Flattery

🔥Ice-cold beauty × scheming liar [Please leave a rating once it's complete]

🔥The powerful one falls hard | Love and hate intertwined | Fake acting turns real | SC, HE

🌿Next up: Peeping at Jade, blurb at the bottom

[Blurb]

Song Langyu, heir to the Duke of Zhenguo, was hailed as a prodigy from childhood. He topped the palace examination and won the Emperor's favor. As soon as he entered officialdom, he became a Vice Minister of the Court of Judicial Review, overseeing criminal cases. Everyone knew that this Lord Song was impartial and sharp-eyed.

One day in late winter, he returned from the offices to pay his respects to his mother. Inside, he found a charming young woman standing in the hall. His mother said, “This is your distant cousin, Wen Jiao. She'll be staying with us for a while.”

The young woman bowed gracefully and called him “Big Brother,” her voice so sweet it could drip with honey.

Having spent years dealing with criminals, Song Langyu could tell at a glance that this cousin was no simple girl. He began quietly keeping an eye on her.

Wen Jiao always found excuses to approach Song Langyu under the pretext of paying her respects. She brewed tea with her delicate hands and made pastries herself. Her alluring charm was impossible to hide, and even the occasional brush of her body against his was deliberately suggestive.

Song Langyu guessed that Wen Jiao was trying to seduce him and marry him. He detested her, seeing her as no better than a rat in a gutter.

She tried to seduce him again and again, and failed every time. At last, dejected, she turned her attentions to his younger half-brother.

She didn't even bother changing her tactics, sticking to tea and pastries, yet his half-brother was delighted by it. Song Langyu sneered inwardly, becoming ever more convinced that Wen Jiao was shameless.

But later, when he saw her laughing happily with his half-brother, her dimples brimming with sweetness, jealousy turned his heart upside down.

He took her to his study and interrogated her like a criminal, methodically breaking down her defenses. Watching Wen Jiao cry pitifully, he promised, “Behave yourself, and once I'm married, I can give you the position of concubine.”

Wen Jiao pressed her lips together and agreed.

Later, the palace held a flower-viewing banquet. Wen Jiao begged Song Langyu to take her along, and used the opportunity to meet the Empress…

The next time Song Langyu saw Wen Jiao, she was kneeling below the imperial steps, holding a stack of long-sealed evidence of crimes in both hands. She claimed to be the daughter of the late Minister of Works, Chen Wenyuan, and begged the Emperor to reopen a case from ten years ago.

She had shed her youthful innocence and coquettish charm. Bright and blazing, she was no longer a rat in a gutter, but a torch burning fiercely.

…

Song Langyu interrogated her again in his bedroom. He kissed her lips and her body, breaking down her guardedness, forcing her to admit she was wrong, to apologize, and to confess… that she had feelings for him beyond using him.

He became her first man, but afterward she said, “Now that I've given my innocence to you, Lord Heir, we're even. From now on, you can marry whomever you like, and I'll marry whomever I like. We have nothing to do with each other.”

Song Langyu's temples throbbed. “You gave me your innocence. Who else could you marry?”

“The heir of the Marquis of Wuding, Xiao,” she replied lightly, sounding pleased with herself. “He's already agreed to marry me. When he inherits the title, I'll be the Marchioness. How glorious would that be?”

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◼️Next up: Peeping at Jade◼️

🍋Ice-cold beauty · coercive possession · best friend's wife

🍋#My best friend and senior fellow disciple married the fiancée I broke off my engagement with, sending me down a morally bankrupt path of coveting my friend's wife and taking her by force#

[Coming Soon]

Cui Weizhen had been betrothed since childhood to Xu Bingsu, the legitimate son of a prominent family in the capital. The Xu family had produced generations of high-ranking officials, while Cui's father was merely a minor clerk in Quzhou. Everyone said Cui Weizhen was lucky to make such a match.

But on the day she came of age, her fiancé, Xu Bingsu, personally came to break off their engagement.

Unwilling to accept it, Cui Weizhen chased after him to ask why. All she got was Xu Bingsu's reply:

“Flirtatious and wanton. You are unfit to be a wife.”

Cui Weizhen felt completely wronged and had no idea why he would say such a thing. But from then on, her reputation was ruined and her marriage prospects stalled. Her stepmother, Madam Liu, beat and berated her every day, and even tried to force her to become the concubine of her father's superior, an old man well past sixty.

Just then, Han Zhao, commander of the Northern Garrison Bureau, came to propose. He saved her from that living hell.

Han Zhao was lustful, while Cui Weizhen was shy. But she regarded him as her savior and devoted herself to repaying him, never refusing him in bed. Han Zhao was considerate toward her, too, and at last her life began to improve.

A year after their wedding, Han Zhao hosted a banquet at home to welcome his junior fellow disciple. Cui Weizhen went to greet the guest, only to discover that Han Zhao's junior was none other than Xu Bingsu.

Cui Weizhen felt as if the sky had fallen. Afraid Xu Bingsu would tell Han Zhao lies about her and ruin the stable life she'd built, she could only tread carefully around him, terrified of displeasing him.

Who could have known that from then on, she would often feel someone watching her from the shadows?

*

Xu Bingsu had always known he had a fiancée from the countryside. He didn't need to meet a woman like that to know she could never be fit to become the principal wife of the Xu family.

The first time he saw Cui Weizhen was when her father brought her to his home, hoping to set a wedding date. Xu Bingsu caught a glimpse of her from afar. Her figure was overly voluptuous, and her manner seemed frivolous, utterly lacking in propriety. He began thinking of breaking off the engagement.

When Cui Weizhen came of age, he finally persuaded his father to end the unsuitable match, then left the capital for an official posting.

He thought he would never see Cui Weizhen again. But four years later, he returned to the capital to report on his work, and his senior fellow disciple invited him home to celebrate his return.

At the banquet, a voluptuous, seductive woman came out at a leisurely pace. His senior put an arm around her shoulder and introduced her. “Yunzhi, this is your sister-in-law.”

The woman bent her knees in greeting. The hairpin in her hair didn't move at all, but her overly voluptuous figure made the gesture seem flirtatious and wanton, bringing Cui Weizhen to Xu Bingsu's mind.

The woman looked up and saw him, her eyes instantly filling with terror. Xu Bingsu froze, too.

It really was Cui Weizhen.

Afraid his senior had been deceived, he investigated what had happened back then, only to learn that he had wronged her.

One night later, he stayed in the room next door to the couple. He heard Han Zhao and Cui Weizhen entwined in intimacy, the woman's voice languid and alluring, like a swallow beneath the eaves.

Jealousy blazed within him, burning away every shred of propriety and shame. He thought:

Cui Weizhen should have been his wife all along.

He wanted Cui Weizhen.

As fate would have it, Han Zhao became embroiled in an old case. Xu Bingsu spread a rumor, luring Cui Weizhen into meeting him at night.

The woman's eyes were swollen and red as she knelt at his feet. Her voice was full of anguish. “If you can save my husband, I, Weizhen, will repay you with my life.”

He lifted Cui Weizhen's face and straightened her crooked gold hairpin, his voice low and temptingly persuasive.

“My senior's troubles are serious. If you really want to save him, Sister-in-law, you'll have to try harder.”

Cui Weizhen trembled all over, staring at him with a deathly pale face.

Xu Bingsu untied the sash at her waist, his eyes filled with obsessive madness. “Zhenzhen, do you want to save your husband? How badly?”

Theme: May someone finally shine like a torch and light the way ahead.