Childhood Sweethearts Can't Compare to My Beloved

Read at your own risk! Read at your own risk! The author made this while face-planting on the keyboard as they drew the cover.

Posting it here just to promote my upcoming novel...

Check out the upcoming novel on my homepage, After Seeing My Adoptive Brother’s Chronic Illness:

After Ruan Chi came back this time, he seemed to be in poor health.

When Qiao Mi noticed, she worked up the courage to sneak into his room, hoping to ease his suffering.

She thought she could put aside all her pride to help him. But at dawn the next morning, instead of a gentle welcome, she received a sudden slap.

The porcelain cup on the bedside table crashed to the floor, its shards scattering everywhere.

Qiao Mi froze, bewildered, then turned and ran off in tears.

Everyone said Ruan Chi was a paragon of propriety, with better manners and temperament than the sons of noble families. He was especially protective and considerate of the daughter of an old friend. Back then, he had defied the opposition and petitioned the emperor to take in the orphaned daughter of a condemned official, acknowledging her as his sworn younger sister and giving her a home in his residence.

But after that incident, she realized he protected her only because of her late father's identity.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have grown increasingly rigid and strict with her, nor would he have submitted a memorial recommending a husband for her once her father's wrongful conviction was overturned...

Forget it.

There were countless noble families in Luoyang. She could marry into one of them and be free of this treatment.

Qiao Mi began learning to socialize with the sons of noble families, deliberately keeping her distance from him.

As time went by, a few young gentlemen caught her eye. They might not have been as dazzling and otherworldly as he was, but at least they were gentle and doted on her.

But just as she was about to choose one of them, a cold wind suddenly rose.

The night was still, and dampness seeped into the pillow. The man before her leaned close and tenderly kissed the tears at the corners of her eyes, then chuckled. “Isn't this what you wanted back then, little sister? So why have you changed your mind now?”

A timid yet daring, delicate beauty & a proper, rule-abiding high-ranking gentleman who gradually turns into a twisted, possessive menace

1. Both leads are each other's first and only; older male lead, healing, slightly silly, bittersweet and sweet.

2. The male lead was poisoned by the villain. His body has some issues, but he has enough decency not to take his frustrations out on the female lead.

3. At first, the male lead takes care of everything, restrains himself, and follows all the rules. He's a bit of a paternalistic type. He pushes the female lead toward other men, then regrets it, choosing to go mad with restraint rather than lose control completely.

4. The female lead has a tragic past. She cries easily at first, is afraid of pain and blood, and is useless in a fight. She's slow to catch on and can't talk her way out of things, so she resorts to her fists. The one time she manages to take charge, she helps the male lead. She'll grow later on.

5. Set in an alternate Wei-Jin era, where many women don't place much importance on chastity and virtue.

6. In the middle and later parts, there'll be some twisted possessiveness and confinement, as well as suffering for the female lead. It's melodramatic, and the male lead will have to work hard to win her back. The ending is a happy reunion for everyone.

Xiao Yao never knew her mother. Her scumbag father sold her to a creditor as a wife, and she was widowed in less than three years. To gain power and find her mother, she took on her mother-in-law's request to arrange a marriage for her younger brother-in-law.

But the younger brother-in-law in the household, Shang Shuo, was cold and aloof, never once greeting her kindly.

She did everything she could, but he was never satisfied with her choices.

When she pressed him for an answer, he only said, “I won't marry anyone but a daughter of the Cao family.”

The Cao family had been merchants for generations, always traveling abroad, with no clear date of return.

Xiao Yao went to great lengths to find his childhood sweetheart. When she finally did, he didn't even lift his eyes. “I don't want to marry her anymore.”

Xiao Yao was so angry she cursed him as a bastard in her heart.

But not only did his own marriage plans go nowhere, he also blocked her from remarrying.

Whenever a respectable family came to ask for her hand, he drove them all away.

When she got angry, he locked her in the house and said, word by word, “As a member of the Shang family, how could you become another man's wife?”

From then on, Xiao Yao hated him with all her heart.

*

The first time Shang Shuo saw Xiao Yao was when he returned to mourn his brother. A foreign woman, her hair pinned up with a plain silver hairpin, with an elegant, strong-boned face.

He thought her affected and found her unpleasant to look at.

But later, sitting across from her in the same carriage, he found himself breathless at the way her eyes sparkled with charm.

And every soft, tender “Third Brother” she called him made his gaze grow darker.

He thought then: This woman is trouble. I need to keep a close eye on her.

So he drove away every man around her, going so far as to lock her away in the inner chambers.

“A Shang family wife can only remarry a man from the Shang family.”

*

Later, Xiao Yao finally escaped.

She found her powerful, high-ranking birth mother and used her influence against him, just as he had once imprisoned and humiliated her.

She thought he would hate her. She thought she would feel triumphant.

But Shang Shuo only tilted his head up, his eyes filled with an almost manic smile.

She suddenly lost interest and coldly told him to leave.

Shang Shuo grabbed her wrist. “You want to let me go, but have you ever asked whether I want us to call it even?”

1. From beginning to end, the childhood friends don't love the male lead, and he doesn't love them either.

2. The second male lead will ask to marry the female lead later on, and the male lead will act like a bit of a bastard toward her because of it. Once you've finished cursing him out, please don't curse me out too.

3. The female lead will find her Dragon-Ball-level awesome mother later on and use her social standing to make the male lead suffer twice as much, both physically and emotionally. Though the male lead might not think it hurts much, since he has no shame (crossed out).

Updates daily when nothing comes up, every other day when it does.

Note: Shang Shuo is pronounced “yue.”

Theme: Don't tell lies. One lie leads to a hundred more.