How to Claim Your Beautiful Master

When Bai Yuzhu turned seventeen, his betrothed went missing.

Everyone was saying that Bai Yuzhu's betrothed, hailed as the "greatest swordsman," had acted far too recklessly and arrogantly while wandering the martial world, and must have fallen victim to an enemy's ambush. His fate was unknown, which meant he was dead.

Before Bai Yuzhu had a chance to mourn his convenient almost-husband, another misfortune struck: the old master of Xiuyu Peak passed away. The elders of the various sects fought bitterly over the leadership, reaching no resolution. In the end, they gave up and shoved Bai Yuzhu, whose martial arts were mediocre and whose wits were even worse, into the position of sect master.

Bai Yuzhu was a beautiful Qianze, famous throughout Yujing Province, a pampered scion raised on luxury. Now his betrothed was dead and he had become a sect master. Every unmarried nobleman in the land wanted his hand in marriage.

Yuzhu detested the position, with its endless formalities and rules stricter than heaven itself. He wanted to step down and yield it to someone more worthy, but the old men in the sect refused. Worse, they insisted that he choose another husband from among the noble suitors.

Yuzhu refused to give them their way. At the martial arts matchmaking tournament, he casually pointed to a thirteen-year-old boy in ragged clothes, a stable hand at a wealthy household, and chose him as his betrothed.

Yuzhu had only meant to make a random choice to annoy the old men and ruin the matchmaking tournament. Who could have guessed that the stable hand would actually defeat everyone and win Yuzhu's favor?

Yuzhu gaped in disbelief. In the end, he had only brought trouble upon himself.

The boy was thirteen, not even fully grown. How could he be Yuzhu's husband?!

Yuzhu resolved to take back his offer. But to appease the boy and save face, he suggested taking him on as a disciple instead, swearing to be a good master and ensure the boy learned something worthwhile from his time there.

The boy showed no anger at being rejected. He calmly accepted Bai Yuzhu's offer to take him as a disciple and bowed respectfully to his new master.

Yuzhu never expected to end up with such a good disciple for nothing.

Over the next four years, the disciple never resented the handful of useless, improvised techniques Yuzhu taught him. Instead, he served Yuzhu diligently and conscientiously, bringing tea and water, massaging his legs and back, and tending to his every need. He was also a skilled schemer, managing to put the sect's nagging old men firmly in their place and leave them speechless.

Yuzhu was delighted. What master wouldn't be pleased to have a disciple who was skilled in martial arts, capable, and respectful of his elders?

Most importantly, the disciple knew his place. He never again brought up the matchmaking tournament, and showed no sign of wanting to marry Yuzhu.

Yuzhu breathed a sigh of relief. Everything was fine: their master-disciple relationship was pure and healthy, without a trace of impropriety.

Just as Yuzhu thought things would carry on normally, he unexpectedly caught the faint scent of his disciple's distinctive iron tang on his favorite embroidered binding garment.

Then, in the dim study, he accidentally came upon his disciple using Yuzhu's scented handkerchief to touch himself. The veins stood out on the back of his hand.

Yuzhu panicked. He was still wondering if he could pretend not to notice and keep things as they were when the disciple, once so respectful and obedient, suddenly changed his face and dropped the mask, becoming gloomy and utterly lacking in consideration. He said only one thing to Yuzhu:

"Either marry me, or you won't have me as your disciple anymore. From now on, you can handle all the sect's affairs and those old men by yourself."

Yuzhu was terrified. He was afraid of getting married, but even more afraid of losing his disciple and having to deal with the sect alone.

The disciple had indeed gauged Yuzhu's temperament perfectly. No matter how much Yuzhu resented him, scolded him, hit him, or shut himself away and refused to see him, when the disciple finally decided to leave the sect, Yuzhu still clung to his hand, weeping, and begged him not to go.

Yuzhu did not want to marry, but circumstances left him with little choice. In the end, he could only go along with it reluctantly.

But his disciple was frighteningly forceful, no longer obedient and respectful as before. He claimed Yuzhu's bed every night, and Yuzhu was left overwhelmed by the tangled scent of iron mingling with his own white tea fragrance.

Yuzhu was miserable. Whenever he looked in the mirror, he could only grimace and apply scented balm to the marks his disciple had left. But, as if that weren't bad enough, after only half a day of peace, the disciple entered his room again and silently embraced Yuzhu from behind as he stood dressed in nothing but a thin gauze robe.

Annoyed, Yuzhu refused him in a petulant voice:

"Why are you here again? Go away..."

But this time, what enveloped Yuzhu was not his disciple's iron tang. Instead, a sharp, pungent scent of strong liquor made him tremble all over in an instant.

The scent was familiar yet distant, from a memory Yuzhu had of four years ago, but stronger and more acrid than before.

Before Yuzhu could react, the man leaned close to his ear. A faint layer of untrimmed stubble prickled against Yuzhu's soft neck, and in a deep voice honed by four years of living incognito in the martial world, he said:

"You've gotten married again?"

For a moment, Yuzhu's mind went blank and his legs went weak. He nearly collapsed.

He had never imagined that the man he had just been forced to give himself to, that villain, his "dead" former betrothed who had been gone for four years, would come back.

A proud, contrary, beautiful-and-knows-it master who is pursued + a seemingly docile, inwardly brooding disciple who pursues him + a seemingly cool, actually gentle former betrothed who also pursues him

Please note before reading:

(1) One top and two bottoms, three volumes in total. The first volume mainly follows the master-disciple storyline, the second focuses on the former betrothed, and the third ends happily for everyone with an open ending.

(2) Ancient-era ABO. In this setting, Alpha = Qianyuan, Beta = Heyong, Omega = Qianze; pheromones = Xianxiang, glands = Xihe, and heats = Yulu periods.

(3) Lighthearted tone, with a low-powered wuxia setting.

(4) The main story begins four years after the disciple becomes his student. Some of the events mentioned in the blurb will appear only in fragmented flashbacks.

Theme: Respect teachers and uphold proper conduct.