Are All My Employees Romance Novel Heroines?

[Up Next: A Healing and Redemption Story, After I Took In a Down-and-Out Sword Saint. See the blurb at the bottom.]

Blurb:

Shipping everything keeps me nutritionally balanced!

Wen Mengmeng, a pastry chef, transmigrated to ancient times and became an orphan from a collateral branch of the Wen family, forced to depend on others. The Wens had the name of a prestigious clan, but in truth they had long since fallen into ruin. To pay off their debts, the family patriarch even betrothed Wen Mengmeng to Qin Yunchong, heir to the Marquis of Changle, as a bride to bring him good fortune.

Rumor had it that the heir was cold and disliked people getting close to him, and that he was already halfway to the grave. None of the women previously married to him to bring him good fortune had met a happy end.

Wen Mengmeng immediately decided to return to her old trade, pay off the debt, and start by refusing an arranged marriage!

Before long, the Wen family's sweet soup shop opened.

As business flourished, Wen Mengmeng gradually hired three young women.

The first was charming and delicate, with a pitiful air about her, and she was pregnant. She seemed to be fleeing from something. Not long after she started work, a prince showed up to win her back, and spent every day helping at the shop in ways that only made things worse...

The second had smiling, crescent-shaped eyes and a lively, adorable manner. Unfortunately, she was always sighing. It turned out she already had someone she loved but was being forced to marry a spoiled young master from the largest money house in the capital. Then the young master's secret identity was revealed...

The third was elegant and lovely, refined and sensible. Rumor had it she had been divorced for being insufficiently beautiful. Who would have thought she would capture the heart of a Vice Minister of the Court of Judicial Review, a man reputed never to have been close to a woman? And just then, her ex-husband regretted his decision...

Wen Mengmeng was baffled. Why did it seem like all her employees were the heroines of romance novels?

What Wen Mengmeng didn't know was that she, too, had been handed the script of a romance heroine.

Please read before starting:

Content warning: The male lead dates under a secret identity. This behavior is unacceptable; it's only included for melodramatic storytelling.

1. The focus is on romance and relationships, including the women's friendships and love lives. The business is just a backdrop.

2. A lighthearted, sweet, trashy romance. All the male leads are virgins; some of the female leads are not.

3. This is a fictional setting, so please don't nitpick historical details. The ingredients and recipes are all from Baidu.

After I Took In a Down-and-Out Sword Saint

A slow-burn healing and redemption story.

Optimistic, resilient ordinary woman x cool, restrained sword cultivator

Shen Tian was born into the cultivation world and became an ordinary mortal with no chance of cultivating immortality.

Fortunately, her parents were loving and the neighbors kind. She tended a small shop and lived a warm, peaceful life.

She thought she would go on living an ordinary life, but one day she came across a blood-covered man at the foot of a mountain.

Since the man was still breathing, Shen Tian couldn't bear to leave him there and took him home.

But who could have guessed that the first thing he did upon waking was raise his life-bound sword to cut his own throat?

Shen Tian couldn't help slapping him.

Only later did Shen Tian learn that this man she'd slapped was Pei Anxun, a sword cultivator who had once stood at the pinnacle of the sword path, just one step away from ascending.

He had failed his tribulation and suffered a shattered Dao heart. Even his own father had driven him out of the sect. Everyone pitied him and laughed at him as a good-for-nothing.

Shen Tian was the only one who didn't see him that way.

She saw only a person covered in wounds, still struggling to breathe and awkwardly learning how to stay alive.

Her friend teased Shen Tian, saying she'd found herself a fine husband.

Shen Tian thought that she couldn't cultivate and had only a limited lifespan, so someone like Pei Anxun, a heaven's favorite, could never fall for her.

She had no idea how much effort that taciturn man was putting into resisting the urge to touch her.

Notes on life in the mortal world:

1. Both leads are each other's first and only partner, one-on-one romance, happy ending.

2. The male lead struggles with low self-esteem early on.

3. This is not a power-leveling wish-fulfillment story. The setting is cultivation, not xianxia, and the female lead remains mortal throughout the main story.

Theme: Only by helping one another can we build a harmonious society.