The Tyrant Is Still Young, So Cut Ties While You Can

[The blurb has been screenshotted]

When Kong Lingjia was twelve, her father brought Chang Xuanyu home.

The family was so poor they could barely afford food, and her younger siblings were still crying for milk.

Kong Lingjia assumed Chang Xuanyu was her father's illegitimate son, born from a fling outside the home.

She forbade her younger siblings from getting close to him.

In winter, she made him wash clothes with icy well water.

In summer, she made him cook over a fire in the stifling, airless kitchen.

She took the money he earned from his labor and tore up the letters his mother sent him...

Kong Lingjia never imagined that the meek, long-suffering Chang Xuanyu would one day become a cruel tyrant feared by all.

After the new emperor ascended the throne, he purged his enemies.

Everyone who had ever offended him met a miserable end.

Some were hung from the city walls as a warning; others endured the Ten Great Tortures.

For a time, the entire court was gripped by fear, and everyone lived in terror.

Kong Lingjia fled with her younger siblings in the dead of night, playing cat and mouse with Chang Xuanyu for half a year. Every day, they lived worse than dogs and pigs.

Chang Xuanyu, meanwhile, took great pleasure in watching them struggle to survive, day after day.

Reborn, Kong Lingjia returned to the age of twelve.

It had been a month since Chang Xuanyu was brought through the gates of the Kong family home,

and for a month she had been putting him in his place.

It seemed there was still time to set things right, and yet perhaps it was already too late.

Kong Lingjia spent a dazed, restless night lying in bed.

When she opened her door at dawn, she remembered that she had ordered Chang Xuanyu not to sleep the night before, making him chop wood in the courtyard all night.

On that cold winter morning, sweat had soaked through his long robe.

Hearing the door open, he turned to look at her, his eyes timid yet hopeful.

"Sis, I've finished all the work."

There was someone else in the courtyard: Chu Qiuying, the young daughter of the wealthy family next door.

Chu Qiuying was beautiful and kindhearted, and had always liked helping Chang Xuanyu.

The warm buns in his hands were the ones Chu Qiuying had just bought for him.

Smelling the savory aroma drifting from the buns,

Kong Lingjia suddenly remembered that on the day she starved to death, Chang Xuanyu had welcomed Chu Qiuying as his bride with a grand wedding procession.

Premise: A family that loves one another.