The empire's most beloved princess suddenly fell victim to a mysterious illness, slipping into a deep coma that no physician could cure. In the end, the royal astrologer delivered a chilling prophecy: only the man destined to be her true soulmate could awaken her with a kiss of genuine love.

In the first lifetime, my eldest brother, plain-looking and desperate for the enormous reward promised by the crown, volunteered to go to the palace and kiss the princess awake.

However, the moment she opened her eyes and saw him, she let out a horrified scream. Calling him a fraud, she ordered the guards to drag him into the royal fountain and drown him alive.

"You liar! How could someone who looks like you possibly be my fated one?"

In the second lifetime, my second brother listened carefully to the warning left behind by our reborn eldest brother. Determined not to repeat the same mistake, he sought out an underground black-market surgeon and took on the face of the most handsome man in the entire country before going to awaken the princess.

This time, everything seemed perfect. The princess fell deeply in love with him, and for an entire year they lived in bliss.

However, on the day their child was born, she took one look at the baby and completely lost her mind. In a fit of rage, she ordered my second brother to be beaten to death on the spot.

"How dare you deceive me? Die!"

By the third lifetime, after witnessing the horrific deaths of both my brothers, I hid silently in the corner, too terrified to say a single word.

Unfortunately, the queen had other plans. She ordered her servants to forcefully hold me down and make me kiss the princess awake.

I never expected that on the very night of our wedding, the princess would suddenly go mad, rush out of the castle, and accidentally fall into the lake, where she drowned.

The queen was furious beyond reason. Believing me responsible for her daughter's death, she ordered my public execution, leaving not even my bones behind.

Then came the fourth lifetime.

Once again, the Royal Chamberlain arrived at our home with a line of armed guards surrounding the estate.

"The astrologer has confirmed it," he declared calmly. "The princess's destined soulmate is one of the three sons of the Lynch family.

"You have three days to decide. Whoever succeeds in awakening the princess will marry into the royal family and enjoy limitless wealth, power, and honor."

This time, the three of us only exchanged uneasy glances.

The fortune and status being offered were enough to tempt anyone in the empire, yet not a single one of us dared take a step forward.

The Royal Chamberlain stood in front of the three Lynch brothers with a stiff smile that never reached his eyes.

"I won't waste time talking in circles with you.

"The Royal Astrologer has already made the calculation. The person destined for Princess Shirley is among the three sons of the Lynch family."

At that, his voice sharpened. "This is a blessing beyond comparison."

Meanwhile, the three of us only exchanged stiff, nervous glances. None of us dared take a single step forward.

My oldest brother, Bryson Lynch, who had died first in our previous life, instinctively took half a step back. He looked like he wanted the floor to split open and swallow him whole.

"I... I'm way too average-looking!" he blurted, waving frantically. "If I get anywhere near Her Highness, forget waking her up. I'll probably scare her soul right out of her body!"

The second brother, Griffin Lynch, covered his mouth and shook his head like crazy.

In our last life, he had been beaten to death with clubs.

"I recently got a terrible mouth infection," he mumbled through his hand. "The Royal Physician said it's extremely contagious. One kiss could kill someone. Absolutely not."

The Royal Chamberlain slowly lifted his eyelids, and that eerie gaze slid toward me.

He raised one perfectly manicured finger and smiled leisurely.

"Well, since both young guys seem to have their difficulties… I suppose this fortune and glory can only fall to Mr. Joseph Lynch."

The moment my name was called, my entire body went rigid. My mind raced desperately, trying to think of a way out.

However, before I could come up with an excuse, the smile on the Royal Chamberlain's face had already begun to fade.

My heart tightened instantly, and I dropped to my knees.

"Sir, this concerns the royal bloodline and Her Highness's safety. I truly wouldn't dare act recklessly.

"Please give the three of us some time to discuss things properly so we can identify the person truly destined for the princess. We cannot risk delaying Her Highness's recovery."

An icy snort came from above my head.

"I'll give you three days.

"If, after three days, no one can wake Princess Shirley..." He smiled faintly, but his voice turned chillingly icy. "Then the three Lynch brothers will be chopped to pieces and buried in the princess's rose garden as fertilizer."

That was when I realized something.

Even the Royal Chamberlain himself was afraid of choosing the wrong person and returning empty-handed.

I had barely let out a breath of relief when, in the very next moment, the guards he brought with him forcefully confiscated our luggage.

Then they marched us straight into Princess Shirley's estate and locked us under house arrest in a remote little courtyard.

The door slammed shut with a heavy bang, followed immediately by the sharp clink of iron locks falling into place.

The three of us stood there silently, staring at one another. None of us had the mood to admire the luxury of Princess Shirley's estate.

Bryson was the first to break down. He collapsed onto the floor, clutching his head as he let out a miserable howl.

"This is a curse! A complete curse!

"In the first life, I got greedy. I wanted to marry the princess and rise to the top in one step. What did I get?

"The princess really did wake up, but the second she opened her eyes and saw me, she looked like she'd seen a ghost. She ordered the guards to drag me into the royal fountain and drown me alive on the spot!"

Even as he mentioned the fountain, his legs shook.

Griffin shuddered too and instinctively touched his face.

"In my previous life, I actually listened to you," he said to Bryson. "I spent a fortune hiring some underground black-market doctor to give me a new face.

"The face of the most handsome man in the entire country.

"For the first year after marriage, things between me and the princess were actually great. However, when the baby was born, she only took one look before ordering the child and me beaten to death."

His voice trembled as he spoke.

"I secretly checked afterward. That kid looked completely normal. Don't all newborn babies look kind of the same? There wasn't any deformity or anything. So how did she decide whether the child was good-looking or not?

"And she actually killed her own child..."

The room instantly fell silent. Then both of them slowly turned to look at me.

I stayed curled up in the corner and let out a long sigh. "Don't look at me. I got it even worse than you two.

"In the third life, I never even wanted to go. The Queen sent people to drag me there by force.

"They pinned me down and forced me to kiss the princess awake. She did wake up, but on our wedding night, she suddenly went completely insane and ran out of the castle.

"In the end, she slipped and drowned in the lake.

"And then I was kept barely alive while they sliced the flesh off my body piece by piece. I died from the pain."

The moment I finished speaking, the room sank into complete silence.

Across all three lifetimes, every one of us had tried.

None of us got a good ending.

Still, the Royal Astrologer insisted that Princess Shirley's fated person was somewhere among the three Lynch brothers.

Unless...

Had our parents secretly fathered another son out there somewhere?

The problem was that our parents had already been dead for eight years. There was no way to confirm anything anymore.

I was still nursing a headache over it when Bryson sat up straight and started analyzing the situation seriously.

"Think about it carefully.

"I died because the princess thought I was ugly. Griffin died because of the child.

"However, Joseph's case was different."

The more he talked, the brighter his eyes became.

"In your life, the princess drowned because of her own accident. You were just dragged down with her.

"And what does that mean?" Griffin slapped his thigh so hard he nearly jumped to his feet.

"It means Joseph is special to her!

"If you had stopped her back then, if you'd kept her from falling into the water, maybe you would've lived.

"And don't forget, you were already her savior. You spent an entire month with her day and night!"

The moment he mentioned that month, the memories came rushing back so clearly that even then, I still could not forget them.

It was early spring.

The three of us had gone into the mountains near White Horse Abbey to gather herbs.

Behind the Abbey, I found a young woman dressed in men's clothing, covered head to toe in blood.

Bryson thought it looked troublesome and immediately wanted to leave.

Griffin was terrified of getting involved and kept urging me not to interfere.

For some reason, I just could not walk away.

I carried her home on my back and took care of her for an entire month.

At the time, she had lost her memory and had no idea who she was. She depended on me completely. Timid as a rabbit, she followed me everywhere I went.

It was not until three months later that I learned the truth.

The woman I had saved was actually the most noble person in the entire empire.

Princess Shirley Russell.

I thought we would never cross paths again for the rest of our lives. Then, out of nowhere, she came down with that strange illness.

Later, I heard that the Royal Astrologer had once performed a divination for her.

According to her original fate, she was supposed to die near White Horse Abbey.

It was because she met the three Lynch brothers and borrowed our fortune that she barely survived.

If she wanted to continue living, she had to find the one person truly destined for her among us and marry him. That was how this twisted entanglement across three lifetimes began.

Seeing that I still had not spoken, Bryson finally asked anxiously, "Joseph, what are you thinking?

"In the first two lives, Griffin and I wronged you. We shouldn't have taken your spot just because we wanted wealth and status.

"But we've already died three times now. That should count as paying our debt, right?

"And as for your life... Maybe it really was just an accident?"

At that, I only let out a bitter laugh.

"Then why did she lose her mind and run out on our wedding night? If she hurts herself again in the future, won't I still end up buried alongside her?

"Maybe I can save her once, but what about after that? Am I supposed to guard her every second for the rest of my life?"

As my words faded, I could clearly see the hope in my brothers' eyes slowly dying out.

However, the real problem was this.

Even I, the one who had truly saved the princess's life, still ended up dying horribly in the previous life.

So, what exactly were we supposed to do to survive this time?

Early the next morning, the Royal Chamberlain came again to pressure us for an answer.

When he noted we were still indecisive, the last trace of a smile vanished from his face. His icy eyes looked less like he was staring at living people and more like he was examining three corpses.

My chest tightened instantly. I quickly lowered my head, panic filling my voice.

"Please calm your anger, Sir! Please!

"This matter concerns Princess Shirley's safety. That's exactly why we don't dare act recklessly.

"Since the Royal Astrologer claims the princess's destined soulmate is among us, then surely there must be some special connection between them.

"So... would it be possible to allow me to see Her Highness in person?"

The Royal Chamberlain frowned slightly, clearly losing patience already.

I hurriedly continued, "Perhaps the moment we see the princess, some kind of destined connection will reveal itself and show us who truly deserves this blessing.

"Otherwise, if we choose the wrong person and offend Her Highness, then we would truly deserve death."

After a long silence, the Royal Chamberlain finally let out an icy snort.

In the end, he led me to Princess Shirley's room.

The heavy carved wooden doors slowly swung open, and a strong scent of medicine and herbs immediately rushed out.

Princess Shirley lay quietly in the center of an enormous, luxurious bed. Layers of silk and velvet wrapped around her pale body. Even unconscious, the natural nobility radiating from her was impossible to ignore.

All the maids and servants had already withdrawn.

Inside the massive room, only the two of us remained.

Slowly, I walked to the bedside and reached out with slightly trembling hands, gently holding her cold fingers.

In an instant, memories crashed over me like a flood.

Those three months after she lost her memory had been poor and difficult, yet they were the happiest days of my entire life.

We had once sat beneath the roof together, listening to the rain.

We had planted flowers and vegetables side by side in the backyard.

Neither of us had ever confessed outright, but every shy glance and racing heartbeat whenever our eyes met had already said more than words ever could.

We had only been one final step away from crossing that invisible line.

However, just one day before I planned to confess my feelings to her, the royal carriage arrived outside our house.

A personal maid named Ann stepped down proudly from the carriage and ordered her servants to deliver a heavy wooden chest.

Inside, it was filled entirely with gold coins.

"This is the royal family's payment to the Lynch family," she said. "It is compensation for the month you spent caring for Princess Shirley."

She slightly lifted her chin, her eyes filled with unconcealed disdain.

"From this day on, you and Princess Shirley belong to entirely different worlds. I trust the three of you know better than to overstep."

At that moment, the feelings that had just begun growing inside my heart felt like they had been crushed beneath someone's heel.

In the end, I still could not stop myself.

While Ann was distracted, dealing with my two brothers, I secretly ran out to see Princess Shirley one last time.

At the time, she was just about to board the carriage.

The moment she saw me, her eyes turned red. Without a word, I placed a bracelet in her hand.

I had spent five entire days carving it by hand. On the inner side of the bracelet, I had engraved the white orchid she loved most.

She lowered her head and gently traced the bracelet with her fingers for a long time without speaking.

In the end, she only looked at me deeply once before turning and stepping into the carriage.

From that day on, we became people from two completely different worlds.

As the memory faded, my gaze accidentally drifted toward her left wrist.

The next second, my entire body froze.

Wrapped around that slender snow-white wrist was a simple bracelet that looked completely out of place beside her magnificent royal robes.

It was the bracelet I had given her.

The edges were visibly worn down. One glance was enough to tell it had been carried close to someone's body for years.

Which meant...

Even after regaining her identity and becoming the empire's untouchable Princess Shirley once again, she had never taken it off.

Something slammed hard against my heart.

Immediately afterward, an even more terrifying thought surfaced in my mind.

Why had I never seen that bracelet in any of the previous three lives?

In that instant, every seemingly unrelated death from our past lives suddenly connected together into one complete chain inside my head.

I left Princess Shirley's room in a daze and returned to the small courtyard.

Tomorrow morning… was the final deadline.

Bryson and Griffin were already pacing around the room in a panic.

The moment I stepped through the door, Bryson rushed over and grabbed my shoulders, shaking me desperately.

"Joseph! Say something already! You were gone forever. Did you figure anything out?

"If we still can't think of a solution, then let's just dig a tunnel tonight and run for it!"

"Run where?" Griffin collapsed hopelessly into a chair. "The place is surrounded by royal guards. There's no escaping!"

Both of them noticed something strange about me, primarily because I had kept quiet. I simply stood there like someone who had lost his soul, staring blankly into space.

Panic instantly spread across their faces.

"Joseph, what's wrong with you?

"Don't tell me you got scared stupid?"

However, in the very next second, I suddenly grabbed both their wrists tightly. My voice trembled slightly, yet it carried a firmness I had never shown before.

"There's no need to run.

"And there's no need to be afraid.

"I already know... who Princess Shirley's true destined person is."