
ok duh i made sure to be prepared before reading but....turns out i needed time to process this madness. i've ever tried reading pearl boy but it only reached chapter 5 and i had to take a good break due to the violent gang-rape. now that i reached this chapter, there's crazier thing i never ever expected which is....joo-ha's mum having sex with pil-won
tf this pil-won guy. it makes sense now this fanbase hated this psycho with all they got since he's crazy af. damn i literally want to puke if i remember the scene where he fucked joo-ha's mum for the sake of staying together with joo-ha. not only he tried to manipulate joo-ha, he also exploited his mum and their desperate situation for something that he himself thought make sense. i'm sure his mum won't sleep with him if only she doesn't feel pressured by the debt. she knows he's a regular, and on-top of that he's his son's friend. it's shown on the panel where she desperately clinged to pil-won, that she's tired of living poor. man im depressed

would say it's quite hard to get clicked to the story at first because i put really high standard to this work (mostly because everybody said this has brought them to tears, some even claimed that they couldn't get off the bed after). the art style also need time for me to be adjusted but it just doesn't bother the more chapters i read
it just started to get to me halfway, after chapter 40+ where they dig deeper into beom's backstory and their chemistry grown more and they realized they can't separate from each other. maybe the amount of sex scenes desensitized me, i felt it's hard to be moved when the characters are constantly having sex every 3 chapters - not that i complained, it's just personal
it does have plenty of tearjerking moments though, but there's only two that really moved me, one is the whole dok-ja's rescue arc and the after story where they fled from one villages to another; geum-hoo could no longer walk without aide and there's a broad burn scar on beom's eyes. their final goodbye is also beautifully written (and this finally brought me to tears lmao). they're like a pair of doves, where they basically will follow the mate after one of them die. they're tragically fated to be together, they both desolated as child and having rough childhood, and they met to heal each other
seon-woo and geum-hoo had every potential it could have, if beom never appeared i think there's still room of them to get back together (seon-woo's feelings don't change at all towards geum-hoo thus why he accepted the princess' proposal and marry her - because gaining power that way is the only way he could protect geum-hoo)
storyline wise, it doesn't disappoint but i just feel it's kinda abrupt in the part where seong-ho, sullivan and mu-hu sail with eun-hoo to get him treated. they bid the farewell just so the story could focus on both main characters (no lying i want to see them all live together though)
my favorite part is actually the very last episode side stories where they all get reincarnated in the last panel. beom and geum-hoo met again as lovers to rekindle their past romance, seon-woo seems to become a gentle office worker, mu-hu and sullivan also be a match (i'm kinda interested to read their own stories tbh). song-deok reincarnated as fluffy ahjussi, walking his dog. seong-ho and jae-young looks like college students living their best life. we can also see the mother figures (young-rin, dok-ja and geum-nim) meet again as group of friends in the back
it's interesting to notice that the author put a brilliant way to link the past and future timeline which might stem from eun-hoo's wish under the moonlight. when he and soon conversed about the tree spirits, eun-hoo said that he wishes for a world where ones don't have to beg for normal wish to be wished. he wishes the world where everybody becomes equal (which also reminds of geum-nim said the beginning chapters), and it gets granted in the future timeline

this manhwa is a fun read before chapter 42. ik before deciding to read i've heard caesar is the biggest black flag that wouldn't even back down from firing guns to kids, but before the rape scenes he just seems like cold and apathetic person who doesn't understand human emotions
he and lee-won even had cute consensual makeout in previous chapters so i thought atleast the first time they made love gonna be consensual. idk why it gotta be ruined by rape scenes duh. it's understandable that he was in rage and thought that lee-won betrayed all his trust but bro didn't event think of asking, communicating, or even think for a moment and straight jump to conclusion just because his lame cousin said so. ain't he supposed to be great mafia leader huh? why he doesn't make use of that brain
more to surprise huh? so the twins are having incest thing??? lol