How an Aloof Master Maintains His Dignity

[A sweet, seemingly obedient girl who's actually strong-willed × a gentle, good-natured husband who seems like the picture of refinement but secretly cries like a little pearl]

Shen Mingrui transmigrated into a tragic master-disciple romance novel steeped in love and hatred. To get home, she carefully kept up her sweet, obedient persona, using honeyed words to convince everyone she was an innocent, harmless junior sister. But she slipped up with one person.

Her master, Zhou Shengsui. She remembered how the book described him: an utterly rigid and old-fashioned, aloof and restrained immortal, as pure as a celestial being. Shen Mingrui believed this without question and decided from the very beginning to keep her distance from him.

But after narrowly escaping death, she was forced to hide inside a coffin. Terrified that a great demon might appear at any moment, her heart was in her throat.

Just as cold sweat soaked through her clothes, someone suddenly flung open the coffin.

Thinking the great demon had returned to its lair, she held her breath and pretended to be dead. With her clothes stained in blood, she really did look like a corpse.

As they faced off, a few warm drops landed on her face.

They were probably the demon's drool. It was revolting, but to survive, she had no choice but to keep playing dead. In her daze, she even heard a few soft sobs.

Perhaps this great demon simply had an unusual cry. After all, she'd read about demons whose voices sounded like a child's wailing in the Strange Tales. It was nothing out of the ordinary.

"A-Rui..."

At the familiar call, Shen Mingrui instinctively opened her eyes. Her usually aloof and peerless master was standing outside, weeping bitterly, his eyes red and shining with tears.

It turned out those weren't drops of saliva at all, but his tears, shed in sheer terror.

But what was he so afraid of? Was he afraid she'd die?

All right, she admitted that in that moment, she felt a little tenderness toward him.

From then on, Shen Mingrui would often observe her master, who sat serenely above everyone else. Only then did she discover that beneath the glittering facade he'd painstakingly crafted lay a fragile, glasslike heart.

She started acting completely without restraint, often daring to trample all over her master's dignity. She especially loved teasing him and watching the vulnerability beneath his mask emerge. He was like a painted statue wrapped around a clay core: only when the hard, lifeless clay fell away could its brilliant colors be revealed.

Later, that stopped being enough for her. Greedy people always want more, and she was no exception.

That day, when she met her master's flustered gaze, she took his hand instead, lacing their fingers together until they were inseparable.

"You didn't give birth to me or raise me, so how is this between us a violation of proper morals and ethics?"

"If I say you can accept this love, then you can."

Zhou Shengsui had never known that a monster lived in his heart, one that could never be satisfied. When it first showed itself, his instinct was to hide it.

But later, he willingly tore open the monster's skin and faced his own love and desire, greedily devouring every selfish longing like a starving ghost.

By then, he would no longer be an immortal as pure and refined as the moon. He would be a prisoner who had fallen completely into the abyss of desire.

"A-Rui, how can you abandon me halfway, after we've come this far? Your master will do anything you want now. Have some mercy on me, on your master..."

Blurb saved on March 28, 2026. Screenshot taken.

Reader's Guide: 1. The female lead isn't especially strong; the story focuses more on romance.

2. I just want to read about a sweet girl mischievously teasing a gentle, devoted husband. Nothing profound, so please don't overanalyze it. The feelings are mutual, and both leads are sexually inexperienced. Their dynamic has the feel of a wolfish woman and a rabbit-like man, especially later on; it's less obvious at the beginning.

3. A xianxia romance between a master and disciple. Please don't associate it with real life.

Theme: Love life, love the world.