The White Moonlight Insists He's a Substitute

Stubborn, fragile heroine X lovesick, scheming green-tea hero

The hero gets jealous even of himself · pseudo-substitute romance

Chu Zizhu knew Song Xiaohua treated him as a substitute. He looked almost exactly like her late husband, who had died in the Northern Borderlands.

Because of his face, Song Xiaohua took him in as her disciple. Sometimes she looked at him with a tenderness that made his heart race; other times her gaze was empty and cold.

Chu Zizhu should have known his place, but after one reckless night, he grew more and more greedy.

Every three hundred years, the Cultivation World's Must-Eat List was published, recording the most dazzling prodigies across the Nine Continents. One after another, the men on the list came looking for his master, competing to get close to her and talking about a past he had never been part of.

At the top of the list was Song Xiaohua's late husband.

He couldn't accept it. He wanted to be the only one in his master's eyes, from beginning to end.

Chu Zizhu often stared coldly at a sachet.

Its color had faded, and it was completely unremarkable, yet Song Xiaohua carried it with her every day, carefully placing it under her pillow even when she went to sleep.

He served her in every way, but she had never let him touch that sachet.

Whenever his gaze fell on it, jealousy made his chest ache.

What was inside? A strand of her late husband's hair? A pinch of his ashes? Or a token of their love?

As a substitute, he would never be worthy of knowing.

Until the day Song Xiaohua tired of him and decided to leave him behind.

Chu Zizhu chased after her like a madman. He reached out to grab her sleeve, but instead knocked the sachet from her waist.

The cord snapped with a rip, and its contents tumbled out, hitting the ground.

There were dried gardenia petals and a yellow paper talisman.

The talisman drifted down beside Chu Zizhu's feet, face up, revealing three characters: "No Tears Talisman."

The calligraphy was free and bold, sharp-edged and unmistakable.

It was his handwriting.

Reader's Guide:

1. Not a strong heroine, one-on-one romance.

2. The heroine is adored by everyone, but only seems universally disliked.

3. The hero is often jealous and loses his mind.

4. The second male lead gets his comeuppance, and there are love-rival showdowns.

5. The main story is told from the heroine's point of view.

Next novel: Crossing into Demons

Goddess who guides the world beyond suffering X sickly, obsessive Demon Lord

Chu Xuanyue was a divine lord in the Ninth Heaven.

She carved a wooden statue and placed it in the mortal realm, using it to look down on the myriad sights of the human world whenever she had nothing to do.

For thousands of years, the joys and sorrows of all living beings seemed no more than fleeting clouds to her, until she saw a young man lying in a ruined temple.

Lu Junzhao had once been the brightest prodigy of the immortal sects, a brilliant young man who had mastered the Nascent Soul realm at a tender age and wielded his sword across the Eight Directions.

He'd thought his parents loved him and that his path to immortality would be smooth. Only when his spiritual root was carved out by his own family did he learn that the woman wasn't his birth mother, and that his real father had climbed the social ladder on the corpse of his first wife, handing Lu Junzhao's spiritual root to someone else's son.

The favored son of heaven fell into the dust overnight. Imprisoned in a dark cell and trampled by all, he was thrown into a mass grave when he was close to death.

He crawled out of the mountain of corpses and dragged himself, half-dead, into a ruined temple, collapsing before the statues of the gods and buddhas.

Amid all those gilded clay figures, had any of them ever opened their eyes to look at him?

He was filled with murderous rage, yet just before he closed his eyes, he touched a wooden statue of Guanyin. In that moment, as if possessed, he made a wish.

Chu Xuanyue heard him and casually guided him across the threshold of death.

After that, Lu Junzhao slowly rose back to the top, his hands covered in blood. Yet on every hollow night, he clutched the wooden statue tightly as he slept.

He regarded her as his one and only god.

He never expected that one day the goddess would appear in his dream to say goodbye.

When he woke, the wooden statue shattered into dust before his eyes.

Lu Junzhao fell into demonhood amid an army's encirclement. He killed his enemies with his own hands, united the Demon Realm, and became the lord of ten thousand demons, searching everywhere for the goddess but never finding her.

On the day the immortals and demons went to war, the man stood at the front lines and suddenly saw the goddess in white on the Ninth Heaven. Her features were as beautiful as a painting, and she looked exactly like the wooden statue.

He staggered through the immortal soldiers and held her tightly in his arms, trembling uncontrollably. "I found you."

Theme: Flowers that turn toward the sun can grow even in the mud.