Tender Years

Tersegel selama kurang lebih 500 tahun di dalam sebuah kerangkeng suci adalah mimpi buruk paling menyebalkan bagi Kyeo, iblis kelelawar yang mulai merasakan kegilaan karena benci dengan keadaan yang sedang menimpanya. Salah satu sayap iblisnya telah lenyap akibat pertarungannya dengan seorang gadis miko, sang penjaga kuil yang bertentangan dengan dunianya. Iblis itu sudah lama menunggu kebebasannya, hingga kemudian semua penantiannya terbayar saat Rin, gadis penjaga kuil yang menyimpan amarah terhadap keluarga yang telah menjadikannya tumbal kutukan, membebaskan sang iblis kelelawar dari penjara yang mengurungnya. Kebebasan Kyeo itu tentu saja tidak gratis, ada harga mahal untuk menebusnya yaitu dengan cara melakukan perjanjian darah. Kyeo pun setuju dan menandatangani kontrak dengan sang anak manusia. Tanpa tahu, jika kelak keputusan mereka itu akan membuat jalinan takdir yang luar biasa kuatnya. Kyeo pun jatuh cinta dengan gadis manusia yang mampu membuatnya berubah menjadi tak terkendali, hingga mengakibatkan sang iblis berani melanggar perjanjian dengan penguasanya. Cinta telah membutakan mata sang iblis kelelawar, hingga jalan sulit pun akan ia lakukan demi kebahagiaan sang gadis. Kisah Rin dan Kyeo yang pelik ini pun, dimulai.

Tak selamanya cinta pertama itu membawa kebahagiaan dan juga kebaikan untuk sang pemilik hati. Ada kalanya yang muncul malah sebuah penolakan, rasa sakit dan juga ... keinginan balas dendam. Berawal dari perkenalan singkat Julia dengan Jacob di akun Instagram miliknya, siapa sangka hal itu kelak akan menimbulkan malapetaka besar dalam hidupnya yang semula damai dan terlihat baik-baik saja. Dialah sosok yang secara tak langsung akan mengungkap segala teka-teki dalam kehidupan Julia, hingga membuat semua misteri yang saling terhubung itu pun perlahan muncul ke permukaan.Akibat rasa cinta yang berlebihan terhadap sang kekasih, membuat Julia tak bisa lepas dari pesona pemuda itu meskipun telah disakiti berulang kali. Dimulai dari pemaksaan yang menyakitkan, pengkhianatan yang menjemukan dan luka yang menganga telah tertancap begitu dalam di hatinya. Hanya kekerasanlah yang gadis itu dapatkan selama berada di dalam hubungan cinta dengan seorang Jacob Leckner. Namun, mengapa Julia sama sekali tak bisa membenci kekasihnya itu walau sudah mendapatkan perlakuan yang kurang menyenangkan? Apakah Julia sudah menumpulkan mata hatinya, ataukah justru sebaliknya? Satu-satunya cara untuk memastikan suatu kisah adalah dengan cara menonton dan menyaksikannya sampai habis. Dan kini, dimulailah sudah kisah penuh pembelajaran kehidupan anak-anak manusia beserta lingkungan di sekitarnya. Tak bisa berhenti; dari cinta maupun rasa kecewa.

The day my brother, Chester Rodney, came to the orphanage to take me home, my boyfriend Dominic Huxley looked at me coldly and said, "If you choose to acknowledge your birth family, we're over." I knew he had his pride—he could never accept the difference in our social standing. So, for him, I turned my back on the family I had yearned for my whole life. In the decades that followed, I toiled without complaint, saving every cent to help him rise to success. By the time I was not yet fifty, overwork had worn me down. Lying on my deathbed, my breathing shallow and weak, I watched Dominic on television. He was now an acclaimed scientist, just awarded the nation's highest research honor. Tears welled in his eyes as he thanked another woman. "All these years," he said, "I never felt worthy of Alicia. But now, maybe I can use this award as the prologue to a love I've owed her for decades." The "Alicia" he spoke of was the woman mistakenly switched with me at birth—the false heiress the Rodney family raised as their own. The camera zoomed out. Alicia Rodney stood radiant, graceful, and perfectly preserved by years of luxury, blushing as she accepted the trophy. "I waited for you for decades," she said sweetly, "but marriage is still something I'll need to ask my brother about." Chester, who had long taken over the family, looked at her with an indulgent tenderness tinged with something unspoken. "I was adopted by our uncle back then for one reason—to protect Alicia. Making the only princess of the Rodney family happy has always been my life's mission." Only then did I realize—everything I thought I had chosen freely, every sacrifice I made without regret, was nothing but a trap, carefully woven by two men, all for Alicia. The betrayal pierced my heart. I died without peace. But when I opened my eyes again, I was back on the very day Chester came to take me home from the orphanage. I glanced past the two men eyeing me with subtle disdain. Without hesitation, I stepped into the car. "Take me home," I said. This time, I'd send whoever stole my life back to the gutter they slithered from.

I was twelve when Henry Shaw took me home from the orphanage, gave me a new name, put me through school, and gave me a good life. Ten years later, his first love returned from abroad. Her name sounded like mine, and her face looked like a mirror image. I quickly realized I had been a stand-in all along. Crushing the diagnosis in my pocket, I decided that I was going to live the rest of my life for myself, even if I did not have much time left.

After falling head over heels for Joe Smith for three years, I finally got the proposal I had been waiting for. However, on the day of our wedding, he did not show up until the wee hours of the morning. When I found him, Joe was drinking happily with a young girl in his arms. “I’m already tired of her clinginess. She’s a joke. Who else would want her?” Much later, he made me a wedding ring and proposed with my favorite jasmine flowers. But a muscular man opened the door instead. The man had two scratch marks on his neck and smirked at the disheveled Joe. “Isn’t it a bit too shameless of you to propose to a married woman?”

I'm having a mental breakdown as I face a clogged drain with my feverish and fussing daughter in my arms. Meanwhile, my husband has reserved a hotel to celebrate another woman's birthday. My mother-in-law spits on the floor. "This is what you deserve. You can't even capture a man's heart!" I clench a fist around the winning lottery ticket in my pocket. I want to get a divorce.

I was locked in a fridge for 40 days while the uncensored photos of me spread like wildfire across the internet. In the face of the salacious rumors about me, my mother reacted by reposting them. Then, she turned to warn my sister, "Look at how disgusting the entertainment industry is. Don't join it, alright? Stay home and inherit your sister's assets instead. My dearest daughter must be innocent and pure, unlike her." She forgot. She forgot I only joined this 'disgusting' industry to pay for her cancer treatment.

When I'm eight months pregnant, my husband, Levi West, becomes a donor to help his ex-girlfriend get pregnant. He even brings her and their illegitimate child home, wanting me to serve them. I refuse, and he calls me inhumane. "Audie's lost her husband—what's so bad about her wanting to have a child? You're a woman, too! How can you be so cruel?" I leave the house in anger, but Levi doesn't care. "Where can a country girl like you go when you're so heavily pregnant? You're going to come back and beg me to take you in again!" I head to the hospital to get an abortion. Then, I return to the countryside and rear pigs with my grandmother. Later, when Levi sees my flat belly and asks to see our child, I throw a handful of ashes in his face. "There you go. It's all there."

In front of the orphanage gates, Rebecca Schwartz, the impoverished student I had been sponsoring, stood glaring at me with a face full of disdain. "If you don't let Freddie come along, I'm not going to your house either," she declared, her tone sharp and unyielding. In the past, blinded by love and hopelessly infatuated, I would have caved to her demands, humbling myself just to keep the peace. But things were different now—I had been reborn. Staring at this despicable pair, who had once caused my tragic demise, a tidal wave of fury surged within me. Yet, it settled into nothing more than a faint, icy smile on my lips. "Then stay here," I said, my voice cold and steady. "Rot in this place alongside your precious Freddie. After all, trash like you belong in the garbage heap."

Lydia Lost everything to a deep scheme brewing in the shadows. For years, she worked tirelessly to give her family a better life but was rewarded with betrayal. But just when all hope seemed lost, something miraculous happened. Lydia, who died at the tender age of 29, woke up to realize she had traveled back in time, ten years before her death. And this time, she swore to avenge her former. And this time, she wasn't alone. Alec stared at the breathtaking Lydia, his hands caressing her cheeks softly. This time, she was his reward.