I Won't Be a Concubine

Writing is hard, so please support the official release~

Older man|Possessive pursuit|The powerful lower themselves

(A transmigrated woman with a rebellious streak vs. a feudal patriarch of a powerful minister)

On the second day after high school student Lin Tiaotiao transmigrated to ancient times, she was sold into the Pei household as a servant in a muddle. Fortunately, she was clever and quick-witted. After two years, she became the most trusted senior maid at the Second Young Madam's side.

Others urged her to compete for a place in the young master's bedchamber.

But for all her cleverness, Lin Tiaotiao had no ambition.

She neither fought nor schemed, and even went so far as to make herself look plain. She devoted herself to serving the Second Young Madam, hoping only to save enough money to buy her freedom and leave the estate as soon as possible.

Unexpectedly, one night, the drunken Second Young Master mistook her for the woman he had always longed for and nearly dragged her into bed. Lin Tiaotiao fled in a panic, only to crash into the First Young Master, Pei Yun, who had just returned to the estate, at the hanging-flower gate.

A fine misty rain fell that night, soaking the young woman's clothes and washing away her makeup to reveal porcelain skin.

Pei Yun stood beneath an umbrella, looking down at the little maid who had fallen at his feet. She kept her head lowered desperately, yet held her back straight. He ordered her to lift her face.

Pei Yun finally saw that, for some inexplicable reason, the little maid resembled his deceased wife.

*

Pei Yun was strikingly handsome, and at a young age had already risen to the highest ranks of the court. Sadly, he had been a widower for two years, with neither wife nor child. People had urged him to take several concubines and bedchamber maids to continue the family line, but he had never agreed. This time, however, for the first time in his life, Pei Yun wanted a little maid.

Yet the little maid was his younger brother's wife's companion maid. In a sense, she was also his Second Brother's woman.

Pei Yun considered this briefly.

It would be a little difficult, but... not impossible.

*

Pei Yun used a few tricks to take her from his Second Brother. At the time, Lin Tiaotiao cried and told him she already had someone in her heart, and would never be a concubine in this life.

Pei Yun had enjoyed a smooth life, with countless noblewomen eager to win his favor. Now, at last, he had set his sights on a servant despite the difference in their station, yet she dared refuse his favor.

Didn't want to be a concubine?

Then she could remain his bedchamber maid.

She might be a bedchamber maid, but she would still be the only woman in his household.

Pei Yun thought that she was alone and helpless, her life as precarious as a duckweed. He gave her a place to stay, wealth and status, and pampered her. Lin Tiaotiao should be content.

Until the little bedchamber maid took advantage of his military campaign to run away from him.

And she ran off with another man.

Pei Yun finally remembered that Lin Tiaotiao had once said she had someone in her heart. She had also cried out the name of a strange man in a nightmare beside his bed...

Pei Yun laughed coldly in fury. For the first time, he tasted the agony of love, a torment that seared his heart and bones.

Later, Pei Yun caught her and promised her the position of his wife, granting her honor and status, all to force her to give him her true heart. In return, he got only the resolute sight of her, pregnant, leaping off a cliff without hesitation.

Note:

① First-time couple, happy ending, older man, nine-year age gap.

② Includes possessive pursuit elements (emphasis!). The heroine does not miscarry when she jumps off the cliff, and she is not trying to die. This is not an angsty novel, but a forced-love story~

③ The heroine transmigrates into her own body. She is a thoroughly modern young woman, with no powerful family background. She is young, stubborn, rebellious, and loves stirring up trouble.

④ The hero is a bastard. He really was married before, but his wife died soon after they wed, and he had no feelings for her. From the hero's perspective, the heroine is not a substitute. The heroine lacks this information.

⑤ The heroine truly has a male idol she has always admired.

Coming next: The next novel, Draw Him into My Bedchamber, a wife-stealing story. Please add it to your reading list.

Older man|Cunning seduction|Chasing his wife

[A deliberately seductive little vixen vs. a ruthless power minister bent on stealing another man's wife]

In the third year after Jiang Ying married in place of her elder sister, her husband passed the highest imperial examination. As everyone congratulated Jiang Ying for finally coming into her own, she had a dream. In it, her husband had always been deeply in love with her elder sister. To stay with her, he treated Jiang Ying like a plaything and offered her to powerful men to advance his career. In the end, he branded her a shameless woman and strangled her to death in the ancestral hall.

At first, Jiang Ying thought it was only a dream, until she found the love letters her husband and elder sister had exchanged over the past three years. Among them was a divorce letter he had prepared long ago.

Jiang Ying felt as if she had fallen into an icy abyss.

She had no one to rely on. If she were divorced, death would be her only fate.

Then her husband acted just as he had in the dream, ordering her to dress up and go pay her respects to a powerful man. Before she left, he coaxed her into drinking an aphrodisiac, crushing the last shred of hope Jiang Ying had left.

She had always been cautious, never harming anyone in her life. Yet her parents were heartless, her elder sister stole her husband, her mother-in-law made things difficult for her, and now her husband wanted to sacrifice her.

Filled with resentment and defiance, Jiang Ying drank the wine without hesitation, then turned around and seduced her husband's nominal uncle, Xie Jue, the youngest Grand Preceptor in the dynasty, into bed.

-

The Xie family was a prestigious clan with a century of history. Its head, Xie Jue, had become Grand Preceptor at just twenty-six and was Commander-in-Chief of all military forces inside and outside the capital, wielding power over the entire court. Women who wanted to marry him were as numerous as fish crossing a river, but Jiang Ying was the first married woman to pursue and seduce him so brazenly.

The young wife was voluptuous and alluring. Clinging piteously to his shoulder, she breathed against him like orchids: “My husband says I have borne him no child in three years and wants to divorce me. Uncle, please take pity on me.”

Tearful, coquettish, and flirtatious, she was far from the dignified, virtuous woman people admired. What was more, she was a minor official's wife and his nominal nephew's wife. Getting involved with her would only tarnish his reputation.

Xie Jue gave a faint scoff, unmoved. “What does your need for a son have to do with me?”

-

Half a year later, Jiang Ying became pregnant. She wanted to use Xie Jue to secure a divorce from her husband, but he refused. So she simply went back to her husband while pregnant and left the capital for good.

Before heading south to take up her new post, she gave Xie Jue a graceful farewell and thanked her uncle for his “kind care and affection” over the past six months. From then on, they would be separated by mountains and rivers, never to meet again.

Seated high above, Xie Jue stared coldly at her as she held her husband's arm, acting polite and distant toward him.

Just the night before, the two of them had been entwined in bed.

That night, the wife of the top-scorer vanished.

In the private dungeon of the Grand Preceptor's residence, Jiang Ying's wrists were bound, and she was imprisoned in a golden cage, disheveled. Xie Jue sat outside the cage, impeccably dressed. “You're carrying my child, and you still want to run?”

He could give up his good name. So what if she was a minor official's wife? He could take her if he wanted.

#Seduce the untouchable flower from his pedestal, then go mad chasing his wife

Theme: Freedom above all