Defeated by Her

"Looking for follows for my novel of the same genre, No Choice but to Marry. Blurb below."

The night Bai Mian decided to call off her engagement, she met a poor student who had just returned from abroad.

The student was tall, handsome, and good-tempered. When he learned she'd been dumped, he even wrote her a thousand-word essay to comfort her.

Thinking he had ulterior motives, she got dead drunk and slurred, "Don't waste your time on me, kid. I really don't have much money."

The poor student's deep-set eyes lowered slightly. He pulled up a trouser leg of his suit and slowly dropped to one knee before her. With the palm wearing a watch worth three hundred thousand, he gently stroked her hair. "How much money would you need to keep seeing me?"

After graduating from graduate school, Bai Mian began restoring cultural relics at a museum.

She worked nine to five, earned six thousand a month, and owned a home and a car. She had enough to live comfortably.

One day, an international cultural relics and art exhibition invited her to serve as a consultant for a salary of one hundred thousand a day.

She didn't have to do anything. She just had to collect the money.

Bai Mian kept a straight face on the outside, but inside she was deeply uneasy.

That is, until she saw the second young master of the Qin family at the exhibition, surrounded by admirers. He wore a custom-tailored suit, and his handsome face was clouded with faint boredom. The watch on his wrist was worth over a million, gleaming under the lights and making him look refined, languid, and untouchable. Even the stud in his left ear shone brilliantly.

Everyone was talking about his earring, unanimously declaring it a peerless one-of-a-kind treasure and guessing its sky-high price.

Bai Mian, in the crowd, stared wordlessly at the sky: "..."

No, she bought it on Taobao. Fifteen yuan for two.

With free shipping, too.

There was no one in the antiques world who hadn't heard of Qin Muyun. South of the Huai River, it was all Qin territory. The Qins ruled the south, while the Qis ruled the north.

Qin Muyun was cold and aloof. Every relationship he had was based on mutual benefit.

Rumor had it that he never went anywhere without a strand of twelve-eyed dzi beads, whose value was immeasurable. Wherever the beads appeared, Qin Muyun was sure to be there.

Until one day, the beads appeared on the wrist of an unknown young woman. She forced herself to stay calm and shielded her friend behind her. "I'll pay for it. Leave her out of this."

Everyone stared at the dzi beads on her wrist: "..."

The young woman thought they were after the beads and kindly reminded them, "Stop staring. My friend gave them to me. Five yuan for two, they're not worth anything."

Everyone stared wordlessly at the sky.

Don't ask. She's Master Qin's woman. Who would dare make her pay?

"A top-tier rich second-generation heir pretending to be poor, a hidden big shot in the antiques world x A hardworking, diligent office drone, a rookie restorer"

"One-on-one romance"

A gentle reminder:

"This story is entirely fictional. Please do not apply it to real life."

**No Choice but to Marry**

Before she turned twenty-five, Song Chiyu had never imagined marrying anyone other than Xie Yunjin. She would marry him, and marry for love.

But it all ended in failure, in the most humiliating way possible.

Later, after giving up on love, Song Chiyu finally agreed to let her family arrange a marriage for her.

However, on the day of the blind date, her match not only failed to show up, but also fled in a taxi in the middle of the night.

So when the other party's elder arrived to apologize, the usually kind young woman started speaking recklessly. "Actually, Second Uncle, you still have quite a bit of charm."

The noisy dinner table suddenly fell silent.

Song Chiyu had no idea what the others were thinking. She only saw the refined man across from her calmly undo his shirt collar, a smile on his face. "Is that so? If Miss Song doesn't mind, I could do, too."

**

Qi Yanzhou was the youngest archaeology professor at Cheng'an University. Born into poverty, he nevertheless held fast to his lofty ambitions. He treated everyone like a gentleman, but was cold by nature and surrounded by an unmistakable sense of distance.

After they married, Song Chiyu and Qi Yanzhou were more like polite strangers than a couple.

They had dinner together once, on the day they registered their marriage. Apart from that, they hardly ever saw each other.

Even when she explicitly told him she was willing to fulfill her marital duties, he never stayed the night.

Song Chiyu didn't take his attitude to heart, either.

They both knew it was nothing more than a way to give their families an answer.

For a while, she thought life would go on peacefully like that, until she was sent to the Gobi Desert for archaeological research and ran into the local "big shot." She needed to find someone with authority in the antiques world of the northwest to deal with him.

In the antiques world, everyone knew that everything beyond the Qinling Mountains belonged to the Qi family. The Qis were not only renowned top-tier collectors, but also the sole power brokers in the northwest. Their current head was extremely low-key. Apart from major donation ceremonies, he rarely appeared in public. People had heard his name, but never seen his face.

Everyone was discussing it when they saw a man in a windbreaker step out of a jeep in the distance.

Tall and lean, with a sharply defined brow, he stood amid the vast Gobi like an immovable slab of blue-gray stone.

Before the project leader could say a word, he smacked the local big shot on the head.

The thug, who had been cursing up a storm just moments ago, instantly broke into a beaming smile and started calling him "Master Qi."

The noisy scene fell silent.

Everyone looked fearful, thinking an even more ruthless figure had arrived. But the man who held sway over the northwest calmly put out his cigarette and fastened his unbuttoned cuff. Then he looked toward Song Chiyu, who had been entirely inconspicuous in the crowd. "Miss Song, what a coincidence."

Song Chiyu, who had come to the northwest on her own to help out without consulting anyone: "..."

Don't ask...

It really was quite a coincidence.

**

In Song Chiyu's mind, Qi Yanzhou was detached from worldly desires, wanting nothing. Everything seemed as insignificant as a drop in the ocean to him.

Until the third night after he arrived in the northwest, when Xie Yunjin came looking to get back together with her, riding a slow green train through a sandstorm. The refined man said nothing to her in public, but late that night, on the iron bunk bed, he kissed her until she could barely breathe.

"Miss Song, he's your true love. Then what am I?"

Song Chiyu, kissed so breathless she couldn't answer: "..."

Later, she finally understood what it meant to do the cruelest things in the gentlest voice.

Even the most refined and aloof man could be frighteningly fierce when jealous.

"The antiques world's power broker x A gentle, reserved researcher"

Theme: Stay true to your original aspirations, and you will reach your destination.