Breaking the Phoenix

[Please add my upcoming novels, Seeing the Spring Terrace and Crossing the Magpie Bridge, to your collections! Thanks, dears!]

Blurb:

Before she turned fourteen, Ji Luan was the jewel in her father's palm, the only legitimate eldest daughter of the Ji family, breathtakingly beautiful, proud, and radiant.

When she was fourteen, her father brought home a boy from outside the estate and adopted him. He was strikingly handsome, with features as lovely as a girl's, and a gentle, refined temperament. Thoughtful and considerate, he was adored by everyone in the household.

Ji Luan, however, detested him. She targeted and tormented him at every turn, yet the boy remained good-tempered, letting her do as she pleased without ever losing his temper.

Even her father, who had always doted on her, could no longer stand it. "Luan'er, Cheng'er is a good boy, and he is your older brother. How can you bully him at every turn?"

Ji Luan was full of grievances with no way to vent them.

Bully him?

Only Ji Luan knew how wicked and cold-hearted a person Huo Cheng hid beneath his obedient exterior.

The night was deep, the dew heavy, and the moon bright. Huo Cheng, always mild-mannered in the eyes of others, pinned the proud, radiant girl behind a rockery. His dark eyes were deep as he murmured gently, "I hear you're meeting potential husbands, Luan'er?"

Ji Luan forced herself to stay calm and glared at him. "What's it to you?"

Huo Cheng smiled. Bending down, he brushed his red lips against the shell of her ear. His voice was gentle, yet wrapped in bone-chilling menace. "Whoever you marry, I'll kill him."

A spoiled, overbearing heiress x a refined-looking, sweet-on-the-outside, wicked-on-the-inside young man

Reader's Guide: The male and female leads are not related by blood. Their romance begins after they both turn sixteen.

Please add my upcoming novel, Seeing the Spring Terrace, to your collection!

Blurb:

Ji Xun had always looked down on Jiang Yunwei. In his eyes, she was timid, cowardly, foolish, and lacking in independent thought.

His kind-hearted mother had bought six-year-old Jiang Yunwei from a human trafficker when he was four, and treated her as her own daughter.

To comfort his mother, he had no choice but to call her "Big Sister," against his will.

After his mother passed away, he went to the capital to take the civil service exams. He passed with flying colors, rose through the ranks, and gained power over the entire court.

The higher his position climbed, the more sinister his temperament became. He made many enemies at court, and ultimately met a gruesome end, sentenced to execution after the autumn harvest.

Two days before his execution, a prison guard teased him, "You're a lucky man. You have such a wonderful older sister. She went to the emperor to plead for you, and they beat her until she was barely alive. Truly devoted siblings, aren't you?"

Ji Xun froze.

He thought back to that long-forgotten older sister.

The woman he had considered foolish and timid had actually traveled all the way to the capital alone to find him, risking her life to appeal to the emperor on his behalf.

She really was foolish and silly.

Ji Xun lowered his eyes and thought to himself.

But in the end, he still died.

One day, he was reborn, back at his mother's funeral five years earlier.

Jiang Yunwei wore mourning clothes, tears shining in her eyes as she knelt before their mother's coffin. "Mother, don't worry. I'll do my best as his older sister and take good care of Ah Xun."

Ji Xun glanced sideways at her, his heart softening for once. He decided that in this life, he would treat that pitiful, foolish woman a little better.

Later, a matchmaker arranged a marriage for Jiang Yunwei.

She stood beneath the lamplight, her cheeks flushed. "Ah Xun, Big Sister is getting married. I won't be able to take care of you anymore."

But on the wedding day, the bride mysteriously disappeared.

In a secret chamber, Ji Xun held the trembling woman captive in his arms and gripped her chin. "Didn't Big Sister say you'd take care of me for the rest of my life? Are you planning to break your promise?"

A gentle, kind older sister x a refined scoundrel with a black heart

Theme: Love can overcome every obstacle.