You Like Men, But I'm Not a Man!

Ren Ximian sneaks down the mountain, disguises herself as a man to conceal her identity, and sets out to rescue the princess she has never met, her younger sister, who is being forced into a political marriage.

At the emperor's feet, every prince and minister is said to be scheming, sinister, and cunning. The Fifth Prince of Qin is particularly difficult to deal with.

Poor little sister. Who knows how difficult things must be for her?

Ren Ximian packs up her belongings, but gets lost and has no choice but to travel with a young nobleman.

The young man has a face as handsome as jade and features as lovely as a painting. Every gesture reveals his refined, noble bearing, yet he is also gentle, elegant, considerate, and attentive.

It is only after getting to know him that Ren Ximian realizes city folk aren't all arrogant and looking down their noses at everyone. Her new friend is wonderful from head to toe, inside and out!

Sometimes, though, he's a little too wonderful.

He patiently answers her many questions, gently bandages her wounds, and even lets her eat first.

When she temporarily loses her sight, he takes care of her down to the smallest detail, feeding her by hand, carrying her on horseback, and even sharing a bed with her so he can look after her.

Ren Ximian thinks, That's not right. Men and women shouldn't be so familiar with each other.

Then she suddenly remembers: Right. I'm a man now.

But his care grows ever more intimate. They share a bed night after night, he holds her and refuses to let go again and again, and he repeatedly jokes about growing old together with her...

Until one day, when he pins her down and kisses her, she finally realizes: He's into men?!

Having accidentally deceived a pure-hearted young man's feelings, Ren Ximian feels terribly guilty and decides to start planning her escape. After all...

Someone as gentle as him would surely never hate her to the bone.

*

Who could have guessed that this easygoing young nobleman was none other than the Fifth Prince of Qin, Qin Huai, famed for always taking revenge? Ren Ximian is horrified.

His face, too handsome to belong to a mortal, is half-hidden in shadow beyond the sunlight. A smile plays on his lips as his dark eyes stare at her without blinking.

Ren Ximian nearly turns and runs.

Qin Huai closes in step by step, his smile still gentle and his voice soft and tender, though his words are not quite so pleasant.

"Why are you running, Xiao Xi?"

Ren Ximian stammers that she wasn't running, but he pins her onto the bed in one swift movement. Then she sees him take out a familiar book: the illustrated erotic manual she bought by mistake.

He flips through it page by page. Ren Ximian nervously stares at the densely packed annotations, her heart sinking.

Did he really have to study it so thoroughly?

Qin Huai leisurely turns to a familiar page, his slender fingers lightly pinching the paper.

In the bright daylight, he smiles without batting an eye. "The night is still young. We have plenty of time to talk, nice and slow."

Reader's note:

1. The male lead is not into men. He knows the female lead's gender; his being into men is just a misunderstanding.

A peek at my upcoming story, "After Faking Her Death, the General's Puppy Turns Dark"

On the second day after her husband dies, Luoyi's maternal family sends someone to tell her to marry again.

She secretly has someone send a letter to her late husband's sworn younger brother, Xie Zhibai, the Marquis of Zhaowu, who pacified the entire Northwest alone and is famous throughout the realm, asking him to come and see his sworn brother off on his final journey.

Meanwhile, she changes into the plainest white clothes and does her best to look sorrowful and haggard, hoping the renowned general will feel some pity for his sworn brother's widow and grant her a way to live.

*

Strangely enough, though he'd spent years fighting on the battlefield and walked out of mountains of corpses and seas of blood, he had an especially open and bright smile.

He put on no airs at all. With smiling eyes, he came to Luoyi's courtyard every day without fail, calling her "Sister-in-law" over and over. He was almost like the little dog she'd once raised, who forgot every scolding as soon as he got a treat and always circled her feet, overflowing with enthusiasm and clueless as could be.

He looked so easy to fool.

Luoyi distractedly humors him, secretly wondering why Xie Zhibai hasn't left yet. Instead, he clings to her even more, following her when she goes out to buy lip rouge and buying every pearl hairpin and jade ornament she looks at, then happily presenting them to her. "Do you like them, Sister-in-law?"

As time passes, rumors spread through the city. People say she has no regard for propriety, that she is carrying on with a famous, highly honored, undefeated general so soon after her husband's death, and that it is indecent.

Before anything is brought into the open, Xie Zhibai is urgently summoned back to the Northwest. Luoyi hurriedly packs her bags, fakes her death, and settles in a small town surrounded by beautiful hills and clear waters.

The town is remote, but news of Xie Zhibai still reaches her from time to time.

He nearly died. His personality changed completely. He won another major battle, then returned to the capital and married a memorial tablet for a dead person.

The midday sun makes Luoyi drowsy. Half-asleep, she sees the courtyard surrounded by soldiers, and a handsome man at their head approaches and lifts her into his arms, his voice deep as still water. "Sister-in-law."

Luoyi jolts awake and struggles, but he holds her far too tightly and won't let her go.

*

Xie Zhibai seems like a different person now: inscrutable, taciturn, and stern. Luoyi is afraid and doesn't know how he plans to punish her.

Anyone would find it difficult to forgive such a cruel deception.

Luoyi sleeps uneasily, terrified. In the middle of the night, she suddenly opens her eyes and is startled by the dark figure beside the bed, who has been watching her for who knows how long.

In the hazy moonlight, the tear tracks on his cheeks gleam like snow. He sits curled up with his knees drawn to his chest, his voice so aggrieved it practically overflows: "I knew it. You were going to run away again."

"If I don't keep my eyes on you, you'll disappear again."

*

What bad intentions could a puppy possibly have?

A puppy only wants to stay with its owner forever and ever, for a long, long time.

Theme: Treating others with sincerity