I Regretted It When I Reached the Top

My next book will be about forbidden love between cousins, with a fake-sibling setup. The title on my profile is "Is She My Cousin?" Please add it to your to-read list~

Book blurb: An innocent, forthright, timid girl × a cold-hearted, calculating man. A scoundrel's sincere love. Slow burn.

Pei Xun ate plain meals, wore coarse hemp clothes, and studied the sages' classics, worth a fortune. He dreamed of being named the top scholar and, naturally, of marrying a noblewoman from a distinguished family.

Unfortunately, things didn't go as he wished.

His wife was nothing more than the lowly daughter of a merchant: weak, timid, and pitifully naive.

He would force a smile, and his wife would beam at him, eyes crinkling with delight, praising her husband as the most handsome and dashing man under heaven.

At the slightest furrow of his brow, his wife would grow anxious, her eyes reddening as she asked what was wrong. All he had to do was crook a finger, and she would pour her whole heart into him, believing every lie he told without question.

It seemed like a rare and fortunate marriage. But what he wanted was always to climb, one step at a time, to the very summit of power.

At any cost.

When did everything begin to change?

On a wedding night that felt strangely familiar, as everyone offered blessings and urged him to lift the red veil, wishing them a long and happy marriage, he hesitated as he gazed at his wife's graceful figure and lovely face.

The image of Jiang Buwan shyly sharing the nuptial wine with him on their wedding night suddenly flashed through his mind, and a stab of pain pierced his chest.

Bound by the marriage agreement between their families, Pei Xun had no choice but to accompany his new wife on a shopping trip. By chance, he spotted Jiang Buwan choosing jewelry with a man, the two of them looking terribly intimate.

He grabbed Jiang Buwan by the shoulder. His eyes red, he asked her, each word deliberate: "Why did you agree to let me choose a husband for you?"

Jiang Buwan only looked at him in surprise, then pried his fingers off her one by one, looking rather helpless. "Stop making your wife sad."

She smiled again and said, "I hope you'll let me go."

He suddenly remembered the day Jiang Buwan had brought their child to see him.

Facing his wife and daughter, he simply smiled gently and brushed a hand over her cheek. "Wanwan, I know you're not unreasonable. I've been married to you for two years. You must know how much I've sacrificed for the ambition I've always held in my heart."

He paused, handed her the divorce papers, and lowered his head to look into her eyes. "I hope you'll let me go."

*

One day, Zhao Jun had just finished attending to official business. He hadn't even had time to change out of his pale yellow imperial robes when he took the child from Jiang Buwan and used a toy to coax her into calling him Father.

Pei Xun suddenly appeared. Bending his once proud, upright back, his handsome face now gaunt, he beckoned to the child, his eyes humble and pitiful. "Bao Ning, I'm your father."

Blurb for my next book:

A sharp-tongued, possessive, gloomy heir × a gentle, sweet, and somewhat oblivious cousin

An accident took all of Zhao Huirou's family, forcing her to live under another's roof at the Lu residence. Her cousin Lu Ke, the heir to the marquis's estate, was the only person in the world still related to her by blood.

She admired him, depended on him, and longed to be close to him.

But her cousin didn't like her.

She would tremulously reach out to clutch the hem of his robe, only to be met with his endless cold stares and mockery.

Her cousin loathed her. He wouldn't let her go out, make friends with others, or smile at anyone else. Whenever he saw her cry, his beautiful, androgynous face would brighten with pleasure.

Her cousin lied to her, telling her that only siblings were allowed to kiss.

She didn't learn that it was immoral until after she married.

After her cousin took a wife, she finally resolved to give up on their family bond and marry someone else, beginning a new life.

On the eve of her wedding, her cousin held out her favorite osmanthus lotus-root starch cakes and pressed his lips together as he asked, "Are you really going to marry?"

A little dimple appeared in her cheek as she nodded. "Mm!"

His refined face twisted almost beyond recognition as he sneered, "You think you're worthy?"

Then he smashed the cakes to pieces and threw them, along with the birthday gift he'd given her, beneath the osmanthus tree where they had grown up together.

On the day she returned to her parents' home after the wedding, her sister-in-law warned her with a smile, "Huirou, now that you're married, you should keep your distance from your brother. Don't give people cause to gossip and set our families against each other."

Word spread through the household that on the night of the wedding, Lu Ke had drunk himself into a stupor and called her name all night.

*

Her husband's official career was going badly. He complained that someone was targeting him and hindering him at every turn, taking out his frustration on her day after day. Three months pregnant and with nowhere else to turn, she returned to the Lu residence.

Her cousin looked down at her kneeling on the ground. He lifted her chin with a fingertip and parted his thin lips. "Beg me."

She took his fingertip into her mouth and begged him tremblingly, just as she always had.

Her cousin grinned and kissed the tears from the corner of her eye. Quietly flexing the wrist he'd injured in a fight, he looked pleased. "You chose to come back on your own, so you'd better take what comes."

*

It took Zhao Huirou ten years to understand one thing: her cousin Lu Ke didn't like her. He hated her, in fact.

Sitting in a bridal chamber covered in red double-happiness characters, dressed in an elaborately embroidered wedding gown and wearing a red veil, she waited for Lu Ke, who was entertaining guests in the front courtyard, and wondered in confusion:

Did he hate her so much that he had to marry her?

*

On the grasslands, her cousin presented her with a fine pair of bridal pelts he'd won, a symbol of a life together as a couple.

She only said, "Oh," and didn't take them.

Her cousin went mad.

Theme: Learn to trust