Xuanhe Gate

[Complete] This novel has undergone extensive revisions. The best comments on each chapter can only be found on Jinjiang, and I only take responsibility for the official version. My next novel will be "Rainy Day."

◎ Capital City tycoon X female student | Foster care | Pseudo uncle and niece + pseudo brother and sister | 13-year age gap | Uncle and nephew fight over her in a love-triangle showdown | Three-way push and pull | A little bit of wall-papering and chasing-the-wife-to-the-crematorium

1.

He Wei had already met Ji Boxuan before she was sent to live with him.

Back then, she was a timid girl starved of a mother's love, while he was the beloved eldest grandson of the Ji family.

Their only connection was that he would sometimes pick her up from school in place of his busy father.

He Wei had never liked Uncle Ji.

Everyone around her father was cheerful and interesting, but Ji Boxuan was cold and taciturn. Whenever she spoke to him, she was on edge.

Then He Yuanzheng disappeared, and rumors that he'd fled to escape punishment ran rampant. His father's star pupils all vanished without a trace.

Only Ji Boxuan continued to pick her up from school as usual.

During the years He Wei lived with Ji Boxuan, she started acting out. Afraid she'd go astray, Ji Boxuan would come back to the villa after late-night business engagements and check whether she was asleep before doing anything else.

Little did he know that all those extra glances would make him lose control.

2.

In He Wei's senior year of high school, Ji Boxuan suddenly had to leave for his company's Singapore branch. He sent her to live with the Cheng family. By then, the two of them had been giving each other the silent treatment for over a month.

That night, he got blackout drunk, mumbling her name. When the driver brought him back to the villa, he still thought he was dreaming.

He Wei looked up from her book and climbed onto the man's lap, sitting on his black trousers. As if trying to determine whether he was really drunk or only pretending, she took off his glasses and tossed them aside, then met his eyes defiantly. "You like me so much, yet you keep putting on the airs of an elder and pretending to be a saint. Ji Boxuan, aren't you tired?"

He turned his face away, missing the girl's soft lips.

3.

In He Wei's senior year of college, Ji Boxuan finally returned to Beicheng. His nephew Cheng Ming drove to the airport to pick him up. The young woman was sprawled asleep in the back seat, showing not the slightest sign of "welcome."

Later, when she and Cheng Ming both started calling him "Uncle," he finally realized...

The girl he'd pushed away with his own hands four years ago seemed to have wandered into someone else's wolf den.

He asked her, "Why didn't you tell me you were dating?"

She gave a bitter laugh. "Who said I was dating him?"

"Then you two..."

"No love involved. Just sex."

The night Ji Boxuan vanished from his engagement banquet, all of Beicheng was in an uproar.

Everyone wondered who the woman was that had bewitched him. Only He Wei herself was disdainful. What was all this about not being able to live without her? Late-arriving devotion was cheaper than grass!

"Old Ji, I told you a long time ago that I'm coldhearted. I never go back to an old flame." She urged him to turn back before he lost his way, lest people point fingers at him afterward.

"So what if you're coldhearted? I happen to be easy to set alight." He grabbed her slender wrist and pulled her from the spotlight into a secluded, dim room.

What did it matter if everyone turned against him? He only wanted her.

He Wei stared expressionlessly at the nearly crazed man on top of her. Before he kissed her, she shut her eyes and sneered, "Ji Boxuan, at your age, fighting your own nephew for a woman? Aren't you afraid of ruining your reputation in your old age?"

"If I don't fight for you, will you come back on your own?" Ji Boxuan tore through the barrier between them that had lasted for years, biting down hard on her protestations. "Are you going to break up with him yourself... or should I do it for you?"

*The title and blurb were finalized on May 27, 2024, and revised on December 7, 2024. Screenshots have been saved.

The heroine has three partners early on; later, she isn't a virgin but the male lead is. See the author's note in Chapter One for specific content warnings.

Premise: Be strong and love yourself