Eat You Up

Mutual secret crushes / coming-of-age / childhood friends' everyday life

Cheng Yi had been secretly in love with her childhood friend next door for three years. She had swallowed her grievances and cried countless times.

Then, at a gathering after they got together, the young man lost at dice and was asked the truth: How long had he liked Cheng Yi?

He answered tenderly, “Eight years.”

Loving you means eating you up, one bite at a time.

Next up: the historical romance The Scent of Stolen Fragrance. Please add it to your reading list o3o

Groveling to win back his wife / second male lead takes the girl / the male lead deserves nothing but having his ashes scattered

Shen Rongdong had a chronic illness and had not spent a single night with the Crown Prince in their three years of marriage.

On the day she married into the Eastern Palace, Yan Junhuai lifted her veil and said tenderly, “Dong'er, whatever happens, I will love you for the rest of my life.”

A year later, she caught Yan Junhuai in bed with someone else, their bed curtains swaying and the bed bells ringing. He hurried out and grabbed her hand. “Dong'er, I only want to give you a child. That way, we can prevent any trouble down the line.”

Another year later, Yan Junhuai said, “She has no ulterior motives. She just wants to see her child. She'll leave the Eastern Palace soon.”

She had done as he asked for three years, only to hear her cousin, the Crown Prince, say one final thing: “I am a man, and the heir to the throne, no less. I can't have only one woman forever.”

Their childhood friendship and the lovely tales of their youth had all become a joke.

A few days after the Crown Prince brought a secondary consort into the Eastern Palace, Shen Rongdong went to a temple to offer incense. There she met a monk with cool, clear features, whose gaze was so compassionate it seemed to pity a monster.

That night, she slipped her ankle, a bell dangling from it, into his monk's robe. She asked only one thing: “Venerable Master, can you deliver me from this?”

He slowly unraveled her beneath the candlelight, and she felt as though her illness had finally been cured.

Afterward, Shen Rongdong returned to the Eastern Palace and attended a palace banquet with Yan Junhuai. Prince Ning, who usually guarded the borders, appeared at the banquet, and his gaze rested only on the Crown Princess, who had always been so dignified and sensible.

Yan Junhuai heard rumors and confronted her. Shen Rongdong merely explained, “Cousin, you're drunk.”

On her way back to the palace, under the pretext that she couldn't hold her liquor, she was pulled into a familiar embrace behind a rockery. The scent of incense from the Buddhist shrine still lingered at the tip of her nose. His gaze burned, and his voice was hoarse and scorching. “Was I drunk too?”

When Yan Junhuai sobered up, he searched everywhere for Shen Rongdong. He never expected to find her in that embrace behind the rockery, and crushed an entire piece of jade in his hand.

Theme: Let passion blaze through our youth, and let love fill the world.