[Posting chapters once the draft reaches 300, currently in progress]
Mo Chu is transported into a male-oriented novel. To rewrite the protagonist's death, the System tasks her with winning over the wooden male lead, who knows nothing about love.
Using her status as a relative of the Xie family, she successfully gets involved with the male lead.
At sixteen, the boy is as beautiful as a girl, studies both Buddhism and Taoism, and forms a bond with her after she saves his life on their first meeting.
To win him over and repay him, when Mo Chu learns that her touch can ease his pain, she helps him without hesitation. From then on, her actions include but are not limited to holding his hand and kissing his lips, until their flesh and blood become one.
She also sits beside him, leaning against him, and they promise to enjoy the splendor of Chang'an, the charms of Hangzhou, and all the wide-open wonders of the world together one day.
On the fifth day of the fifth month, they go out together. The streets are festooned with lanterns, while performers walk tightropes, roll logs, swallow knives, and breathe fire.
The sights are too much to take in. Mo Chu grows tired and climbs onto the boy's back, her legs swinging as his hot body warms her cheeks until they flush.
Her bright eyes reflect the maple trees and fishing lights. She leans close to his ear and whispers, "Perhaps Heaven thought the early spring in the second month was still cold, so it let you be born then."
Your birth was a gift from Heaven.
The evening breeze stirs their hair, tangling and tugging at their strands.
The boy walks steadily. Mo Chu cannot see the mockery, embarrassment, and coldness that flicker through his eyes when she calls him by that name...
Nor the deep resentment and regret.
·
The day she sees through that false, benevolent mask, cold shackles clamp around Mo Chu's wrists.
Only then does she learn that the person before her is Xie Que, the male lead's younger brother, whom everyone is desperate to avoid.
He took her attempts to win him over seriously, and mistook the closeness she had given him by mistake for love.
He imprisons her and tries to destroy her sanity, determined to make it impossible for her to leave him, body and soul.
"Chuchu, you were the one who said you loved me first. Why do you look at other men? Why do you talk to him? Why do you smile at him? Why do you go with him...?" Xie Que rests his head on her stomach like an abandoned puppy, innocent eyes brimming with tears. "You said you'd stay with me for all eternity. Why did you lie to me?"
"But it's all right. As long as you stay by my side, I can forgive you for everything."
"What, you want Second Brother? What am I supposed to do...?"
The boy gives an innocent smile, his dark blue eyes filled with helplessness. "You have only Xie Que now."
"Love me. Don't leave me."
*
1. The male lead's contact with the female lead is sexual.
2. Warning: a lengthy confinement-and-abuse arc.
3. One-on-one pairing, sexually inexperienced leads, happy ending.
Theme: Independence and self-reliance
