After My Secret Identity Was Exposed, the Brooding Powerful Official Wouldn't Leave Me Alone

The main story is complete. My next novel will be "Sir, You Dropped Something": a silly beauty x a powerful eunuch. The blurb is at the end. Have a look if you're interested, everyone~

Wen Shiyu felt her luck was truly awful. On her first day in the capital, she was kidnapped, lost her token of identification, and had all her traveling money stolen.

Luckily, while escaping, she ran into a ready-made shield.

Pei Heng, Vice Minister of Justice: dressed in crimson robes and a black gauze hat, with sharp brows and bright eyes. He looked like an upright gentleman, and, conveniently, like he might be interested in her.

But protecting her and saving her was one thing. Why did he have to insist on marrying her?

Wen Shiyu pretended to wipe away tears as she demurred. "My lord, I'm lowborn. I'm willing to be your concubine. As long as I can stay by your side, that's enough."

Pei Heng solemnly refused, then disappeared for days on end.

So his refusal meant he wouldn't even let her be his concubine?

Then he couldn't blame her.

The night before, Wen Shiyu had clenched her teeth and cursed him eight hundred times. The next day, a roomful of handsome men stood before her.

She was looking them over with great interest when she unexpectedly spotted Pei Heng's gloomy face at the very end.

"Wen Shiyu, I'm not dead yet."

*

Pei Heng considered himself a true gentleman who could remain unmoved by temptation. That was until one night in a deep, narrow alley, when a woman stumbled into his arms in a panic, on the verge of tears, and begged him to protect her.

He lost his composure.

From suspicion and wariness to surrendering to her charms, he was utterly lost.

He knew she was hiding something from him, but never imagined that while he lay awake night after night for her sake, she was out enjoying herself with other men.

Looking at the roomful of pretty young things and Wen Shiyu swallowing her drool, Pei Heng laughed in anger.

So when she said she would be his concubine, she meant she wanted him to be hers?

*

Wen Shiyu made up her mind to run away.

But she couldn't find her jade pendant. Instead, she found in Pei Heng's study the illustrated erotic book he'd long claimed he would burn, along with portraits of many women. Their pages were curled and yellowed, as if someone had leafed through and handled them countless times.

Every smile and frown on the portraits was rendered vividly. They all clearly had her face.

Footsteps approached from behind, unhurried, and stopped at the doorway.

Pei Heng leaned against the door, toying with the jade pendant she'd lost. His voice was like a ghost's: "Your Highness, what are you looking at?"

Reading Guide:

1. One-on-one romance, both leads' first time.

2. Fictional setting, not historically accurate. Not a female-centric power fantasy.

--- Upcoming Novel ---

The night the Imperial Guards surrounded the Jiang residence, the whole family wept in anguish.

Only Jiang Yao knelt at the back. Her tears were still unwiped when she began secretly sizing up the man in charge.

Lu Chi, the Xichang Director, was a eunuch who had climbed over countless corpses to the top. He held immense power and was ruthless.

She was terribly afraid of him, but his face was so handsome she couldn't help sneaking another few glances. Only when his python-patterned robe, heavy with the stench of blood, stopped before her did Jiang Yao belatedly lower her head.

A jade pendant slipped from his waist and hit the ground.

Jiang Yao thought for a moment, then picked it up and held it out to him in both hands, trembling. "Sir, you dropped something."

Everyone present went pale. What did she mean, something had dropped? Eunuchs feared that phrase most of all!

Only Lu Chi wasn't angry. He even smiled at her. "Second Miss Jiang, don't worry. Even without that thing, I guarantee I'll serve you well."

He wasn't lying.

Later, night after night, Jiang Yao would beg him for mercy, her eyes red and her voice hoarse.

Every time, he would answer her pleas, but never stop.

The hand that had killed countless people caressed her cheek. His thin lips kissed away her tears, and his voice sounded like a spell, like a curse.

"Yao Yao, you've called me the wrong thing again. You should call me husband."

*

From the day Lu Chi emerged alive from the castration chamber, he never expected anyone to treat him like a human being. Eunuch, lackey, rootless thing: he'd heard it all so often that his ears had grown numb, and his heart had turned hard.

But he never imagined that, after six years in charge of the Xichang, anyone would dare to rub salt in his wounds to his face.

The youngest Jiang daughter, they said, had been simple-minded since childhood. From what he could see, she really was an idiot.

But she was a beauty, lovely and pitiful enough to make anyone feel for her.

He ought to be angry. He ought to cut out her tongue so she could never again speak such reckless words.

But seeing her kneeling there, looking so innocent and utterly unaware of the foolish things she'd said, even a heartless man like him couldn't help feeling a little reluctant.

It would be a shame if she couldn't speak. Taking her home and keeping her for fun might even be enjoyable.

But somehow, keeping her around changed into something else.

Until one day at a banquet, Jiang Yao was mocked by someone.

Amid the laughter filling the hall, only Lu Chi slowly lifted his eyes.

"I'm her lackey. You can go die now."

Everyone said one word from him could decide who lived and died, and one sentence could topple the court.

Only Lu Chi himself knew that his lips and tongue must have been made for Jiang Yao.

In this life, every ounce of tenderness flowed from his lips for her. He bowed his head for her, and fell in love with her.

Reading Guide:

1. One-on-one romance, both leads' first time. The heroine is a silly beauty, and the hero is a real eunuch!

2. Eight-year age gap.

3. A pure indulgence piece!

Theme: Love yourself well