[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-qt-i-hijacked-a-harem-system-and-now-i-m-ruining":3,"chapter-qt-i-hijacked-a-harem-system-and-now-i-m-ruining-qt-i-hijacked-a-harem-system-and-now-i-m-ruining-chapter-77":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","QT: I hijacked a harem system and now I'm ruining every plot(GL)",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1854666,2462,"Chapter 77: Jealousy and hate","qt-i-hijacked-a-harem-system-and-now-i-m-ruining-chapter-77",77,"\u003Cp>Chapter 77 – Evelyne POV\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She looks out the window as the carriage rolls through the trees, and I—I am dying beside her.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course, I don’t show it. I’m better at hiding it now.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But Lady Daphne—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Haa.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As a noble lady, she’s... fine.Normal. Sweet enough. Still cute.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But like this?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Dressed in loose men’s riding clothes, her posture relaxed, hair tied back, skin flushed from exertion—she looks like a slender, long-limbed man with a quiet kind of danger. But heavens, it is devastating for my heart.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The first time I saw her like this, I genuinely couldn’t breathe.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No—literally. I passed out.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Collapsed right in the corridor like some frail heroine from a trashy romance novel. The whole castle panicked. The physician was summoned. I blamed it on nerves, heat, maybe skipped meals.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But it was her. It was her and her devil-magic and that ridiculous half-buttoned shirt.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I don’t know what kind of sorcery this is.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What kind of temptation.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But she becomes someone else when she’s like that. Confident. Effortless. Unreachable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It’s inconveniencable. It makes me irrational. I want to both smother and worship her.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I wasn’t thrilled about the fighting, and I can’t bear to watch her matches... but I let her continue. Not because I approve. No. Because one time she let it slip—she thought I didn’t know.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And now I do.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And I keep that knowledge like a keepsake. A quiet little victory.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>One more part of her I get to hold that no one else does.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Too soon, the carriage stops.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She slides out in silence, vanishing through the servants’ path like fog at dawn.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And I remain, spine straight, fingers tight on the embroidery I no longer care to finish.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>*\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I hold a candle in one hand and ascend the old tower stairs in silence.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I don’t know why I do this.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I’ve told myself it’s curiosity. Artistic appreciation. Maybe even concern.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But I know that’s a lie.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because I like this specific kind of torture.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The floors creak beneath me. The door groans open.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And I’m greeted—once again—by the scent of oil paint, varnish, and something uniquely her.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The room is quiet, the moonlight filtering faintly through the cracks. Dozens of canvases lean against the walls, unfinished or drying.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Some are breathtaking landscapes—oceans crashing against cliffs, stormy skies, rivers that look like they hum with magic.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But some...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Some are portraits.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of a woman.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The same woman.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Painted again and again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And I freeze.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because she looks like me.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>No—not exactly. She’s a foreigner of Eastern descent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Lady Daphne is from a coastal town.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Her features are different. Her eyes darker, almond-shaped. Her skin more sun-warmed. Her hair darker than mine has ever been.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And yet...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She looks like me. Butnotme.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And the longer I look, the more it hurts.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I crouch beside the nearest canvas. My candlelight reflects in the painted eyes—eyes that burn with memory. With sorrow.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With devotion.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In these brushstrokes, I feel it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The emotion. The longing. The desperate, raw love of someone who painted from their soul.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And I hate it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because it’s not me she painted.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It’sno.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The one before me. The one who came before me. The ghost Lady Daphne keeps searching for in every smile, in every shadow, maybe even in me.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>From the little I’ve pieced together over the months, I know this woman is gone. A performer, once. A lowly position in any society, even worse among nobles. And yet...\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She must have been extraordinary.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because Lady Daphne still mourns her like she’s fresh in the grave.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And me?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I find myself raging with jealousy toward a dead woman.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Someone who was loved—wholly, deeply, unconditionally.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Someone who will never be touched again, but somehow still owns every part of her.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I stare at the painting and whisper, voice low and bitter:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"Ihateyou so much.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because I do.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because it guts me, to fall in love with someone who only ever looks for you in me.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But I’m not you.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I never will be.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And it’s killing me.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I reach out—fingers trembling—and trace the brushstrokes that shape your face. The delicate line of your jaw, the faint shadow beneath your lip, the softness in your painted gaze.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She painted you with reverence. With aching love. With ownership.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Like you were hers, and always would be.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Will I ever own even a fraction of her heart?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Or will it forever belong to you?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To a memory?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>To a ghost?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Would a fraction even be enough?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Or would it only make the longing worse?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Would I ever grace these canvas the way you do—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Etched into her soul, immortalized in oil and pigment?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I sigh.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Not because I’m tired.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But because I don’t have the answers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Because all I can do is stand here, hands stained with envy, while she grieves you in silence and I grieve her in secret.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And you—\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>You get to be the only one she ever loved without consequence.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I want to curl into a ball and cry.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But I don’t.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I stand in front of a painting, stiff and aching, trying to look like a duchess instead of a fool in love with someone who isn’t mine.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I don’t know what’s even going on anymore.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When did I fall in love with her?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>My fingers twitch as they brush over the painted eyes.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Eyes that gaze forward with such affection it makes my ribs ache.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She looks amused in this portrait.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Like there’s an inside joke. A private moment being shared.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Like Daphne painted the memory of a laugh only they knew.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>How unfair.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Jealousy burns. Red hot. Ugly. Alive.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>How deeply, unbearably unfair.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>***\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Daphne POV\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>She’s standing in front of the painting again—her painting. Or rather, the one of Yuxi. The woman who isn’t her and yet looks so much like her it hurts.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Evelyne doesn’t see me. She’s too still, too quiet. The candlelight catches in her hair, and her face is unreadable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But I can feel it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I take a step forward.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And stop.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>What am I doing?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This isn’t Jiang Yuxi.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This isn’t my wife.1\u003C\u002Fp>",1024,"2026-06-09T07:29:29.584Z",1,"novelbin.me","f718e86bc3b8fec32ca6dc3050bcd0c051e3715bef3159fb5ab4ef966adbc5e4","qt-i-hijacked-a-harem-system-and-now-i-m-ruining-chapter-78","qt-i-hijacked-a-harem-system-and-now-i-m-ruining-chapter-76",399,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fqt-i-hijacked-a-harem-system-and-now-i-m-ruining-cover.jpg"]