You Can Have Both the Moonlight and the Stand-In

[Please check out my upcoming novel, A Match Made by the Embroidered Ball. Details at the bottom.]

★ Blurb: Meng Dao'er has spent years clinging to her childhood sweetheart Zhu Huilai's promise: "I'll come back and marry you, no matter what!" She waited ten years, but never heard from him again.

Though beautiful and devoted, she couldn't defy her family or turn back the years. With no other choice, she married the new prefect, who had the same name as her childhood sweetheart and even looked a little like him, hoping to coast through the rest of her life in luxury.

But once she became a wife, how could she keep her heart untouched?

The new prefect, whom she had mistaken for a stand-in, was not only devastatingly handsome, brilliant, and flawless, but also doted on her.

Meng Dao'er was constantly on the verge of losing control, getting so thoroughly wooed that she could barely hold herself together. So...

Who on earth started the rumor that he was in love with a wild general?!

She already felt guilty enough about betraying her childhood sweetheart by marrying someone else. Now it seemed heaven was testing her devotion too. This was too hard.

One day, Meng Dao'er knelt before a statue and prayed, "Oh god, it's all right if I keep him in my heart, isn't it?"

Unexpectedly, the new prefect's voice rang out. "Am I dead? You married me, so who else are you keeping in your heart?!"

"N-no one! There's only you in my heart!"

"Then who is this Zhu Huilai you called out for in your dream last night?"

"I-isn't that your name, my husband?"

"You weren't calling for me!"

"Th-then who was I calling for?"

"Choose one: me, your husband Zhu Huilai, or the Zhu Huilai in your dreams?!"

"Wah..."

"Don't cry! I'm not dead."

"..." Wait, didn't Brother He say something like that when they were little?

From then on, the new prefect became obsessed with finding the other Zhu Huilai and proving himself the better man.

Meng Dao'er, meanwhile, became obsessed with proving that the new prefect was her childhood sweetheart, Zhu Huilai.

# The male and female leads occasionally share the same or similar dreams.

# The Lunar New Year is almost here! Leave a comment on a paid chapter by February 9 (inclusive) to get a red-envelope reward.

Please add it to your reading list, mwah! :) :)

★ Please add my upcoming novel, A Match Made by the Embroidered Ball, to your reading list.

Blurb: Xin Ruoyue is the most beautiful woman in Quanzhou. Her many suitors are as plentiful as fish crossing a river, but her father, the richest man in town and the biggest miser around, insists on making her choose a husband by tossing an embroidered ball.

On the appointed day, Xin Ruoyue tosses the ball toward a handsome young man, but it is suddenly snatched out of the air by Zhao Xifeng, the city's notorious playboy and womanizer, whom every young lady wants to avoid.

Just before she faints on the balcony, her last thought is that tomorrow she'll receive yet another inevitable threat from the playboy's vicious cousin.

Xin Ruoyue: If I marry Zhao Xifeng, who's already been sullied, I'll be doomed to a lifetime of widowhood...

Everyone envies Zhao Xifeng for winning a beauty and half the fortune of the richest man in town, a perfect two-for-one deal.

But few know what married life is really like for him:

On their wedding night, he lifts Xin Ruoyue's veil, and she pulls out a small knife.

They get stuck in a swamp while out sightseeing. He reaches out to help her, and she pulls out a small knife.

She dislocates a joint, and when he tries to put it back in place, she pulls out a small knife.

She falls ill. He fusses over her and personally brings the medicine to her lips, and she pulls out a small knife...

Zhao Xifeng: Xin Ruoyue is poisonous from head to toe! Wouldn't it be better to sail the seas and make money in freedom?

In the end,

Xin Ruoyue: "Can I sail with you?"

Zhao Xifeng: "Where's your little knife?"

A married couple sails the winds and waves in a rollicking adventure.

Theme: Live in the moment and seize what's right in front of you.