My Lover

[Full manuscript completed]

[Rekindled love + ancient-style shared-rental-house story + a touch of coercive romance]

Huo Shu was abandoned in the countryside as a child. She ate spoiled food, slept in a straw shelter, and spent every day being worked like a donkey.

The one thing she was grateful for was her stunningly beautiful face, which she could use to attach herself to the powerful.

But beauty alone was a dead end.

Those men coveted her looks and her body, but refused to give her a secure future. The moment she resisted, they abandoned her.

With money always tight, she had no choice but to share a dilapidated temple with someone else and struggle to get by.

Next door lived a down-and-out illegitimate son, full of talk about morality and full of schemes.

He mocked her poor taste in men; she called him a hypocrite.

They would have loved to grind each other into the dirt.

But during those days of mutual contempt, they ended up in bed together, and in their hatred, a little pity was born: the grudging compassion of two people who shared the same plight.

Later, Huo Shu was transformed into a young lady of a marquis's household. Though she coveted his looks and desired his prowess, she still left him without hesitation.

A man like him was only good as a lover.

She thought, so she was no different from those men after all.

*

Zhao Yun had seen Huo Shu at her most wretched and defeated, and had witnessed her cold indifference.

He thought he hated her.

He hated that she didn't love him enough.

*

Reader's guide:

1. The male and female leads are imperfect.

2. Rekindled love + an ancient-style shared-rental-house story. Their mutual antagonism is real.

Theme: Becoming a better version of yourself