Your Heart Is Like a Thorn [Matriarchy]

Upcoming in my collection: Love Letters from a Male Zerg Zerg fiction, art-above-all chaotic-neutral male lead x a female Zerg who looks pure but has a dark side; male-led romance, with the male lead doting on the female lead. Upcoming in my collection: Absolutely in Character Pseudo-quick transmigration, realistic film-industry setting, a highly skilled, precise flirt and legal loli heroine x an innocent male lead with a thousand-layer secret identity, a bug in the virtual movie city. Upcoming in my collection: The Big Orange for Everyone Beast-world child-rearing, an affable, homebody dad-type big orange cat with maxed-out charm x a shark girl who looks cute on the outside but is fierce within. Blurb: I used to be an overly sympathetic chuunibyou girl, but now all I want is to attain the Way and become an immortal. By Ji Long, the Happy Rebound The male leads' identities in this story: 1. Do not let the fluttering leaves scatter upon the moss (a brilliant scholar who got engaged before having a child) 2. Yet a clever one is no match for a fool (an aging, faded courtesan) 3. Alas, beauty in her prime is all too fleeting (a merchant's son who has married three times and been widowed three times) 4. How could I forget the blood that served as rouge (a general who laid down his arms and returned to farming) 5. Who says our wings are ill-matched? (a king and father who left his Taoist temple) 6. Ten thousand dragon heirs encircle the Phoenix Pool (an imperial princess's tutor, disfigured while held hostage) 7. Though the fortune is gone, my beloved remains (a fiance from a fallen family) 8. Let life and death not become lovesick longing (a devoted Taoist who returned to life on the seventh day after death) 9. Your heart burns like fire, who can say? (a green-cloud immortal who embraces death to live) Hope you enjoy the story, dear readers! And if you insist on both leads being each other's first and only, please leave now of your own accord. Blurb for the upcoming story Love Letters from a Male Zerg: Chu Yin has always been out of step with his time. As the eldest grandson of a wealthy family, he had no interest in business or politics. He preferred tinkering with musical instruments, paintbrushes, and even the dolls girls were supposed to like. After becoming a male Zerg, he could finally indulge his love of beautiful, romantic things as he pleased, yet he fell in love with depicting the war-torn front lines. Among such a warlike species, Chu Yin thought, only military female Zerg are the most beautiful spirits. * Chan's female parent never earned the love of a male Zerg. When he barely managed to hatch him from his egg, the female Zerg, frailer than even a sub-female, had a pair of antennae weakly curled on his forehead. Even the patterns and shape of his bone wings were completely asymmetrical, like a defective product hastily pieced together. So when he discovered he was carrying an egg, he swore that even if he had to abandon the virtues of a military female Zerg, he would make sure his offspring received a male Zerg's nourishment. Chu Yin: Hm? Just the offspring? Chu Yin was quite pleased with the doll who had come right to his door. He just didn't know why the Zerg around him always seemed to misunderstand him in peculiar ways. For example, he loved painting on his consort's bone wings, but rumors somehow spread that he was addicted to abusing female Zerg's wings. Or, to protect them from bullying by noble male Zerg, he kindly gave all the military female Zerg who worked with his consort the status of secondary consorts, yet somehow became renowned throughout the Zerg world as a womanizer. Worst of all, he clearly treated the sweet child his consort brought home as his own, even recreating all sorts of educational games from his previous life. So which Zerg started the rumor that he had ulterior motives and was trying to raise the little Zergling to be useless? Meanwhile, on the capital planet... Among all the delicate, willowy sub-females, the frail female Zerg stroked his still-flat belly and smiled bashfully. "Well, I can't help it. My male likes it. But at least we'll soon have an egg of our own." Pairing: chaotic-neutral, art-above-all male lead x a military female Zerg who seems frail but is actually incredibly fierce. The songs of mermaids and the dances of elves are beautiful, but so are a Zergling's doodles and a military female Zerg's roar as he fights. A vacation planet filled with flowers and green fields, where birds and beasts race about, is beautiful. So is a desolate border planet, where bones are gathered to make a home across a thousand miles of barren land. Just as flawlessness is beautiful, so is imperfection. New life is beautiful, and so is decay. Therefore, even though this world is scarred and once withered in the scorching flames of war, to me, an unexpected visitor, it is still a beauty unlike anything I have ever seen. A confession by Chu Yin, the great artist of the Zerg world Blurb for The Big Orange for Everyone Bai Qiao is the ocean's darling, born with the power to command storms and tides. She can spin frost silk that stays dry underwater, and sing a funeral song that lures listeners into a trance. Her tears turn into pearls as they fall, and her fat can keep lamps burning bright... But how did she end up from the start on a vast grassland, hundreds of thousands of miles from the ocean, where drought lasts six months a year? And how was she, with a human torso and a fish tail, mistaken for a disabled beastfolk who couldn't fully transform? Bai Qiao: Thanks for your concern, but I'm on the verge of dying only because I've been out in the sun too long and am dehydrated. Luckily, a big, warm-hearted cat who loves raising little ones found her just in time. Big Warm Cat A Ju circles her every day and wants to rub her tail. The little ones A Ju adopted are just as restless, bouncing around her one and all. Cub Number One: I'm a panda cub, strong and adorable in equal measure! If Qiao Qiao catches me again this time, I'll just put my paws on my head and crouch down. Cub Number Two: I'm a white tiger cub, skilled at stealth. Watch me sneak up behind her! Great! I'm one step closer to Qiao Qiao than I was last month! Cub Number Three: I'm a wolf king's cub. I have lots of friends, so everyone stay alert. Don't let Qiao Qiao lull you to sleep again! A Ju: My Qiao Qiao is so cute, and her tail is lovely too... I'll just rub it gently~ Bai Qiao: Give it up, cubs! I'm a fish you'll never catch. Mm, that feels nice... dolphin balancing a ball.jpg Cubs One, Two, and Three: How can this fish be so fickle?! Pairing: an affable, homebody dad-type big orange cat with maxed-out charm x a shark girl who looks cute on the outside but is fierce within. Note: The heroine is already an adult mentally when she's adopted. Aside from Big Orange, everyone is family; the romance begins after the heroine reaches adulthood physically. Warning: The male lead's beast form is just an ordinary fat orange cat. He's useless in a fight, and all his skill points are invested in domestic life. Blurb for the upcoming story Absolutely in Character Lin Youyou was a child star, the kind of girl the entire entertainment industry was waiting to see grow up. But she only took a brief detour to college, and then a wave of realistic filmmaking, where acting depended entirely on the subconscious, quietly swept in. The wheels of history rolled on. Countless veterans saw their carefully crafted personas collapse, and countless investors lost everything. Lin Youyou: Really? That's... wonderful! And so, the legal loli with maxed-out hypnosis resistance climbed into an acting pod. Starting with remakes nobody cared about, she became the brightest and most enduring star of the new era. A new director: My story has simple settings but a complicated plot. How do I find an affordable actor who can play a wide range of personalities? Passerby: Hire Lin Youyou! Remember how she effortlessly split into different personalities on a variety show and scared the audience to tears? An up-and-coming acclaimed director: My carefully crafted series is too difficult at the start, and it's a struggle to keep going. How do I find someone who can handle the lead role? Passerby: Hire Lin Youyou! She's the remarkable woman who dared to sleep while hugging a ghost's memorial tablet. The only problem is that she likes picking her own male leads, which unlocks weird alternate endings. A veteran government-backed director: This is a variety show co-produced with a foreign country. How do we avoid harming international relations while also making sure the foreigners don't steal the spotlight? Passerby: Just hire Lin Youyou! How many other entertainers can use their subconscious to fool both the audience and the director? In short, if you're not sure what to do, just hire Lin Youyou. Before Yun Lu was called Yun Lu, it had many identities and names. It was a wastrel who should have been abandoned by everyone, a vicious dog who turned on its master in anger, an orphan who clung to its benefactor, or an extra memorial tablet in an abandoned village shrine... Later, it became a deity in a virtual world, but remained untouchable beyond the screen. "That's okay," Lin Youyou said, smiling at Yun Lu, her eyes curved. "Isn't a lifetime in a play still a lifetime?" Rumor had it that on the day consciousness transfer and storage technology was unveiled, the nationally treasured actress Lin Youyou announced that she would permanently settle her consciousness in a virtual movie city and devote her life to realistic filmmaking. Note 1: The male lead doesn't have an independent consciousness from the start, and he isn't in every film. Note 2: The heroine's subconscious is relatively clear, but she isn't completely unaffected at first. The extent of the effect depends on how realistic the film's setting is. Theme: Dream of living forever, and form a bond as deep and still as flowing water.