As the Year Draws to a Close

‖The End‖

◎Proud and dazzling x restrained and self-controlled → married first, love later x secret love becomes reality

[For ten years, I thought the icy man secretly in love with me was my sworn enemy]

Chang Wanqing, the Yongchun County Princess and daughter of a duke of the current dynasty, has been jilted.

The news has shocked the entire court.

Everyone knows she comes from a distinguished family and is dazzlingly beautiful. The emperor's empress is her aunt, and she has been spoiled rotten since childhood. In the capital, she is famous for her arrogance and domineering ways.

Now that her marriage has taken a spectacular fall, people are laughing at her misfortune while saying that the foolish Meng Young Master who didn't know what was good for him will probably lose his life.

-

Chang Wanqing really does want to kill him.

Just as she raises her riding crop, another hand grips it tightly. A powerful forearm emerges from a sleeve of deep black, its veins bulging with force and carrying an indescribable air of authority. It stops her.

Meng Fuhan, Commander of the Palace Guard.

He is also the elder brother of the Meng Young Master who just broke off his engagement to her, and the man that young master fears and hates most.

The man keeps a stern expression as he takes her riding crop with one hand and pushes her into the carriage with the other, then draws the curtain shut.

The carriage is dim, and the distance between them abruptly closes. Chang Wanqing instinctively raises a hand, ready to tell the bastard she has never gotten along with to get out of her space.

The next moment, the man's words leave her utterly stunned.

"Why not marry me?" Meng Fuhan's words seem absurd to her. "I'll help you get revenge on him."

-

...Though he is her sworn enemy.

They have deep-seated grudges, and their relationship is as hostile as fire and water.

If nothing else, she won't let him get the better of her. Meng Fuhan surpasses that blind fool of a fiancé in every way. He holds a high position and commands great power. Among the eligible young men in the capital, he is the only one worth considering.

Chang Wanqing assumes that after they marry, the two of them will constantly clash and refuse to give an inch. She plans to spend her days partying and her nights carousing, while taking the opportunity to get back at this ambitious-looking, scheming old enemy.

She never expects him to stay up all night cooking for her, or to pluck a snow lotus growing on a sheer cliff just because she joked about it once.

He is attentive in every detail, thoughtful to a fault, and knows each and every one of her preferences.

Chang Wanqing takes it all as a trap, guards against him at every turn, and becomes even more difficult.

Until the day she discovers the feelings he has kept hidden for years.

Snow gathers on the man's shoulders, and both the biting cold and searing heat hold her fast.

She tries to retreat, but he catches her pale wrist and silences her with a kiss, her voice growing more and more broken.

"Don't go looking for anyone else."

His usually indifferent eyes are tinged with an indescribable obsession. Meng Fuhan buries his face against her neck, his voice hoarse.

"There can only be me by your side..."

-

He once glimpsed the moon from a ditch.

Until the day she walked toward him, and spring came to Fuhan.

He took the riding crop from her hand, then held her palm. He had waited ten years for this day.

|Later, much later, I saw myself in your eyes.|

Content warnings:

One couple, both virgins. The male lead has been secretly in love with her and has been plotting for a long time, with a deep and calculating nature. The heroine has a bad temper, is spoiled and a little willful, and is a self-centered, proud, cheeky little brat. A fluffy little romance with not much depth.

Six-year age gap.

It's my fault for loving melodrama, but writing sweet romances is my destiny!!

Coming soon: A Sickly Supporting Female Character's Guide to Saving Herself. If you like it, please add it to your favorites!

Chu Miao transmigrates into a melodramatic tragic romance novel. The hero and heroine suffer through a million words of love and hate, tormenting each other until they finally reach a happy ending.

The good news: she isn't the heroine.

The bad news: she's the vicious stepmother who turns the male lead from a good boy into a sinister power-hungry official. She abuses him when he is young, and after being driven out of the household, repeatedly frames the heroine and interferes with their relationship. In the end, she is executed by slow slicing, meeting a gruesome fate.

When Chu Miao learns all this, she is already sitting in a red bridal sedan, about to marry Qin Jiyan, the male lead's father. The Marquis of Ding'an, who commands a powerful army and wields overwhelming authority, is taking her as his second wife.

Just as the rumors say, Qin Jiyan has no interest in women and is stiff and dull. On their wedding night, all he says is, "Take good care of Mingcheng. You will manage the household affairs. As long as you behave yourself, I'll guarantee you a life of wealth and privilege."

Her husband is rich and never comes home.

As Chu Miao, who is pretending to be ill and spitting blood to get out of managing the household, looks at the weighty account books, she thinks: ...Maybe being this stepmother isn't so bad after all.

-

Qin Mingcheng is reborn, returning to the time when that woman has just married into the household.

He knows that his stepmother appears gentle and frail in public, but is actually a venomous snake. This time, she had better live to a ripe old age, so she can endure all the hatred he has accumulated over two lifetimes.

On the second day of the marriage, Qin Mingcheng kneels before her, waiting for her to pour scalding tea over him as she did in his previous life. As he calculates how to get his revenge, he hears her let out a delicate little hiss.

"Get up," she says, giving him a puzzled look. "Children don't grow tall if they kneel for too long."

A crack appears in Qin Mingcheng's icy expression. Who are you calling a child!

After he passes the imperial examination and earns a place on the honors list, Chu Miao, who was supposed to accuse him of cheating, rents out all the restaurants in the capital. She hangs banners, bangs gongs and drums, and sets off firecrackers from the eastern end of the city to the western end.

She even gives his academy teacher a silk banner.

He takes all of this to be the woman's sinister scheme and stays on his guard. It is only one day, when he sees her pale-faced and weakly unconscious, that he realizes living to a hundred is apparently too much to ask.

-

All Qin Jiyan knows is that his seemingly delicate, kindhearted wife has a terrible temper. She flies off the handle at the slightest provocation, bursts into tears at the slightest touch, pretends to be sick so badly that her lies are full of holes, and is so affected and artificial it makes one's scalp crawl.

He thinks he will hate this kind of woman most of all.

Until Chu Miao frowns and complains, "You're pressing too hard. Do the other side."

Qin Jiyan, who is massaging her shoulders, dutifully eases his touch and leans close to her ear. "Since I've been so obedient, can I come back to our room tonight and sleep there?"

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Theme: Love should be spoken aloud.