The Sickly Beauty and the Underworld Lord: Married First, Fell in Love Later

[My new novel, A Guide to Keeping Nonhuman Creatures, is now underway! It’s also a nonhuman romance that starts with marriage and blossoms into love. You’re welcome to add it to your collection~] Joining the paid platform on Wednesday, April 26. There’ll be a ten-thousand-word update. *Bows* 1. Xia Yan has been sickly since childhood. Born under an extremely yin-aligned horoscope, he runs into ghosts from time to time and is a bona fide delicate beauty in poor health. The summer after he finishes the college entrance exams, he goes on a blind date in place of his cousin, who doesn’t want to attend one. His date is elegant, tall, and handsome, but unlike most people, he carries a black umbrella indoors. When Xia Yan looks into his eyes, it feels like being caught in a gloomy downpour. He apologizes to the man. “My cousin didn’t want to come, so she sent me instead. I’m sorry, sir. I hope you’re not disappointed.” “No, you’re wonderful.” The man regards Xia Yan with interest. “Your birth details are a perfect match for mine.” Xia Yan freezes, then hurriedly says, “Please don’t joke, sir. I won’t turn nineteen until next month, and I’m not in very good health. A fortune-teller even said my horoscope is so yin-aligned that a ghost will eat me before I turn nineteen…” He speaks so quickly that he coughs a few times. His cheeks and the corners of his eyes grow faintly red, making him all the more endearing. “Marry me, and that won’t happen,” the man says in a low voice. “My name is Lu Bingwen. Remember it. I’ve chosen you. On the eighth day of the eighth lunar month, I’ll come for you.” Xia Yan thinks he’s joking, but Mr. Lu really does come to marry him. On the eighth day of the eighth lunar month, a gloomy wind sweeps through the streets, where countless eyeless paper figures parade with lanterns in hand. Lu Bingwen appears in a wedding robe as red as blood, surrounded by a chilling aura of ghostly energy. Ever so politely, he says to Xia Yan, “My dear, the auspicious hour has arrived. Shall we consummate our marriage tonight?” Xia Yan: “…QAQ?” 2. Xia Yan, the beautiful and resourceful head of the Otherworldly Affairs Bureau, has never failed to catch a ghost or subdue a demon. He can even summon the Five Great Ghost Kings with a single talisman. At just twenty years old, he has become the idol of countless heavenly masters. But Master Xia has three secrets no one knows. The first is that, before he turned nineteen, he had no supernatural abilities at all. He was an ordinary human who worried about being eaten by ghosts. The second is that his husband isn’t human. He’s the Underworld Lord, Emperor Fengdu. The third is that when he’s sick, he gets clingy and unreasonable. But his ghost husband, famous throughout the Underworld for his aloofness, not only coaxes him into taking medicine with candy, he even acts as a human fever patch. An outwardly cold, inwardly flirtatious, devoted Underworld Lord top × a gentle, pure, teasing beauty in poor health, and a heavenly master bottom The bottom is adored by everyone, delicate but strong-willed, a natural flirt, hardworking and ambitious, and never one to slack off. Reader’s guide: 1. A very sweet marriage-first, love-later story, also known as The Dominant Ghost King Falls for Me. 2. The top dotes on the bottom. Older top, both each other’s first love, both virgins. Their old love finally catches fire, and it burns fiercely. 3. Episodic ghost stories. Each one is short. Really, it’s just a sweet story about a married couple catching ghosts and picking up some cute spirit pets along the way. 4. Modern alternate universe. Please don’t take it as an endorsement of superstition! Coming up next: An Underworld Marriage by Contract, Interested? At twenty-two, top-tier star Gu Xuejin accidentally falls into a dry well during a commercial shoot gone wrong. He wakes from a month-long coma only to discover that he’s developed a strange illness: By day he’s human, but at night he turns into a weightless ghost. After night falls, Gu Xuejin is the lowest-ranking kind of ghost. He can only hide in the Underworld, terrified that one wrong move will get him eaten by a high-ranking evil spirit. A kindhearted ghost passing by offers him two possible solutions. “The Ghost King is looking for his sixteenth concubine. You’re so good-looking, why not become his wife? He’ll protect you for sure!” Looking at the nearby Ghost King, who is green-faced, fanged, and devouring raw flesh, Gu Xuejin shakes his head so hard it nearly falls off. “Hmm, there’s another way, but you’d have to get lucky.” The kind ghost suggests a different path. “There’s a powerful human heavenly master who can travel between the worlds of the living and the dead. He comes to the Underworld sometimes to set up formations. Maybe he can help you?” Gu Xuejin immediately chooses the latter. He spends days keeping watch by an underground river in the Underworld, finally spotting a great heavenly master in white, tall and straight as a crane. He circles the master from a distance, but the man’s figure looks a lot like his rival in the entertainment industry, Lu Shu. He isn’t sure, so he drifts closer for a better look Even the beauty mark that fans rave about is exactly the same! No way. Is it really Lu Shu?! Gu Xuejin is still debating whether to approach when the golden light of Lu Shu’s formation ensnares him, leaving him unable to move. “Gu Xuejin?” Lu Shu raises an eyebrow. “It’s been a while. Have you changed careers and become a ghost?” Gu Xuejin: “…I’m not actually a ghost, but you really are a jerk.” “I’ve set up a matchmaking formation to find myself a beautiful ghost wife whose birth details are compatible with mine,” Lu Shu says coolly. “You entered my formation. Are you trying to be my wife?” 1. A sweet story about rivals who marry first and fall in love later. Both each other’s first love, both virgins, older top, one-on-one romance. The top is a cold-faced cook. 2. Episodic supernatural stories, with a little entertainment-industry drama. A cold, abstinent, scheming heavenly master × a sharp-tongued but softhearted, proud beauty bottom. 3. Modern alternate universe, where same-sex marriage is legal. An uplifting power-progression story. Theme: The protagonist is frail but strong-willed, strives to improve as he grows, and treasures the people around him