Lotus Blossom, Wine-Red

[Soft, vain little white lotus x brooding, obsessive lover] [Married first, love later / sweet romance / both reborn]

Yan Shu was reborn.

In her previous life, she was naive and vain, convinced she had received the finest love in the world. In the end, her own husband sent her to the afterlife with a cup of poisoned wine.

As a princess of Yan, Yan Shu was stunningly beautiful. To curry favor with the Southern territories, her father married her off as a concubine to the lecherous, over-sixty ruler of Xiao.

Afraid Yan Shu wouldn't actively compete for his favor after entering Xiao, the queen of Yan force-fed her a love charm. On the twenty-fifth of every month, she had to sleep with a man to break its spell.

That night, tormented by the charm, she was forced to attend the king's bedchamber. But a palace coup broke out, and the incompetent, senile, lecherous old King Xiao was killed with a single stroke by the young crown prince.

A handsome young man emerged from a mountain of corpses, sword in hand. He was as beautiful as a god. Smiling with narrowed eyes, he raised the woman's chin, his dark eyes half-lidded.

Yan Shu, her whole body burning from the love charm, fluttered her lashes and looked up with a delicate little face, weeping so pitifully that anyone would feel for her.

Their desires aligned, and naturally, they spent a night of passion together.

Afterward, the newly enthroned King Xiao would smile gently at her and step in when others bullied her. At times, gazing at her long black hair with an almost besotted look, he would call her Yanyan in a voice dark with affection.

Yan Shu became lost in his tenderness.

At the grand feast of Xiao, while the aristocrats amused themselves by making slaves fight beasts, the king smiled and sent her into the arena.

The ravenous wolves, starved for more than ten days, stared at the slaves outside the arena with blood-red eyes, saliva dripping as they bared their fangs.

Yan Shu trembled, clutching the man's sleeve tightly.

"Yanyan, don't be afraid. I'll summon the finest physician for you."

His narrow eyes were still smiling tenderly as he pinched her chin, his words innocent and cruel, each one ice-cold.

Only then did Yan Shu learn the truth.

The handsome young man who had spent night after night entangled with her was the lowly hostage she had once pushed into the pit of ten thousand snakes with her own hands.

To take revenge, he imprisoned her in a gilded palace, where she would never be free again.

Yan Shu saw no daylight from one day to the next, forced to spend her time in bed with him.

Day after day, year after year.

At last, King Xiao grew tired of her. On her birthday, he ordered a cup of poisoned wine for her.

The poison tore through her insides, and Yan Shu died a miserable death.

But when she awoke, she had returned to the day after the palace coup in Xiao in her previous life.

The sky was just beginning to lighten. The bedcovers were a mess. Half-awake, Yan Shu realized that once again she was lying in the young crown prince's arms, her clothes in disarray.

His narrow eyes were half-lidded, his dark gaze unreadable.

The greatest secret of Xiao Yu's life was that, when he was fifteen, the young woman he loved most had pushed him into a pit of ten thousand snakes with her own hands.

The moment he crawled out, covered in blood, Xiao Yu's eyes were red with fury. He swore he would have his revenge.

He would take her, then discard her.

He would torment her without restraint.

That was the price Yan Shu deserved to pay in this life.

He would forge a golden cage to lock her inside and make her kneel before him, the lowly hostage, in deep repentance.

But that night, when the woman, poisoned by the love charm, tugged at his sleeve and looked up at him with tears in her almond eyes,

Xiao Yu regretted it.

He was that pathetic. His Shu Shu was someone he would never let go of, in either life.

P.S. 1. The story mainly follows this clingy couple. Please avoid it if that's not your thing.

2. The premise sounds angsty, but the actual story isn't! It's all sweetness!

3. Both are reborn, though the male lead comes back to life later. There was a misunderstanding in their past lives. He didn't poison the female lead; the blurb is from her mistaken point of view.

4. Both are each other's first. The male lead is pure in body and mind. Strong male lead, weak female lead. Neither is perfect, and both have flaws.

5. Happy ending / sweet romance

Theme: Treat others sincerely