Revenge Made Her My Wife (The Long Road to Winning Her Back)

Upcoming novel: The Proud Lord. Blurb at the very end.

This novel is complete:

[A revenge-driven young lord and a little nun, who later returns to secular life, fall in love]

Chu Chen, heir to the Nanan Marquisate, was betrayed by a spy and nearly lost his father on the battlefield.

He searched high and low until he finally found the spy’s younger sister, Xiao Xihe, who had been raised in a nunnery. He set a trap and took her in as a servant, using her as bait for his revenge.

He told her, “Then help me look after my other residence and pray for my father there.”

But the little nun grew more captivating by the day. Chu Chen thought: If I’m going to get my revenge, why keep her chaste and sheltered, waiting to be married? So he made her his concubine.

Xihe had grown up in the mountains, innocent and guileless. She regarded Chu Chen as a bodhisattva who had rescued her from a living hell.

When war broke out at the border, Chu Chen went off to battle and took Xihe with him.

At the time, Chu Chen’s only thought was: I’ve spent a thousand days raising this bait. Now it’s time to use her.

In the bitter cold of the borderlands, Xihe worked as a servant and a medic, neglecting sleep and meals. She thought the young lord loved her deeply, and that she must devote herself to him, whatever the cost.

Then Xihe accidentally saw a confidential letter and learned the truth: she was just a pawn in his scheme.

Just as he wanted, Xihe put herself in danger and became the bait.

Chu Chen said to her after she came back from the brink of death, “After I marry, I’ll make you my secondary wife.”

Xihe thanked him.

But before long, she tested poison on herself and used her blood as the antidote, saving Chu Chen’s fiancée at the cost of possibly never being able to bear children. Then she slipped away without a word.

She left behind only the three hundred taels of silver she had paid for her freedom and a single note:

“I have served as bait and repaid my debt. I have repaid the blood feud my brother left behind with my own flesh and blood. May we settle our debts and grudges here and never meet again. Farewell.”

Chu Chen clutched the note, feeling as if ten thousand arrows had pierced his heart! Thus began his long journey to win her back...

Reading Guide:

1) One-on-one romance, both leads have only ever been with each other.

2) Alternate-history setting. Don’t get hung up on the dynasty or official titles.

Coming next: The Proud Lord

Lu Ranqing, the eldest daughter of the Ning’an Earl’s household, had grown into a beauty capable of captivating a city by the time she came of age. Noble young men throughout the city competed to marry her, but she chose instead to practice as a lay Buddhist for three years, ostensibly to pray for her mother. That was how things stood until the Empress Dowager betrothed her to Wei Xiao, the Loyal and Brave Marquis.

Earl Lu feared his legitimate daughter, who had once risked death to refuse marriage, would resist again. He tried every means to persuade her, and finally felt relieved when she agreed:

“All right.”

Who could have known that a young man had been hidden in Lu Ranqing’s heart for ten years? Every month, she painted a picture for him. Every year, she carved a wooden sculpture for him, imagining the man he would grow up to be.

The day he returned to the capital in shining armor, riding a tall warhorse with a proud, upright bearing, she stood by the window of a teahouse, weeping as if the rain were falling

You finally returned safely!

How lucky I am to be able to marry you!

But on her wedding night, not only was she left alone, she also had a strange dream. In it, she had been married for five years without a child. Wei Xiao had taken no concubines, but had brought home an orphan for her to raise as his legitimate son. She was immersed in the sweetness of love when she heard him say to his ailing mother:

“I had incense that prevents pregnancy burned in the Lu family woman’s chambers back then to avenge my father. Now that she’s managing the marquis’s household so well, we can bring home an illegitimate son later and have her raise him.”

It hit her like a thunderbolt!

Lu Ranqing awoke drenched in cold sweat. Her marriage was already settled, but she wanted to live a different kind of life...

.

Wei Xiao was fourteen when he was exiled to the border with his father. He earned a marquisate through ten years of military service. He was the emperor’s sharpest weapon against the powerful maternal relatives, while the Empress Dowager used a marriage alliance as his sheath. Earl Lu had been “instrumental” in framing Wei Xiao’s family all those years ago.

The imperial decree could not be disobeyed, so he would marry her and leave her be. On their wedding night, he casually lifted the bride’s red veil, then went out to attend to official business.

Half a month later, he returned to find a room full of concubines and maids dressed in their finest, while his new bride had been punished by his mother and made to kneel in the family shrine.

That was going too far, to bully a helpless woman like this.

That night, he decided to stay and consummate the marriage. “From now on, I’ll make sure you’re treated with the dignity a marquise deserves. Just be patient with my mother.”

Little did he know his new wife would be even more accommodating than he imagined...

But Wei Xiao had no idea that one day her accommodating nature would stick in his throat, prick at his skin, and cut him to the bone!

Reading Guide:

1) Both leads have only ever been with each other.

2) Alternate-history setting.

Theme: The rarest thing is to treat each other sincerely. Only then can you find happiness.