After Humiliating the Cold and Noble Young Lord

Shen Weihe was an orphaned farm girl. To ensure that the Shen family’s precious son would have a long and successful career, she was forced to marry his sickly father as a bridal good-luck charm.

On their wedding day, he hurried back from the capital and stood in for his ill father as he bowed to her as her husband.

The next day, he left home and was ambushed. On the verge of death, he hid in the ancestral hall of the old residence.

Shen Weihe was given a muting drug and confined to the grounds, where she was made to clean the ancestral hall. There, she found him.

A white crane with broken wings, pitiful and beautiful, dying unnoticed: a sight of such beauty it was painful to behold.

She fastened a dog collar around his neck, partly out of necessity, partly out of cruelty.

And partly because of the indistinct thought lodged in her heart:

“You belong to me.”

At first, with a leash around his neck, he sat upright in the dark, windowless ancestral hall, looking every bit like a sacred, untouchable Bodhisattva carved from jade.

Later, he learned to reach up and tug at her sleeve, his eyes bloodshot as he called out:

“Master.”

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The madam who treated him like a dog was his stepmother.

Shen Zhijuan, who remembered everything in the ancestral hall, hated Shen Weihe with all his heart.

He hated her for making him swallow medicine that left him feeling as if ants were devouring him, then standing by and doing nothing.

He hated her for pretending to be chaste while behaving like a wanton woman, carrying on secret affairs.

He was sick for days, his head splitting with pain. Again and again, he gritted his teeth and swore that one day he would kill her.

But she crooked a finger, and he went right back to begging at her feet, tail wagging.

Preserve heavenly principles; extinguish human desire.

The heart of a sage, the way of a gentleman.

He was meant to walk a grand, solitary path through this corrupt world, earning the respect of all the people.

But later...

“Have you gone mad?” she asked him more than once.

“I have gone mad, Mother.” At last, he replied calmly, licking the beads of blood from their lips.

He understood.

The ecstasy of human desire that leads to ruin.

It was something he could never extinguish in this life.

“I’m so hungry, Mother.”

“Don’t be afraid, Madam Shen.”

“I was the one who married you. You are my wife.”

“Leave it to me. Leave everything to me.”

“Wait for me...”

-

News of her death arrived.

Like a drowned dog, he dug up the ancestral grave on a rainy night, wanting only to hold her close once more.

But the newly buried coffin was empty.

Shen Zhijuan’s bloodied fingers trembled, yet a cold, twisted smile curled at the corners of his lips.

He rose, laughing and crying at once, like a new ghost crawling out of a grave.

“How could you leave me behind, Weier?”

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Reader’s guide:

① One-on-one romance, both leads’ first relationship, happy ending, mutual salvation, extreme kink.

② The male lead suffers. At first, the heroine raises him like a real dog; in the middle and later parts, she puts him through psychological torture.

③ The heroine pretends to be wicked at first. In the middle, she coasts along and refuses to take responsibility, but the male lead clings to her. Later, she becomes overpowered, with her mother as her cheat skill.

④ The heroine loves and desires the male lead. This is a passionate, heartfelt romance.

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No consummation while their relationship remains in effect.

Theme: Nothing can be built without first breaking what came before.