Bewitching Formation

Shen Xiyin’s husband was gravely injured while killing an evil spirit, leaving him unable to father an heir. As the head of a sect, he did not want to leave his position without a successor, nor did he want anyone to learn of this secret that would damage his reputation. He wanted Shen Xiyin to put the greater good first and secretly conceive a child with another man, giving birth to his “heir.”

To that end, he schemed to push Shen Xiyin into the Bewitching Array.

There was another man inside the array with her.

They had to pass through forty-nine trials of passion together to break the array. Otherwise, their bodies and souls would be destroyed.

The man looked familiar. He was the very senior whom her husband admired most. He was lofty and immaculate, an exemplary gentleman in the eyes of the righteous immortal sects, someone the world could only look up to from afar.

Just yesterday, she had accidentally spilled wine on him. He hadn’t even glanced down at her, only replied with distant politeness, “It’s all right.”

Shen Xiyin, who came from an ordinary mortal family, knew that attitude all too well. It was how cultured, powerful people ignored those of low status.

The prompts inside the Bewitching Array kept sounding

First trial: Get close and become familiar with each other’s scent.

Second trial: Interlace your fingers and feel each other’s warmth.

Trial number X: Open your mouths and kiss passionately…

Shen Xiyin knew this was wrong. She tried to negotiate with the man and find another way to break the array. But the fertility pill her husband had secretly given her beforehand took effect at that very moment.

A rule-abiding, honest woman x a stern, celibate sect patriarch

Notes: 1. The heroine is not a virgin, but the hero is. Their relationship and the ending are strictly monogamous.

2. This is fantasy, not a realistic setting. To guard against the heroine, her former husband secretly never registered their marriage. By the time the story begins, they are no longer legally or practically married, so there is no harmful messaging.

Highly recommend my friend’s novel: After Marrying the Brooding, Strong, Tragic Hero, by Si Qing

Sweet, satisfying, and absolutely wonderful!

Gentle, resilient, honest woman vs. blind, ruthless, touch-starved man

Chi Ying is to marry the sickly, blind Prince Zhao in place of her older half-sister.

She thinks that since the sickly man won’t live long, she’ll be free as soon as he dies.

But after marrying him, she discovers that Prince Zhao is not only gloomy and ruthless, but also loves tormenting people. His favorite pastime is wickedly exploring her body, tracing her shape inch by inch with his fingers and leaving his mark on her.

Chi Ying is at her wits’ end, but can only endure it.

Nobody expects Prince Zhao not only to survive, but to murder his father and elder brother, eliminate his rivals, and ascend step by step to the throne, above all others.

As the concubine who married in her half-sister’s place, Chi Ying naturally has to give the title of Princess Consort Zhao back to her.

Fortunately, Prince Zhao is blind and has no idea what the woman beside him looks like.

-

Chi Ying flees to Jiangnan, a thousand miles away. But one rainy night, a man in imperial robes appears at her door.

Cornered, Chi Ying has nowhere to run.

Not only can he see now, he fixes his burning gaze on her and slowly trails his fingertips up her cheek.

“So this is what you look like, Ying.”

“You thought I wouldn’t notice if you sent me a counterfeit?”

“Your earlobes flush at the slightest touch. Your collarbones are raised enough to hold a cup of wine. Your waist is barely a handspan wide. There’s an old scar three inches below your navel, and your legs are three feet long, with my bite marks still on them… Ying, I know you inside and out.”

Chi Ying’s cheeks turn scarlet, and even her toes curl.

Chi Ying thinks she’s deceived him and is bound to face severe punishment. Instead, he presents her with the imperial phoenix seal with his own hands.

Of course, there’s still his own kind of “punishment”

From then on, he keeps her as his sole beloved in the imperial bedchamber night after night, and there is no one else in the emperor’s harem.

Theme: Break free from conventional prejudice and bravely pursue happiness