Spring Returns

Coming soon: The Tragic Novel’s Heroine and the Otome Game’s Background Character Get Their Happy Ending. Click my author page to add it to your collection~

Blurb:

Word was that the young master of the Jiang family was down on his luck and had sunk so low that he was performing at bars.

People from his circle came in wave after wave to laugh at him.

Only one beautiful, pale-skinned girl showed up at every performance, tossing around huge sums of money and listening with rapt attention.

One day, after the show, Jiang Li spotted her crying in a corner. He pretended to pass by, but she grabbed his sleeve and asked through tear-filled eyes how much he charged for a night.

Amid his bandmates’ whistles, Jiang Li smiled, convinced she had been sent by his illegitimate brother to humiliate him.

Jiang Li went home with her.

He intended to toy with her and swindle his illegitimate brother out of money.

He never expected to get more and more attached, until he even knew how many hairs her cat shed each time.

A month later, he closed the net and returned to the family group. He had a diamond ring custom-made, then went to her studio to lay everything on the table.

But she frowned at him warily, as if he were a stranger. “Sorry, I’m closed today. I have a date with my boyfriend.”

Jiang Li laughed in disbelief and pointed at the half-naked portraits of himself all over the studio. “Who’s this?”

“My boyfriend.”

“Who am I?”

She studied him carefully. “Someone who looks a bit like my boyfriend?”

**

In the seventh year after her boyfriend’s death, Xiao Yinyin found a young man, drunk and burning with fever, on her way back from the cemetery.

He had a head of blond hair, and his fragile features bore a striking resemblance to someone she had once known.

On a whim, Xiao Yinyin took him back to her studio. The man woke with his head in his hands, insisting he had lost his memory, and clung to her from then on.

He was obedient and extraordinarily easy to look after. He even knew how many hairs her cat shed.

She didn’t notice anything strange until one day, midway through painting, she suddenly realized he was gone. She felt her way around, searching for him.

Beside the noisy bar, he held a glass and gazed down, his expression cold and distant.

Someone nearby laughed at him. “Jiang Li, did she forget you again because she’s having another episode? I heard Young Master Jiang finally played her long-dead ex-boyfriend this time?”

He smashed his glass and grabbed the person by the neck. “I wasn’t acting!”

His eyes were bloodshot. He looked ready to lose control at any second.

Xiao Yinyin stood frozen. Feeling the dampness at the corner of her eye, she called his name in a daze. “Jiang Li!”

He slowly turned around and curled his lips into a smile, the corners of his eyes red.

“Xiao Yinyin, this is the 56th time. You finally remembered my name.”

The female lead has suffered severe trauma and has episodes, but she will get better.

**

Coming-soon blurb:

You Yan is the heroine of a tragic novel. By the time she realizes it, the story is already halfway over.

She’s facing a family bankruptcy, a childhood sweetheart who has succeeded in taking revenge, and being forced to give in to the male lead. That means a thousand chapters of a marriage that starts before love, followed by a regretful-ex pursuit.

You Yan, who has diligently made it through the first thousand chapters: ? I’m tired. Let it all burn.

Faced with a biased family and a childhood friend who’s always losing it, You Yan decisively moves into a rental outside campus and settles in.

That night, her hardcore gaming roommate strongly recommends an otome game with multiple male leads.

You Yan treats the dating sim like a fighting game. After venting her frustration, she’s about to uninstall it when a background NPC who appears for only a moment catches her attention.

The NPC can’t be romanced and doesn’t speak, so she can vent to him all she wants about the thousand-chapter plot that’s driving her crazy.

No one knows.

At last, one day, You Yan is found by her chuunibyou childhood friend and her family.

They use her mother to threaten her and force her into an arranged marriage.

On the eve of her engagement, she logs in for the first time in ages.

Unaware that the story has already gone completely off the rails, she taps the NPC in a corner of a starship under attack by the insectoid race.

Her voice is soft.

“Actually, today is my birthday. But nobody remembers.”

“I don’t want to get engaged, and I don’t like him anymore. If starships really existed in this world, that would be wonderful.”

“Goodbye, Marshal. I’m uninstalling the game.”

The next second,

the paper doll on the game screen suddenly stopped fighting. With the insectoids behind him, he slowly turned around and looked up at her.

He sighed.

“Happy birthday, You Yan.”

“Shall I take care of him for you?”

Frightened, You Yan immediately uninstalled the game. The next day, she was taken to her engagement in a daze.

When she opened her eyes, she saw a blood-soaked man standing by the window.

He slowly turned around, the grim backdrop of war gone.

His long, deep black eyes were partly hidden by his tousled hair, gentle and calm in the sunlight.

He stepped over the flowers and walked toward her. “Good morning, Your Excellency You Yan. Is he the one you need taken care of?”

Theme: Grow toward the light