I Discovered My Teacher Was the Villain After Becoming His Disciple

My new novel, The Dragon Tyrant Turns Out to Be a Hopeless Romantic After All My Efforts, is now underway. The blurb is below. Please add it to your favorites!

Blurb (complete):

Yin Tao, an ordinary college student, gets into a car accident and transmigrates into a book as a minor character in a male-oriented novel. Her only connection to the male lead is that her mother's sister-in-law's niece's cousin is the male lead's late fiancée.

Yin Shu: I know this plot. I'll just keep my head down and live my life.

But when her scumbag father sees his daughter's peerless beauty, he gets ideas. With a wave of his hand, he sends Yin Shu to study under Bai Yi, a renowned scholar living on Qingzhu Mountain. Officially, it's so she can learn propriety and become a worthy wife for a noble family. In reality, she's just there to earn credentials and build her reputation.

Yin Shu, waking up at the foot of the mountain: "...You're really something."

Fine. Any place is a prison.

Everyone knows Bai Yi was composing brilliant prose as a child, came top in the imperial examinations in his teens, and had no equal by the time he was twenty. He retired early to Qingzhu Mountain to pursue scholarship, and scholars throughout the land admired his knowledge and integrity.

Yin Shu: "My teacher must be too busy with his studies to teach me."

After becoming his student...

Yin Shu stares at fifteen essays to write, three blank canvases, ten arithmetic problems, and a family tree of noble houses so large it could cover a bed. A question mark slowly appears over her head.

"...A little hard work is fine. I'll just keep my head down."

Then, while taking a post-meal stroll to help her digestion, she wanders to the back mountain and accidentally sees her frail, delicate teacher, who supposedly can't even lift a finger, strike dozens of assassins off a cliff with one palm. He turns to look at her, his usually gentle gaze now cold and murderous. The pale fingers that lightly tap her forehead whenever she dozes off are dripping with blood.

Yin Shu, expressionless: "Unless I'm mistaken, those weren't assassins. They were the imperial family's secret guards."

I thought you were my teacher, but you're actually the villain??????

"Life is like a dream. In the first half of my life, I was always a pawn in someone else's hands, a possession to be used. I never fought for anything for myself. But you are the one person I will not, and cannot, give up."

"It is because of you that I lose my composure, heedless of the blades flashing behind me, worrying only that you might have a moment of peace."

New novel: After All That Work, You're a Hopeless Romantic

Jiang Chouyu has spent more than a decade living by the motto of being a lazybones. She never imagined that she'd wake up one day and transmigrate into a book, specifically a classic male-oriented novel she hadn't read in eight hundred years.

Her role is a marginal one: the frail childhood sweetheart of the Dragon Tyrant, so delicate she makes Xi Shi look robust.

Her fate is tragic: she willingly dies to fulfill the male lead's ambitions, and he takes the world with tears in his eyes.

[Those tears are full of feeling! What a beautiful love story!] the System exclaims.

Jiang Chouyu, sprawled on her bed and ready to go back to sleep: "..."

Oh, and apparently she comes with a 24-karat, pure hopeless-romantic System.

[I guarantee it. The male lead will be all pure-hearted devotion, holding a rose in his mouth. You have nothing to lose by giving it a try,] the System coaxes.

Jiang Chouyu rolls her eyes, turns over, and pretends not to hear.

System: [...You forced my hand. Once you complete the mission, you can return to your original world. Mission codename: The Temptation of Going Back to the Village.]

Jiang Chouyu sits bolt upright in an instant. Well, it's not like doing a mission is out of the question.

Bring him meals, soup, and warmth.

Take bullets, swords, and injuries for him.

And you still won't fall for her?

*

Later, during a battle between two armies, the villain takes Jiang Chouyu hostage.

She secretly rejoices, ready to sacrifice herself for the male lead's cause as the plot demands and make a graceful exit. But before the knife can reach her neck, Xu Heng snaps it in half with an arrow.

He says, "I won't let you."

Jiang Chouyu: ? Don't be like that, bro. Actually, I'm willing.

But the other man's corruption level starts shooting up, and the warning from the System in her mind gives her a headache. A sudden sense of dread settles in her heart.

Wait, buddy, why didn't you say so earlier?

So you're a hopeless romantic?

Extra scene:

Xu Heng: The weight of power is nothing compared to you. You matter more.

Jiang Chouyu blinks at the System: He seems to have gone out of character.

System: [...Damn, sometimes I really hate how you're such a clueless straight girl.]

A lazy heroine who looks like a hopeless romantic vs. a Dragon Tyrant of a hero who puts love above all else

Theme: Love life, love living