After He Left the Prefect, He Turned Dark

Rong Shu is the only daughter of the wealthiest man in Shangzhou. Unhappy with the husband her family has chosen for her, she falls in love at first sight with the poor scholar Jiang Xun.

But Jiang Xun is aloof and refined. Only after trying every means she can think of does she get a coolly delivered promise from him: "Pass the metropolitan examination, then come ask for my hand."

On the night he tops the autumn examination, Jiang Xun is not his usual composed self. As his scorching kiss falls, he promises to marry her. The next day, however, she overhears him joking with his classmates: "Scholars and merchants walk different paths. A merchant's daughter isn't worth it."

Rong Shu quietly listens to the end, then writes him a letter rebuking him for his roughness and recklessness that night, and breaks things off.

Three years later, she returns to her hometown to recruit a husband and gets caught up in a case. The stern prefect seated high in the courtroom is none other than Jiang Xun.

After she makes several attempts to get close to him, all of which he coldly rebuffs, she decides he is deliberately taking revenge for the humiliation she once dealt him. She never expects him to climb over her wall one night and lounge casually on her bed.

In the hazy lamplight, Jiang Xun's ink-black hair spills across the pillow as he reaches out to her.

"This concerns an important case. I've come to question you."

*

Jiang Xun has a secret he is ashamed to admit: in his dreams, he and Rong Shu do every intimate thing imaginable. When his dreams come true, he is beside himself with joy, only to be cast aside by her in the blink of an eye.

He searches for her for three years without success. When they meet again, she is recruiting a husband while caring for a little girl whose father he doesn't know. But what could be so difficult about becoming the girl's stepfather?

That is, until the girl's "uncle" moves into Rong Shu's home and spends every day with her, caring for her and showing her concern, looking for all the world like a loving couple.

He holds back in every way he can, until at last he ties a silver bell around her ankle with his own hands.

With the bed curtains lowered, Jiang Xun toys with the bell and kisses Rong Shu's lower abdomen. "Which of us is better, him or me?"

His thumb strokes the corner of her eye. "Obviously me. It can only be me."

[Reading Guide]

· Clear-headed, independent heroine who flirts without realizing it vs. devoted, obsessive hero who loves her from beginning to end

· One-on-one romance, both leads' first, happy ending

· The little girl is adopted by the heroine, but the hero thinks she is her biological daughter

Next book: After Being Haunted by an Obsessed Ghost

☆ A timid yet brave girl who fears ghosts x an inhuman ghost x a fake aloof beauty

Yun Fu is haunted by a ghost attached to the oil-paper umbrella she picked up.

When they first meet, he is drenched in white robes, his ink-black hair flowing like a waterfall. His long, deathly pale fingers slowly tighten around her neck. "If you keep using me to shelter yourself from the rain, miss, I'll pluck your little head right off."

Yun Fu sobs and agrees.

Unexpectedly, his long lashes tremble with excitement. After licking the tears from the corner of her eye, his cold, damp lips and tongue wander along her neck as he urges her, "Get warmer."

Trembling, Yun Fu holds his face and puts her fingers between his teeth. "What about this?"

He bites her fingertip and closes his eyes with a soft hum. He claims to have the face of a saint and the heart of a bodhisattva, and promises to leave if she can help him recover his memories of life among the living.

Yun Fu nods as hard as she can.

After months of searching, she finally finds where the ghost came from: Cui Xunzhou, the second young master of Wangyue Manor, who has been unconscious for a long time.

After Cui Xunzhou wakes, he doesn't recognize Yun Fu, and his gaze is indifferent.

Overjoyed, Yun Fu burns the umbrella and leaves that very night, only to wake from a dream unable to breathe, bound tight in someone's arms. She opens her eyes and meets a pair of dark eyes filled with obsession.

"I'm so cold, Yun Fu. Warm me up."

"Second Young Master Cui?"

Cui Xunzhou's eyes darken. He presses close to her ear and says ominously, "Call me Second Young Master Cui again, and I'll pluck your head right off."

*

Cui Xunzhou discovers two strange things: first, he keeps unconsciously biting his fingertips until they bleed and sucking on them; second, someone once saw him leave the manor at midnight and return at dawn, though he knows nothing about it.

Thinking back to the day he woke up, he finds that woman highly suspicious and decides to keep her nearby and watch her closely.

One day, he casts a casual glance at Yun Fu and notices a red mark on the side of her neck. A thought suddenly rises in his heart: Who is that damned man?

*

[Bonus Scene]

At midnight, beneath the blue gauze bed curtains, Cui Xunzhou repeatedly strokes Yun Fu's lips, swollen from his kisses. "Which makes you happier, the ghost or Second Young Master Cui?"

Yun Fu hesitates, staring intently into his inscrutable eyes.

Cui Xunzhou gives a low laugh. "Then you like them equally. How greedy of you, Yun Fu."

"And do you know who I am, Yun Fu?" he asks in a languid voice, leisurely playing with her sash.

"Get it wrong, and you'll be punished."

Theme: Love yourself before you love someone else.