I Have No Choice but to Give Myself to My Nemesis

[Inverted V Notice: This novel will be put behind a paywall in full on Tuesday, February 6. The newly paywalled chapters are 21 through 61, so please do not purchase them again if you have already read them.]

[My next novel is Enemies at Odds Make Me Cry at Their Graves. The blurb is at the bottom.]

[A recommendation for my friend's historical romance, Seizing Joy by Xiang Cao Pao Fu: a regretful pursuit after losing one's wife, plus old-school melodramatic forced love and possession. The entire novel is already written, so it definitely won't be abandoned!]

Blurb:

In just three short years, Ye Man went from a high-born young lady with countless admirers to a prisoner. Her father died, her mother took her own life, and her elder brother was exiled to a distant frontier. As for Ye Man herself, she became a lowly woman to be bought and sold at another's whim.

Ye Man was beautiful, famed throughout the capital for her looks. Before her family fell into ruin, she had been one of the most prominent young ladies in the capital.

With a reputation like hers, there were far too many people eager to buy her at a set price.

Ye Man thought that if she were bought by some villain, she might as well die.

Fortunately, the one who ultimately made the winning bid could not quite be called a villain, but... he could not exactly be called a good man, either.

Because he and Ye Man had been sworn enemies for years.

-

Back when Jiang Yan was at school, somehow he managed to get on the wrong side of the hot-tempered eldest daughter of the Ye family.

Whenever he tried to study in peace, she came to bother him. If he was late because something came up, she went and reported him. When he avoided her because he could not win, she still went out of her way to make false accusations against him.

Everyone at school said the eldest daughter of the Ye family had her eye on Jiang Yan. A beautiful young lady and a handsome young gentleman: they made a fine match.

But Jiang Yan knew that was not the case. He and Ye Man clashed time and again, trading blows and each winning their share. That was how they became enemies, until Jiang Yan was ordered to join an expedition to a distant land.

When Jiang Yan returned three years later, the eldest daughter of the Ye family, who had always opposed him in everything, had suddenly fallen from grace.

And now... he could finally fulfill the obsession he had carried in his heart for years.

My next novel is Enemies at Odds Make Me Cry at Their Graves. Blurb:

Princess Mu Qingyin of Fudong committed treason against her superiors and plotted a rebellion. When her treason was exposed, she was sentenced to drink poison. Mu Qingyin had heard rumors of the sentence long ago, and fled the capital in the middle of the night. Pursued by soldiers, she was driven off a cliff, her body smashed to pieces and never recovered.

The people in the streets and alleys all heard the news, and there were sighs of regret and sorrow.

"Princess Mu Qingyin was breathtakingly beautiful and clever, but what a pity."

"I'd heard she was on close terms with several princes, but I never expected her to commit such an outrageous crime."

"You could tell when she ran away from her arranged marriage. Only someone who defied convention would do that."

"And she ran from her marriage to Lord Lu of the Criminal Law Bureau. Absolutely scandalous."

Lu Chengyou of the Criminal Law Bureau was handsome, refined, and exceptionally talented. Though always cool and distant by nature, he was still a man many hoped to marry.

Mu Qingyin had petitioned the emperor and secured an imperial marriage decree, yet on her wedding day, she changed out of her wedding dress for another man.

That was how the feud between Mu Qingyin and Lu Chengyou began, and it only grew more bitter with time.

She had once pushed him into the water without hesitation. He had once raided more than ten of her shops in one go and confiscated them all for the imperial treasury.

He had once made her kneel in the snow all day and night in winter. She had once set fire to his beloved peach blossom grove.

But all of this would fade away with Mu Qingyin's death.

Only...

Mu Qingyin was not dead.

On the day of her burial, in the light rain of early autumn, Mu Qingyin found a pavilion halfway up the mountain with a perfect view and watched her own grave at the foot of the mountain.

She bore the charge of treason and rebellion, and few people came to mourn her.

Mu Qingyin had watched until she was tired and was about to leave when someone appeared at the foot of the mountain, coming through the rain.

It was Lu Chengyou.

Dressed in a dark gray robe, he stood in the rain holding an umbrella in one hand. After a long while, he placed a peach blossom branch before the tombstone.

Theme: A strong woman knows when to stand firm and when to yield.