A Handbook for Raising a Sickly Male Lead

*Going premium on Wednesday. Thanks for your support. My next book, Years of Good Times, is open for advance reads.

Xie Yuntang stayed up all night finishing a novel.

There was only one reason: it had a villainous female character with the exact same name as her. After marrying the frail, bedridden male lead through an arranged engagement, the villainess looked down on him and insulted him at every turn, directly causing him to turn evil. In the end, she died by his sword.

Furious, she wrote a three-thousand-word tirade against the villainess in the comments. She thought that surely such heartfelt devotion would keep her from transmigrating into a book. But when she woke the next morning, she was surrounded by red. Dragons and phoenixes adorned the curtains, and candle wax dripped like blood.

It was just like seeing herself dead in a pool of blood.

That was terrifying. She’d better behave herself.

First, she’d cling to the future male lead, who would turn dark, sinister, ruthless, arrogant, and domineering.

But who would have guessed that, at this point in the story, the male lead would still have a boyish face and a pale complexion, and smile at her with gentle elegance, like a lotus on the verge of wilting?

Yuntang (screaming chicken face): I’m in! Who wouldn’t love such an adorable male lead?

From then on, she devoted herself to feeding him. When the plot reached the point where the heroine was supposed to appear, she eagerly brought over a thick stack of notes on how to care for him, ready to hand them to the heroine.

But the gentle, smiling male lead suddenly grabbed her wrist. His voice was still as mild as ever, but his expression, half-hidden among the dappled shadows, was dark and unreadable. “Madam, where exactly are you planning to run off to?”

Many years later, Yuntang’s youngest daughter came of age and secretly asked her parents, who had been married for years and were deeply devoted to each other, how they had gotten together.

Yuntang smiled and had three chests brought out. “I suppose it was something like feeding him kung pao chicken, saliva chicken, chopped-chili fish head, squirrel-shaped mandarin fish, crab-stuffed oranges, water-shield soup, and a serving of honey-glazed char siu... right?”

At some point, Wen Heng had come up beside her. His eyes were filled with affection as he gazed at Yuntang. “Did you ever make any of those? It was just that bowl of clear noodle soup the first time we met that I remembered for the rest of my life.”

Reader’s guide:

* A seemingly gentle but secretly dark male lead and a woman who transmigrates into a book. A story about two people who have never been in love, have no old flames, and have nothing else going on, learning to live together.

* Home-style food. The setting is a culinary wasteland: ingredients exist, but cooking techniques do not.

Time to promote my next book, Years of Good Times

Her husband passed the imperial examinations, rising from an obscure country scholar to a high-ranking official at the emperor’s side.

But Zhou Yunsui gradually came down from her initial joy and grew tired of being despised and rejected by her husband’s family. They called her a barren hen, expected her to wait on them hand and foot, and lived like immortals while she grew more and more haggard, no longer the flower of Nanyang she once was.

She packed her bags, said goodbye to her husband, who was intent on finding himself a noblewoman, and leisurely ran off with her daughter.

At first, Lu Jiashi only knocked on the door of a new family in town because he wanted to earn some money. The pride of the academy lowered himself to become the private tutor of a mere six-year-old girl.

Later, though, he came to believe that fate had brought them together, that he was destined to climb into Zhou Yunsui’s bed, bow before her, and gladly become that student’s father!

# Zhou An’an (crying tears like noodles): Have you ever thought about how devastating this is for someone as young, pitiful, and innocent as me, who has to eat dog food every day?

# Truly, once a teacher, a father for life #

A heart betrayed, so she lets herself go * a pure, devoted, thoughtful, and deeply loving puppy of a man

Theme: Only by keeping your feet on the ground and working hard can you build a better life