Without Her, I’m as Good as Dead

[Main story complete. Next story: The Groom Was Stolen]

★ Check out my friend Dami Hong's no-romance novel, I, the Dragon King, Ascended by Chatting in Group Chats. Go add it to your reading list, it's unbelievably good!

Content warning: This is an angst-heavy story.

Blurb 1:

Everyone says Li Wanwan loved Qiao Mingchen so obsessively that even in death she wanted to share a grave with him.

She defied her wealthy parents to marry him, a poor young man, but never even got a marriage certificate.

Qiao Mingchen promised that once he had built a successful career in three years, he would marry her and give her a grand wedding.

She waited three years, making a living by selling paintings because times were hard. She believed Qiao Mingchen would surely marry her.

But what happened? For all those three years, Qiao Mingchen had been with his childhood sweetheart, the woman he treasured most.

His sweetheart told her, one story at a time, what Qiao Mingchen had done during the three years he was away from her. Only then did she learn that Qiao Mingchen had pressured her to turn against her parents so he could take over the family business.

She hadn't bought a single designer item in three years, while Qiao Mingchen had bought his sweetheart a villa.

With happiness written all over her face, the woman told her that it was their marital home.

In the end, she watched his sweetheart walk into the villa with him, smiling. She finally understood that he had always been made of iron, not ice. Nothing could melt him.

Everyone thought the two of them were married. If they weren't, Li Wanwan couldn't possibly have spent three years alone in an empty home.

Li Wanwan thought so too. After leaving Qiao Mingchen, she sent everyone a divorce announcement from herself.

Goodbye to this marriage that left her feeling like a widow.

Blurb 2:

At the divorce celebration, a woman danced provocatively beneath the dazzling lights, as if she had returned to the days before she got together with Qiao Mingchen.

Late at night, someone forced open the private room door. Qiao Mingchen's eyes were as cold as ice as he headed straight for the center of the stage.

In front of everyone, he knelt before her and called softly, "Wanwan, stop making a scene."

Li Wanwan smiled beautifully, like a bloodthirsty demon.

She would never let them live happily ever after. She was going to make him pay for every bit of hurt and bitterness she had suffered.

Then she stepped on his hand and looked down at him.

Even if she had to waste her whole life, she would drag them both to hell.

★ Content warnings:

1. He truly has to win his wife back, and it starts with the female lead suffering before the male lead does. The author is firmly on the female lead's side.

2. The male lead and the male supporting character are both virgins, because the author likes it that way.

3. In the later story, the female lead may torment the male lead to an utterly deranged degree. It's not just physical and emotional abuse.

4. This isn't a one-and-only-love story. The tags are hard to change, and there is a male supporting character who likes the female lead. My girl deserves to be loved by more than one person.

Coming soon: The Groom Was Stolen

Blurb:

1.

Su Yuanyuan was born into a prestigious family. Growing up, she was hopeless at music, chess, calligraphy, and painting. She takes after her actress mother: blessed with a lovely face, but not much brains.

The Su and Ning families arranged a marriage alliance. In the eyes of outsiders, Su Yuanyuan, whose family had fallen on hard times, was no match for Ning Sui. She was the one trying to keep their relationship going.

As a child, she was Ning Sui's errand girl, at his beck and call. As he grew up, he became a playboy and treated her even worse.

He even tricked her into giving him money so he could get a room with someone else.

Then their families pressured them into marrying before they had even finished their studies.

Everyone thought Su Yuanyuan was doomed.

Who could have expected a pregnant woman to show up and steal the groom?

2.

The scene turned ugly, and the Ning family pressured the Su family into acknowledging the child.

Just as Su Yuanyuan was about to be forced into becoming the child's stepmother,

she appeared before everyone, arm in arm with an unexpected big shot.

The big shot glanced at Ning Sui. Ning Sui turned deathly pale, then reluctantly came over to him.

He called him, "Great-granduncle."

3.

Everyone in Jincheng knows that if you want to wake up and find that ten years of your life have gone down the drain, you should mess with Cheng Jinshi.

In other people's eyes, he's cold and prefers quiet, like an aloof white lotus in a Buddhist temple. Time seems to have washed away all his stories, leaving only a gentle air about him.

What's more, he never appears in public unless it's a state banquet.

Women who want to get close to him can only admire him from afar.

That day, he saw a young woman in a wedding dress sitting on the steps, crying her heart out.

He walked over and gently wiped away her tears with his fingertips.

Cheng Jinshi, who had the whole situation under control, patiently coaxed her.

"Call me husband, and I'll teach Ning Sui a lesson."

-- A cunning old fox x a sweet, adorable little rabbit

-- Eight-year age gap / the female lead is a silly beauty and everyone's darling / each other's first love

-- The male lead has someone sabotage the wedding and abduct the female lead.

-- An old-fashioned, sugary-sweet style. Updated daily.

Theme: Be strong, work hard, love yourself, and stay positive!