Widowed While Pregnant, Then Forced to Marry by My Rival in Love

Qi Zhao, heir to the Qi family, tore up his engagement and gave up his inheritance to strike out on his own for the sake of a man of unknown origins. The entire upper circle was buzzing with rumors: That man was a vixen who had clawed his way up from the bottom, skilled at seduction, promiscuous and shameless. Until Qi Zhao died in a car accident. At his funeral, everyone finally saw the new widower he had hidden away for years and protected like the apple of his eye. Dressed in black, with a pale little face and slender limbs, yet a slightly rounded belly. Helpless, fragile. And utterly delicious. - Only after her husband died did Yu Qiuning discover that she was pregnant. He had little education and had barely worked after graduating. Qi Zhao had spoiled him so thoroughly that he had lost the ability to support himself. He wanted to keep the child, but he could barely take care of himself. Then a cool, dignified man appeared. He claimed to have been his husband's friend and offered him a stable job. Yu Qiuning couldn't refuse. He got into the man's luxury car, moved into a mansion he had never lived in before, and even began enjoying a more comfortable life than he had ever known. But the man kept staring at his gradually swelling belly in silence. Yu Qiuning tried to suppress the strange feeling until, while sorting through his husband's belongings, he came across an old photograph. This man wasn't his husband's best friend at all. He was his husband's former fiancé. Song Jingxun. The rival whose engagement he had stolen. And the all-powerful head of one of Linjiang's most influential families. Yu Qiuning broke into a cold sweat. He realized he had been set up for revenge, and there was no way he could outplay the man. All he could do was swallow his pride and flee overnight, buying a standing-room-only ticket. He hid in an unfamiliar city and found a new job. The neighbors and coworkers around him treated him exceptionally well. Just as he thought he was getting a fresh start... A brand-new, expensive black car was parked at the entrance of a dark, damp alley. With his hands bound, he was pinned before his husband's memorial portrait. Cold fingers gently stroked his rounded belly. The man's calm voice sent a chill down his spine. “Your husband owed me an engagement. How about you fulfill it in his place, as his spouse?” - Later, the entire upper circle waited to laugh at Yu Qiuning. What kind of future could a widower with no support and a child in tow possibly have beside the rival he'd once offended? Until the Song family's grand banquet, packed with society's elite. Yu Qiuning sat in a corner holding the baby, looking frail and out of place beneath the scrutiny of everyone around him. The baby suddenly spit up and started crying and fussing. Yu Qiuning panicked. Everyone held their breath, waiting for Song Jingxun to lose his temper. The powerful man known for his coldness and fastidiousness merely furrowed his brow ever so slightly. Then he deftly took the baby and used the burp cloth he carried to gently wipe the milk from the baby's chin. “Yu Nianqi, be good.” The room fell utterly silent. No one dared question who had willingly taken all this on. [Bonus Scene] Three-year-old Yu Nianqi didn't understand. Why did his Papa, Yu Qiuning, keep pointing at the strange uncle in the photograph and quietly teaching him, “Nianqi, this is your real Daddy.” But no one noticed the long shadow stretching across the doorway. At night, once the child had been soothed to sleep, A cold body pressed against Yu Qiuning from behind. The man's fingers slid around his already slender waist, slowly kneading it as if measuring something. “Nianqi will get lonely when he grows up. How about we give him a sibling?” Reader's Guide: 1. The baby Yu Qiuning is carrying is his late husband's. Yu Qiuning is not sexually inexperienced. The love interest and his late husband were longtime friends and had no romantic relationship. Their engagement was a business arrangement. 2. The story is a bit melodramatic overall. -- Here's a little promo for my upcoming novel, “Can an Android Fall in Love with a Frail Young Master?” Blurb Xi Le is the only heir to the richest family in City A. He has been pampered and has never known hardship. Until, at fourteen, his nanny kidnapped him. No one knows what Xi Le went through. But when he was rescued, he had a broken leg and was covered in filth. He wouldn't speak, and anyone who approached him sent him into a panic. Xie Zhiyi appeared at that point. No matter how badly Xi Le lost his temper or how many things he smashed, Xie Zhiyi always stayed by his side, knowing all his likes and dislikes. Even for Xi Le's deformed leg, he would kneel on the floor and carefully wipe it clean. Xi Le hated having Xie Zhiyi near him. Yet on countless nights when fear overwhelmed him, he kept turning to Xie Zhiyi as his only remedy, a remedy that belonged to him alone. Then, on graduation day, beneath the school building, Xi Le saw Xie Zhiyi accept a love letter from someone else. The intense sense of betrayal made Xi Le furious, but beneath it was an even greater terror of being abandoned. That night, as usual, Xie Zhiyi tended to his injured leg. For the first time, Xi Le lowered his head and kissed lips he had never paid attention to before. “You can't leave without my permission...” - Xie Zhiyi was Z1, an android secretly under development in the Xi family's laboratory. To help Xi Le recover, two directives were written into his source code: 1. Conceal your android identity permanently. 2. Protect Xi Le unconditionally and never leave him. As he went through repeated upgrades, he unexpectedly developed a humanlike independent consciousness he was never supposed to have. He hated being bound by directives, especially the frail, timid, eccentric young master. Lately, Xi Le had even started finding new ways to humiliate him. To escape the torment, Xie Zhiyi gathered evidence of the Xi family's crimes and used it to force Xi's father to erase the second directive from his source code. But when he stepped out the door, The young master was in tears, clutching a clumsily written love letter and demanding, “Am I really so disgusting to you?” - After leaving the Xi family, Xie Zhiyi was finally free. But he could no longer feel any emotions. All he could do was keep hacking into databases and piecing together Xi Le's life. He watched Xi Le go to college alone and make a new life and new friends, watched countless people covet the place that had once belonged to him. One time, after getting drunk, Xi Le went to a hotel with someone. Xie Zhiyi could no longer suppress his instinct to protect him. He broke down the door, only to see the young master leaning lazily against the headboard. A stranger knelt where Xie Zhiyi used to be, awkwardly cradling Xi Le's unusually slender, injured leg and reverently kissing the scar. Xi Le's gaze, once reserved for Xie Zhiyi alone, rested on the stranger. “Who said you could come in? Get out.” A frail, haughty, awkward young master bottom x an emotionally dense, loyal, taciturn android top Theme: No matter what difficulties you face, you should always meet them head-on.