Please Don't Imitate My Romance Target

[A tough, prickly girl who's soft at heart x a clingy, obsessive man who brings ruin]

Shen Siqing gets transported into the world of a fantasy demon-hunting game. She learns that her assigned System tasks require her not only to save the world, but also to choose a character to pursue.

The good news: the System has a reload function.

The bad news: the reload point is pretty random.

Looking at her completely useless combat stats, the world-weary Shen Siqing decides to let the world burn.

There are four romanceable characters.

One is hopelessly oblivious.

One is a sharp-tongued pain to be around.

One is a weird latecomer.

And one is paired with her cousin.

Shen Siqing looks in despair at Gongyi Ling, her gentle, kind, and wonderful white moonlight who has always stayed by her side, then drops to her knees and pounds the ground. If he's not romanceable, why does he have to be so handsome and perfect!

In her first playthrough, Shen Siqing dislikes everyone except Gongyi Ling.

Gongyi Ling likes to draw, so when she's bored, she asks him to make little comics for her.

Gongyi Ling is good at making medicine, so whenever she's hurt, she only lets him treat her.

Shen Siqing keeps disliking everyone, halfheartedly doing her tasks, and clinging to her white moonlight.

This is fine, too. If she can't finish the tasks, so be it. She's hardly cut out to save the world anyway.

After she'd switched romanceable characters a few times, her white moonlight snapped.

Wearing the wedding robe stripped from the dead groom who had been about to marry Shen Siqing, and standing atop a pile of corpses, he spoke in the voice of one of her romanceable characters and said he wanted to wed her.

Shen Siqing stumbled backward in terror and waved her hands. "Please don't imitate my romanceable characters."

By her third playthrough, Shen Siqing is close with everyone except Gongyi Ling.

*

Gongyi Ling was born with incomplete spiritual power. Since childhood, he has known that everyone would abandon him.

His parents died young and left him. His clan stripped him of his heirship and left him alone in the old family residence. When danger struck, his companions left him behind to face it alone.

He doesn't care.

He wants nothing from life, though he does have some interest in painting.

One day, a strange person named Shen Siqing picked up one of his paintings. After that, she kept coming to see him under the pretext of looking at his art, and gave him a whole string of terrible ideas.

Every time, Gongyi Ling smiled insincerely and humored her perfunctorily.

That was, until Shen Siqing started chasing after a man, making a complete fool of herself to win him over.

He squeezed the little female figurine in his hand and thought that perhaps it wouldn't be so bad to turn Shen Siqing into a talking, moving clay doll and keep her by his side.

Later, Gongyi Ling and that man were captured by a yokai, who gave Shen Siqing a chance to choose.

Gongyi Ling knew he was about to be abandoned again.

There was no suspense about who Shen Siqing would choose: him or the person she loved.

But then...

"I choose Gongyi Ling."

Shen Siqing's firm voice rang in his ears like a thunderclap.

For the first time in his life, Gongyi Ling felt an overwhelming desire.

He wanted to possess everything about her: her love, her hatred, even her murderous intent.

Unfortunately, it was too late. Shen Siqing's injuries were too severe, and she died in his arms.

Gongyi Ling took the sword that had pierced Shen Siqing's heart and drove it into his own chest, impaling himself alongside her.

For the first time, fate showed him mercy. He returned to the past with his memories intact, again and again.

In every life afterward, his Qingqing falls in love with someone different.

But it doesn't matter.

He'll learn to be like them, then get rid of them. That way, he can take their place. ^ ^

1. Male lead is a virgin. The female lead kisses her romanceable characters and goes further.

2. The female lead starts out as a prickly little kid, and becomes very dependent on the male lead because of his schemes.

3. The male lead has severe codependency and is very weak, but he's extremely cunning.

4. The world is entirely original. The romance routes are structured like an otome game, with a common route and individual character routes.

^^[My upcoming pseudo-sibling historical romance, The Peach Grove's Wraith, is up next door. If you like the sound of it, please check it out and add it to your collection!]^^

[Cool, fake princess x a tyrannical emperor]

The day Wen Ying learned she was a fake princess, she knew she would die in the palace sooner or later.

To stay alive, Wen Ying used her younger brother, Wen Jue, who trusted and depended on her most, as a scapegoat. She got him injured and left with a crippled leg, then managed to escape the palace.

She changed her identity and name, left the capital, and spent seven years living in constant fear, plagued by nightmares every night. Whenever she closed her eyes, she heard screams from somewhere in the palace and saw Wen Jue limping after her, crying pitifully.

Her seven years as an ordinary commoner were hardly peaceful. People coveted her, made things difficult for her, and urged her to marry. Fortunately, pretending to be a widow who had brought about her husband's death spared her a lot of trouble.

Then one day, the family of the proprietress, who treated her like a younger sister, offended a powerful noble. They were framed and thrown into prison.

To save them, Wen Ying went before the noble and knelt.

Just as she thought her fate was sealed, the hem of a black robe fell over her hands as she bent down to kowtow.

Unlike the sweet, childish voice of seven years ago, a cool, distant voice spoke above her head. "If you want to save them, you should be begging me."

The noble fawned over him. "May I ask what Your Majesty's relationship is with Lady Liu?"

"Her... husband, who should have been dead."

Seven years of freedom was a long time for Wen Ying, now known as Liu Huaiyue.

Long enough that she had almost forgotten that the palace was full of madmen, including this scapegoat named Wen Jue.

"Elder Sister, have I grown taller?" Wen Jue no longer had to look up at Wen Ying as he used to. He lowered his eyes and smiled tenderly. "Have you missed me every night?"

But from Wen Ying's position on the ground, he looked just like the King of Hell from her nightmares, come to claim her life.

*

After ascending the throne, Wen Jue did three things.

He purged corrupt officials, introduced new policies, and brought his elder sister back.

He had longed for that third thing for seven whole years.

He waited for his elder sister to return, wanting to tell her how easy he was to appease.

But she never came back.

Even after he made everything that frightened her disappear, she still didn't return.

Wen Jue's longing for his elder sister gradually turned into resentment.

On his way to capture the elder sister who had run away, he imagined a thousand ways to punish the faithless woman who had abandoned him.

He was determined to trap his elder sister in hell with him for all eternity.

Theme: "Loving yourself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."