[Marriage first, love later for the leads / Second male lead's road to redemption]
Xu Xingtian's first love ended one midsummer.
That year, she was staying at the Xie residence. One moonlit night, she went upstairs and saw a man leaning against the floor-to-ceiling window, the fading light around him. He held a cigarette between two fingers, casual and unhurried, his Adam's apple irresistibly sexy.
Xu Xingtian often heard people say that the Xie family's second son was a heaven-blessed prodigy, arrogant and untamed, a leading figure in the capital's elite circles.
Once they were together, Xie Jingyi doted on and protected her, treasuring her like the most precious thing in his heart.
Back then, Xu Xingtian naively believed he loved her, until she saw Xie Jingyi carefully holding a woman in his arms on the trending page.
The woman had a beauty mark beside her mouth.
It was exactly like Xu Xingtian's, in precisely the same spot.
Xu Xingtian suddenly remembered how Xie Jingyi often stared pensively at the corner of her mouth.
She sighed, grabbed her suitcase, and disappeared in the middle of the night.
*
After Xu Xingtian returned home, her grandfather was always trying to set her up, and he couldn't praise the young man enough.
She rested her chin lazily in her hand and nodded along.
But on the day they met, Xu Xingtian never expected her blind date to be the guy she'd idolized back in school.
The Xie Tanbai she had seen in high school was elegant as a jade tree and pure as a white crane among the clouds.
Now, softened by time, Xie Tanbai looked untouched by dust, his figure like the radiant full moon.
He was always dazzling.
In the golden autumn of Ancheng, the eldest daughter of the scholarly Xu family and the rising academic star Xie Tanbai held a grand wedding. Everyone congratulated the beautiful woman and the talented man, a match made in heaven.
*
Xie Jingyi had thought she was just a substitute. But when he couldn't get in touch with Xu Xingtian, he panicked for the first time in his life.
For a long time afterward, people in the capital's elite circles said that Second Young Master Xie had gone mad over someone.
On New Year's Eve, the eldest son of the Xie family, who had fallen out with his father over his research years ago, finally came home. Xie Jingyi went with the rest of the family to welcome his elder brother.
In the courtyard, winter snow and red plum blossoms framed the scene as Xie Tanbai brushed a fallen flower from the shoulder of a little girl in a padded jacket.
The instant Xie Jingyi saw the girl, he froze, his face turning deathly pale.
Xie Tanbai glanced at him and said calmly, “Come over and call her sister-in-law.”
Xu Xingtian looked at the two men, so different in temperament, and felt her mind crash.
[A sweet girl who's soft, gloomy, and a little crazy × a refined young gentleman who's a wolf in sheep's clothing]
“When you walked in, I felt as if I were seeing the moon anew.”
Also known as: “The Substitute Romance Becomes a Sister-in-Law Romance,” “My Blind Date Is the Guy I Idolized in School,” “If You Don't Focus on Research, You'll Have to Go Home and Inherit Billions,” and “Hmph, My Wife Sure Has a Lot of Admirers.”
Content notes: The male lead is a virgin; the second male lead is a virgin.
Blurb screenshotted and archived on April 19, 2023.
Theme: Love is as powerful as death. I've lost count of how many times your tenderness has saved me.
The Swallows Nesting in the Wang and Xie Halls of Old
A Pearl of a Thousand Blessings
After Losing My Memory, I Found My Happy Ending with My Chief Councilor Husband
After the Hero and Heroine of a Sweet Romance Get a Bad Ending
Crossing the River of Spring Longing
A Golden Branch Is Hard to Raise
The Husband I Picked Up Became Emperor