My Husband and I Can't Stand Each Other

[Marriage First, Love Later.]

Su Luqing rose to a high position through imperial favor, but was notorious as a ruthless official. She was the Commandant of Wuyi Lane.

Qin Huaizhou was an outstanding official who rose rapidly through the civil service examinations, and the esteemed Minister of the Court of Judicial Review.

They were two rising stars at court,

but both within and beyond its walls,

they were at each other's throats,

couldn't stand one another,

and would have loved nothing more than to see the other dead.

Yet a single imperial edict of betrothal brought the two of them together as husband and wife.

From then on, they led a life of:

clashing while investigating cases,

guarding evidence against each other,

arguing at the government office during the day,

then having to share a room when they returned home at night...

[Little Scene 1]

On their wedding night.

Su Luqing waved her round fan, looking provocative.

"My lord Qin, don't you know that newlyweds are supposed to drink the nuptial wine?"

Qin Huaizhou refused to back down and moved closer to her.

"My lady Su, don't you know you're also supposed to consummate the marriage?"

[Little Scene 2]

At a palace banquet after their wedding.

The emperor looked at the beautiful couple and said to the trusted official beside him, pleased,

"Lady Su and Lord Qin are truly devoted to each other. Everyone must envy them. I really did make the right decision in arranging this marriage!"

Yet where no one could see,

Su Luqing took the opportunity to serve Qin Huaizhou some food and asked coldly,

"Did you tear out that page from the case file?"

Qin Huaizhou pretended to tenderly tidy his "dear wife's" hair, sneering just as coldly.

"Did you steal that key?"

[Little Scene 3]

At first,

Qin Huaizhou thought that he had no one he loved anyway, so it didn't matter whom he married.

But later,

watching Su Luqing pretend to humor him, he suddenly found himself wanting to reach out and claim her.

Another evening.

Qin Huaizhou waited for Su Luqing to return home late,

intentionally opening his already loose collar a little farther.

His expression remained casual.

"My lady Su, why have you come home so late again?"

#MarriageFirstLoveLater, sharing a bed with different dreams

#Female lead: Commandant x Male lead: Minister of the Court of Judicial Review

#Alternate universe, with extensive original worldbuilding.

Reader comments on this novel are now open~

--Coming Soon 1: My Husband Watches Me Harmonize with Someone Else Through the Sky Screen--

Ling Anye transmigrated into the granddaughter of a high-ranking official who had served three reigns in the Great Yue dynasty.

Her husband, Qiu Minghui, was a rising star at court. After they married, they lived happily together and had a daughter. For years, they were the envy of everyone around them.

Qiu Minghui treated her wonderfully. Worried that she was bored cooped up at home while his own duties kept him too busy to accompany her, he wrote to invite a distant cousin of his to keep her company.

His cousin was indeed considerate. But eight months later, when she came to Ling Anye in tears, heavily pregnant, and begged her to forgive her, Ling Anye finally learned that the cousin's real name was Liu Yuzhen. She and Qiu Minghui had been childhood sweethearts, but the Liu family had been confiscated and exiled to the borderlands, forcing the two apart.

Qiu Minghui also begged Ling Anye to let her stay. He said, "Zhenzhen has no family left but me, and she's carrying my child. Since things have come to this, why not let her move into the household so we can look after each other?"

Ling Anye's answer was to slap divorce papers across Qiu Minghui's face and return to the modern world with her four-year-old daughter.

*

After a few days without seeing Ling Anye, Qiu Minghui wasn't worried.

She was merely throwing a tantrum. Which noblewoman in the capital wasn't magnanimous and accepting when her husband took a concubine? Once Ling Anye came around, she would naturally return and devote herself to arranging the ceremony to welcome the concubine into the household.

But that very day, Qiu Minghui discovered a sky screen before his eyes.

At first, the sky screen showed him his wife and daughter. Without his protection, they were supposedly going around in rags and living miserable lives...

Or perhaps not.

Were they really eating lychees in the desert?

How could there be lychees in the desert?

Before long, Qiu Minghui saw another man appear beside his wife and daughter through the sky screen, treating them with the utmost tenderness and gradually taking his place...

The scenes before his eyes kept stabbing at his heart.

No. He wouldn't allow it.

That was... his wife.

Before she transmigrated, Ling Anye had a betrothed.

The two had tacitly followed the terms of their political marriage, keeping out of each other's affairs and maintaining a harmonious front.

After she transmigrated back and recovered from a serious illness, her betrothed politely sent her a bouquet of flowers. The card attached bore a courteous greeting, signed Wen Yanzhou.

Not long afterward, Ling Anye attended a lecture. During the break, she got a call from her older cousin, who urged her to bring Wen Yanzhou home for the holiday.

Ling Anye covered the receiver and, not noticing someone had taken the empty seat beside her, lied with practiced ease. "Wen Yanzhou is very busy with work. He probably can't get away. I'll call and ask him."

Two minutes later, Ling Anye called her cousin back and made up a story on the spot. "Wen Yanzhou said he's in Berlin. He just got off the plane and is rushing to a meeting."

Her cousin's disappointed voice was still fading from the receiver when a soft chuckle sounded beside her. She turned in surprise and met a pair of dark eyes.

Before her mind could recognize him, her body had already sounded the alarm.

Ling Anye pinched her pale fingertips and calmly said, "What a coincidence."

The person she had been lying about had heard every word.

Prickly twin blossoms x refined and elegant gentleman

Two timelines unfolding in parallel

I cut off a river, then turned around and stepped into that same river.

I don't like rivers, but I like you, who journey through them.

-

After traveling through wind, frost, and rain, I find a spring terrace at the end of the fading road.

--Coming Soon 2: My Husband and I Can't Stand Each Other--

Three years after their marriage was arranged by imperial decree, Song Shiyu and Pei Jun were still living separate lives.

Whenever people talked about them, they called them the capital's most famous bitter couple.

After all, Censor Pei was impartial and upright, daring to speak out against injustice across the land. He could not stand Song, the Commandant notorious for her ruthless methods.

·

Song Shiyu couldn't stand Pei Jun either. That stuffy old-fashioned man was always tripping her up and costing her credit for her work.

A major case had recently begun to implicate Pei Jun. To make him her breakthrough, she came up with a plan and showered him with affection, pursuing him fiercely until she managed to win him over as well.

With the case at hand, her trusted subordinate sought confirmation of her feelings. "Does Commandant Song really love Censor Pei deeply?"

Song Shiyu scoffed. Then she caught sight of Pei Jun passing beneath the corridor and immediately changed her tune, deliberately drawing out a sigh. "I hate him. He's a block of wood."

·

Pei Jun accidentally came upon Song Shiyu discussing matters with a colleague. He was about to leave when he vaguely heard them mention him.

As if possessed, he edged closer to listen. From inside came a voice full of gritted teeth: "I hate him..."

Hate him.

There was no need to hear what came next. He already knew.

As expected, she had just been deceiving him.

A huge liar who wanted to trick him into giving her his body, and then his heart!

But as he turned away, Pei Jun suddenly remembered the time at Mount Li when he was ambushed and struck by a cold arrow.

When the physician pulled out the arrow, he had instinctively seized someone's hand.

That person was... Song Shiyu.

At the time, she had turned sideways to shield him from every probing gaze. Her expression had been calm and unmoved, yet she had held his hand back the entire time.

Theme: Dare to speak your heart