke, Therdeo Lapileon, to marry him. During her visit, she uncovers a horrifying secret of his family. How will Pereshati deal with it? Will she be able to take her revenge?
In a non-spoiler way I may say that I recommend to check out this manhwa. 9 out of 10 times I dnf a Korean manhwa or a novel, because we don't click. But this time I found myself engulfed in this story and I don't regret starting it (reason is: manhwa is currently on hiatus since Jan'25 due to artist's poor health).
Despite such a cheesy title the story itself is very engaging and heart-warming, but much darker than average. Because I was surprised myself about attention to details and how this story concentrates on what this family has to go through. What each family member had experienced, their achievements and limitations. How it influences their life, values, life choices and many other sides of their lives. It feels like it occupies everything.
This world might be not super complex but unlike many of the stories I've seen it gives you enough details to see the picture how this world lives. Surely it's not historically accurate (about this later) it's just "Europen ambience" and an inspired world with no parallels.
This is the time when the story really wins from visuals. Especially the character of Therdeo who is a silent type and keeps everything to himself. He's a basic repressed person who also has points won from the fact that he does not have insta-love with Pereshati (like in many other novels or comics where MMC is said to be not interested in women, but the moment he laid his eyes on FMC all his convictions change instantly, so cheap). Here this shows his repressed nature and also his trauma. Pereshati's image also adds a note with her funny faces at times, which lightens up the story, which otherwise would be more dramatic than it already is. The romance may not be the first priority (understandably) but it's a very nice slowburn so when things finally progress you root for the two of them. They also go through different issues, which I thought was a great touch to add instead of something flawless.
Pereshati is a kind and compassionate person, she is hard-working and smart. I like how they deal with each other and she has a progress of mostly having Lapileons as her shield to caring for this family. I loved attention to her state of mind from beginning which sowly changes. Unlike many stories she does not start with a perfect plan for revenge, her situation is more real (at least to me) since she does not even believe in what happened to her. Her relatives did not act obviously malicious, they were kind and loving for years and years, this is why she was caught by surprise. Which is more terrifying than most of the "villains". She decided to strike a deal with Lapileons only on her instinct to feel safe, because only later she realized that her experience was the reality with long-lasting effect. The Lapileons gave her the chance to find the family she can truly love and who truly love her back.
Therdeo is a silent type but who bear responsibility of entire family, he has a lot on his plate. he really looks like he hasn't slept for at least a decade. But he tries to grow an dlearn when he does something he realizes was not right. Maybe one of few couple who actually talk it out when they meet with problems and in case of Therdeo it's a big deal becase it's really hard for him to trust and him slowly opening up is the result of progress. The two really complement each other.
Now a few words about being historically accurate in manhwa. I love how historically inaccurate Korean manhwa usually is.
It shouldn't be, but it also does not rely on any rhyme or logic of its own. Basically, they do not create a certain microcosm of their own world or even copy the existing one, they just throw whatever is what I noticed while watching some of the manhwa.
I was surprised to see that some details were included in this manhwa to showcase the works of the estate and its servants, for example, like one I can think of is Chapter 85 from Season 2 when Pereshati is given a tour around the Dukedom but she sees servants rushing in and out with stuff like loundry and she is told that Grand Duke is the one who allowed it, which shows how unlikely it is to see servants, well, it's true after all in many existing historical manors like in Englad and France the servant stairs was in another part of the house. When I studied in an Academy, it was located in a revamped historical house (it wasn't anything fancy), but they still got the old stairs and it had such narrow and dangerous steps tbh, many people lost their footing there and I think someone was said to be hurt from the fall. While the main stairs were elaborate and wide and grand and took longer time to climb them, though somehow had smaller steps than what we usually use nowadays.
Although the costuming in this manhwa also can be called "I'll just pick and choose from different existing historical period fashion", I wish any of them would follow just one template instead of going for whatever. The only thing that will always be consisten is the gloves that everyone in Lapileon household wear. But the rest of it, sometimes it is nice (like Pereshati always wears something less elaborate and also the color scheme is always in darker colors), but at other times it's really - just put whatever and let's mix periods. During the Pereshati's friend wedding we see her helter neck dress with exposed back, which looked just too modern. I say this because it takes you out of immersion. I also love how everyone uses the A4 paper and there's so much paper as if it costs nothing. It always throws me off a little bit when I watch, all this modern stuff here and there. But what can I do, the 3D models are used in every manhwa extensively, so don't be surprised if every estate looks the same, but different color.
Oh the word about their estate, it's a palace. It's huge and they even have a second building, it almost looks like a street. If we take this scale, they're loaded. Though see no need for such a large estate to be near the city. Take London for example, the city house wasn't comparable to the estate. But from another angle it shows how rich Lapileon family is, but actually their house is always empty and they don't invite guests to stay over.
I also found it fun how we follow Pereshati on her journey to how run the estate, but we never hear of anything except her venture into charity, yet she spends so much time with papers. Note: though her charity project had great details I must say, author really thought it through. But here's the thing, outside some business mentioned we have no idea what they do, we know they do it, but the scale is unknown. At least they have mines.
/-SPOILERS-/
Well, anyone who read a bit will know that Lapileons suffer from a curse, their blood is poisonous.
I found the scene where Perishati dies from it and finds herself at the bottom of dug grave like a touch of black humor, I know it's not funny but I laughed, since she had such a stunned expression and these fuckers planned to bury her.
Here's the scene, Perishati as a single woman who knows her stepmother is capable of murderng her, so while she has a chance to get away from a situation she does want to extend a deal to Therdeo, since she knows he needs a marriage to stay away from Imperial family. She visits him and no one is aware of her visit, so when they talk she is on edge, which is her earlier state of mind, which nicely portrays her psychological state at the beginning of the story. She bites her fingers and they bleed. The Duke is not impressed and lives up to impression that he doesn't deal with women. While he wanted to leave she grabbed him and he pushed her hand, being scratched by her ring. Somewhere she has a contact with his blood and dies. Then is revived. He finds it peculiar and even makes her die again (unhinged behavior he apologizes for later). So they strike a deal, he needs her for experimenting with their curse and she will get protection.
This arranged marriage starts really from lowest of the lows. But slowly she sees the true nature of this curse and how it influences this family.
This family knows how to deal with the curse, it is said that they need to make a woman the head of the family and this eneration did, but Pereshati's sister-in-law lost her husband and her child to poison, so she was not in the right state of mind and relegated her power to the youngest, which is Therdeo.
The number of Lapileon's direct descendant is not much, they also have collateral branches. But due to their curse they have to keep an eye on every member of the family and this curse is the biggest secret they have. Otherwise it may lead to a disaster, which we find already happened in a place where they had no idea about.
Pereshati's arrival is not only a key to starting solving this curse, because everyone is invlolved in it, but she also has influence on the members of this family to varying degree. She is not some super savior who will lift the curse with a move of her finger, but you can feel her presence.
The story really revolves mostly around the curse, but it's actually interesting how detailed it is.
Also even the reason why they haven't found the way to deal with it is justifiable. They really wouldn't be able to move on without the participants who now take the central place.
Although I said spoilers, but I just removed a big chuck of what makes this story great. It's the case when you really need to read it to see for yourself.
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