After Marrying My Sweet-on-the-Outside, Dark-on-the-Inside Husband

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Story blurb: Qin Ting fled famine from south to north. To bury her grandmother, who had died of illness along the way, she sold herself. After being passed from one person to another, she ended up in an unnamed village, where a dilapidated shack and a fool who seemed even worse off than her awaited.

The fool was bullied and beaten every day, an easy target for anyone. He was pitiful to watch, but in her eyes, though he was mad and foolish, he wasn't a bad person. The two relied on each other to survive. In summer, she took him to catch fish in the river; in winter, she took him to snare sparrows. The fool cheerfully followed her everywhere.

The simple-hearted young woman spent her days thinking about how to keep them both fed. She had no idea that the man beside her was actually a deposed crown prince who had survived a palace coup years earlier by pretending to be insane. Twelve years of hardship and restraint had twisted his nature beyond recognition, replacing it with cruelty, bloodlust, suspicion, and brutality.

After a sudden upheaval, the fool vanished without a trace. When they met again, he was He Chengyi, the new emperor, high above all others, standing atop the city gate beside the noblewoman he was about to marry. Qin Ting had clawed her way out of hell through endless hardship just to see him again, only to find herself among the commoners, kneeling before him with everyone else and bowing three times.

Only then did Qin Ting understand that a person really could endure humiliation for twelve years, deceive everyone, and remain on guard against her at every turn, using her all along.

Heartbroken, she got to her feet and silently walked away.

*

When He Chengyi was young, he survived the palace coup by acting like a fool. His elder brother, who had seized the throne, resented their father's favoritism toward He Chengyi. He stripped him of his status and went further, casually buying a woman from a crowd of refugees and throwing her at him as a wife.

At first, he had no intention of letting Qin Ting live. To him, she was a tool his enemy had used to humiliate him, an insignificant nobody, a helpless orphan girl. Even though people had once trampled him into the mud, he still considered her beneath him.

But later, when Qin Ting really did leave, he became aware of an emotion beyond hatred and resentment: heartache.

Still, he refused to admit it. Even when he did everything he could to keep her imprisoned by his side, he stubbornly insisted he was merely showing her charity and pity.

Both leads are each other's first and only. Old-school. Soap-opera angst. Love through coercion.

Seeking follows for "The Rest of My Life"

After her father's death, Ji Ru's eye condition returned and she went blind. Her stepmother took advantage of the situation and sold her to a brothel, where she was expected to be trampled by countless men and left broken.

Stubborn by nature, she would rather die than submit. The brothel madam simply forced a bowl of drugged medicine down her throat and pushed her into a wealthy patron's room. Ji Ru planned to die with the man, but fortunately, a fire broke out in the brothel. The young peddler who often brought her cosmetics rescued her in the chaos. On their way to escape, the drug took effect, and the two spent the night together.

Afterward, the peddler promised to take her back to trustworthy relatives. With no other choice, Ji Ru could only wait patiently for the time being.

As her sight gradually returned, her aunt finally came to find her. At the same time, news arrived that the young peddler had been killed by bandits, his body left beyond recognition.

Her aunt sighed with relief. "Perhaps that's for the best. Then the filthy things in the past can be forgotten."

Rumor has it that Liu Guiting is cold-hearted, bloodthirsty, and cruel. The Lianzhen Bureau under his command answers directly to the emperor, keeping watch over every official. The entire court falls silent in fear before him.

Few know that as a boy, Liu Guiting witnessed his family die before his eyes, and the culprit was Ji Ru's father.

The day he met Ji Ru, she was holding a shard of porcelain and foolishly trying to fight someone to the death. She made him laugh. On a whim, the man who had intended to take revenge decided to toy with her, so he lied and said he was a young peddler.

Later, on countless nights, he thought about snapping her neck more than once. It wasn't until he was ambushed and returned home wounded that he discovered she was already gone.

"Never mind. I just don't want to play anymore," he said with a forced smile, gazing at the empty room.

The young and promising Vice Minister of Justice was handsome and refined. Everyone said he and his fiancee were a perfect match. But when their wedding was near, he somehow offended Liu Guiting.

Ji Ru boldly begged Liu Guiting to show mercy and spare her fiance.

But the ruthless man undressed right in front of her and, eyes red, pointed to a sword wound on his chest as he demanded, "You drugged my soup before and got me ambushed. Was it all so you could marry him today?"

Ji Ru was horrified. Only then did she realize who he was.

Theme: Be strong and brave. Never give up on yourself, even in adversity.