Spring Mountain Sends Word [Marriage Before Love]

Marriage first, love later | Long-planned romance | A secret crush comes true | Older man

After her family went bankrupt, Zhong Xiwu fled to Hong Kong City to ask her fiance for help, only to stumble upon him passionately kissing another woman.

In her panic, she turned to the man seated at the head of the banquet table: her fiance's elder brother, Zhou Shaoqi.

He was enveloped in a cold, murderous aura, kept women at a distance, and valued rules above all else.

She was the Zhou family's future daughter-in-law. He wouldn't stand by and do nothing.

So Zhong Xiwu's eyes reddened, and she swayed over to him. "Big Brother, please help me..."

He cast her a calm, indifferent glance, casual and unconcerned.

Plenty of people waited to see Zhong Xiwu make a fool of herself.

A penniless woman who had fled from the mainland, full of schemes. The Zhou family would surely call off the engagement.

Yet the morning after the banquet, Zhong Xiwu woke up in Zhou Shaoqi's bed.

The following month, she became Mrs. Zhou.

Zhou Shaoqi treated her coolly, so Zhong Xiwu eventually bought herself a plane ticket back to the mainland.

But when the plane landed and she woke up, she discovered she was back at the Zhou family mansion.

The cold-hearted man pinned her to the bed, possessiveness plain on his face, and locked her slender, pale wrist in a silver chain.

He pinched her cheek. "Mrs. Zhou, where are you going?"

*

People's first impression of Zhong Xiwu was always that she was soft and pitiful.

But Zhou Shaoqi saw her ambition and cunning at a glance.

From the moment he first saw her at the banquet, he knew Zhong Xiwu had come to climb her way into the Zhou family.

She had sky-high ambitions but a fate as fragile as paper. She was exactly the kind of woman he despised.

And yet the rules he'd rigidly followed for nearly thirty years crumbled at the sight of her deliberately vulnerable gaze.

Knowing full well she was his younger brother's fiancee, Zhou Shaoqi used underhanded means to take her for himself.

After they married, Zhou Shaoqi thought that if Zhong Xiwu behaved herself, he could indulge her little temper tantrums.

Those old, worn-out customs could be ignored.

Until the day he found a nearly empty bottle of emergency contraceptive pills in Zhong Xiwu's bag...

*

His elder brother had married the irritating fiancee meant for him.

Zhou Huiyuan's first thought was that he was happy.

But hearing her soft, lilting voice reserved only for his elder brother day after day made his teeth ache with jealousy and left him feeling dejected.

Later, he regretted it.

He went to find Zhong Xiwu and explain, but the one who opened the door was his usually dignified and proper elder brother.

His clothes were disheveled, a woman's lipstick marked his lips, and fine scratches covered his chest.

Zhou Huiyuan clenched his fists. "You stole my fiancee..."

He would take his brother's place and return her to her rightful owner.

[Important:]

One-on-one romance throughout. The male lead has been plotting for a long time and steals his younger brother's wife.

The younger brother is an inconsequential second male lead with unrequited feelings for the heroine. No brother-sharing or group-sex plot, and no one-female-two-male setup.

Theme: Promoting a healthy view of love