A Beauty Is Best Left to Grow Wild (Reborn)

[The neighboring story, Taking My Younger Brother's Wife, is now open for reading. Visit my profile and add it to your favorites~]

Ruan Youning's childhood nickname is A-Luan, after the luan, king of the birds.

Sadly, in her previous life, she had it worse than a sparrow.

Not long after her wedding, the emperor seized her and took her back to the palace, keeping her like a caged beauty in a gilded home.

She endured humiliation and compromise, only to end up losing her family and dying young.

Reborn, she never wants to return to that cage. Knowing the emperor will eventually be overthrown, she decides she might as well get close to the new emperor in advance. But before her little paw can even reach out, she's pulled into his arms.

Huh???

The new emperor: "From the first moment I saw her, I knew this girl would never leave my heart."

Blurb for Taking My Younger Brother's Wife:

★ One true pairing, brothers compete for the same woman | Marriage first, love later

★ A gentle beauty X a aloof man who devotes himself to Buddhism at first, then becomes a gloomy, deranged ghost of a man

Wen Songyi had an excellent match.

His name was Li Congxin. Born into a marquis's family, he was spirited and always stood up for her, taking her side. He was a blazing sun in the bleak years of her life at home.

But after they married, he changed completely. He stopped talking and barely acknowledged her. At night, he even insisted on sleeping in a separate bed.

It took a great deal of effort, but at last she managed to warm this iceberg and consummate their marriage. She thought things would finally get better.

Then one day, on a stormy night,

she awoke to the thunder and thought she heard her husband calling for her, his voice filled with anguish.

She hurried out of bed to look for him.

There was "Li Congxin," walking calmly in from the corridor, with nothing about him but the dampness of the rainy night.

She hurried over and asked, "What happened?"

He just held her and soothed her gently, as he always did. "It's nothing. A thief broke into the house, but it's taken care of now. Don't be afraid, Mimi."

His bloodstained hand slipped discreetly into his sleeve.

In his hand was a seal bearing his younger brother "Li Congxin's" name. It still held the warmth of its owner, from whom it had just been forcibly taken, but the scent of bodhi on him completely masked it.

*

Li Congjia was born into a military family. He joined the army at thirteen, took command at seventeen, and broke through an allied enemy force at the border at eighteen, earning the title of General Who Guards the Nation. His future looked boundless.

But at twenty, he knelt on a meditation cushion in a temple, wanting only to become a monk.

It was only after his mother begged him repeatedly that he agreed to put off his ordination and return home to impersonate his missing twin brother and marry the bride in his place.

It was simply a way to repay the marquis's family for raising him all these years. He didn't think he would fall for her. Once his younger brother returned, everything would go back to normal.

But some people seem destined to be his undoing.

She hadn't even done anything special. She just brought him food and waited for him to come home. Yet he couldn't stop thinking about her, couldn't stop longing for her. In the middle of the night, all he could see was her smiling eyes, her slender hand holding his sleeve, and the gentle, lilting way she called him "husband"...

Those who covet their brother's wife shall fall into Avici Hell forever, never to enter the cycle of reincarnation.

Theme: Love means learning to let go.