Coaxing Li Zhi

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Coming soon: Difficult to Let Go. You can follow it on my author page.

At her engagement party, Ming Li fell into the water. She watched coldly as her fiancé of ten years abandoned her to save his childhood sweetheart.

Soaking wet, she called off the engagement.

Her fiancé looked down at her. "Do you really think you can find someone better than me?"

That night, a storm raged, lightning flashing and thunder crashing. It shattered what little composure Ming Li had left. She called someone and said, "I hear you need a wife. How about marrying me?"

That someone was her fiancé's uncle.

Ming Li had called him Uncle for ten years, too.

-

Ming Li never imagined that the very next day, Song Jinyan would take her to register their marriage.

After the wedding, she conscientiously kept to her boundaries, never daring to cross the line.

Until a family banquet some time later, when Ming Li looped her arm through her husband's and smugly beckoned to her ex. "What are you standing there for? Hurry up and greet your elder!"

Her ex stood rooted to the spot, his face deathly pale.

That night.

With her ex just on the other side of a door, the handsome man, as stately as a god, pressed his lips to hers. "Still calling me Uncle? Hmm?"

-

Song Jinyan was handsome and dignified, a man of rare integrity, and had long been at the top of the capital's social scene. Yet his private life was a mystery, and for years no one had been able to get close to him.

When news broke that the marriage agreement between the Song and Ming families had changed hands, the entire city was in an uproar.

Everyone assumed that, given Song Jinyan's way of doing things, he must have some ulterior motive or calculation.

Then they watched him forcefully take over his nephew's engagement, marry Ming Li with impeccable grace, spend a fortune on a vast estate, and buy a prized stallion for his wife to ride and enjoy herself.

And one day, this great man who usually kept to himself openly declared his love for his wife and stood up for her: [My wife and I have known each other for ten years. At last, my wish has come true, and my heart is full. All I wish is to cherish her and hold her dear.]

-

Everyone said Song Jinyan was a paragon of virtue.

No one knew that his vile desire to possess her had been growing like a vine through all those long years of waiting.

-

You are as proud as roses covering the summer hills.

From now on, when I look at the moon, all I can see is you.

[Reading Guide]

* Radiant, proud little peacock x gentle, scheming older man + marriage first, love later

The story has changed significantly, and some characters from the previous version may have been removed.

I've added a groveling arc, but from the VIP chapters onward, it's very sweet. The author writes sweet romance, after all, with frequent romantic rivalry and dramatic love triangles.

Ten-year age gap, with a growing-up romance. No flirting or intimate contact before adulthood.

Chapters 1-9 have been rewritten, so they won't match the earlier comments.

Difficult to Let Go: gentle, alluring woman x arrogant heir to a business empire

-

Yan Yang was beautiful, refined, and good-natured, exactly the type elders adored.

When she was sent as a social favor to a matchmaking banquet hosted by the Xi family for their second son, Xi Mu Cheng, his mother took one look at her and chose her from among the many "rivals."

But everyone familiar with Xi Mu Cheng knew he disliked women like her most of all. He only agreed to date her because his family pressured him.

Yan Yang thought that was indeed the case.

When they met, the second young master Xi gave her a scrutinizing look, his innate arrogance on full display. "We'll date for a year. Help me deal with my family, and I'll agree to any request you make, as long as you don't cross the line."

He emphasized the words "cross the line," clearly afraid she might have some ulterior motive.

-

Yan Yang had no reason to refuse, of course, and no one thought she would.

After all, from an outsider's perspective, someone with her ordinary background was already incredibly lucky to have any connection to the Xi family.

Xi Mu Cheng had a nasty personality, but Yan Yang played the perfect girlfriend: gentle, attentive, and always at his beck and call. Everyone in the Xi family was satisfied.

No one knew she had a calendar in her heart, counting down the days one by one.

Until the Xi family began making wedding arrangements, and Yan Yang finally couldn't sit still. She went to Xi Mu Cheng and asked, "Who said we were getting married?"

"I did." The man seated before her saw nothing unusual in it. He glanced up slightly, speaking as if it were obvious. "Isn't this what you wanted?"

As soon as he finished speaking, a cup of hot tea drenched him from head to toe. The woman who was always so gentle stared at him with unprecedented coldness.

-

Xi Mu Cheng had always been surrounded by countless people trying to curry favor with him, each with their own agenda. He watched their obsequious gestures with cold indifference.

He judged Yan Yang in the same way, watching her indulge his every whim and win over his family, never imagining he would become so attached to her.

When it ended, Yan Yang made just one request: that he pay off her grandmother's medical bills.

"You don't want anything else?"

The woman answered in a businesslike manner. "Like what?"

He gazed deeply into her eyes, his lips parting and closing several times before he finally laid down all his defenses and murmured, "Like me."

Gentle x arrogant

The male lead falls first. Click to read about a jerk getting his comeuppance and winning back his wife.

Theme: Love is respect