I Only Put on a Qipao, So Why Did My Cold Uncle Lose It?

“Shen Qingwu, arch your back a little more.”

“If you can't learn how to seduce people, go marry someone for the family.”

Everyone in Hong Kong knows that He Jinyan is a living King of Hell who controls everything with an iron fist.

He carries prayer beads and looks like a refined, celibate gentleman. He is the untouchable head of the He family.

And Shen Qingwu is nothing more than a canary kept in the He family's cage: aloof, beautiful, and powerless.

Trying to escape her twisted fiancé, she knocked on He Jinyan's door on a stormy night, wearing a red qipao that still had its tags on.

“Uncle, please save me.”

The man calmly crushed out his cigar, his thumb brushing over her trembling lips as he regarded her with amusement.

“You want to use me as your weapon? Shen Qingwu, you've got a lot to learn.”

Later, he taught her how to appraise antiques, how to play the game, and how to use her beauty to kill without drawing blood.

All of Hong Kong believed that Ninth Master He had fallen for her and spoiled her rotten.

Only Shen Qingwu knew he meant to hone her into the perfect blade with his own hands, then offer her up on the altar of an arranged marriage.

She stayed clearheaded even as she fell for him. On the night before her engagement, she went all in, risking every chip for one grand escape.

All she left him was a torn qipao and a note:

“Mr. He, I won this round. The stake is that we'll never see each other again, in life or death.”

That night, He Jinyan, who had always kept his cool, went mad.

He searched every inch of the city, turning the whole place upside down, just to get back the only medicine that could cure him.

“Qingwu, please... don't leave me.”