The Third Year of Being Fostered

In the third year of being raised by Lu Zhu, Qiaorong realizes she has developed feelings for him. At the same time, Lu Zhu realizes it too. After a sleepless night, he decides to marry her off. "Do you really have to abandon me?" Lu Zhu's expression stays calm, but when he looks at her, a crack appears in his eyes. He remembers the nightshirt she hid in her room and shamelessly toyed with, and presses his lips together. He forces all his feelings down and, to extinguish her hopes for good, announces that he will take her as his adopted daughter and have her formally entered into the Lu family genealogy. Qiaorong has no choice. On the eve of the ceremony, she takes out the pill she has kept hidden for so long. Afterward, she sees the bloody lash marks gouged deep into his back. At last, her heart turns to ash. But when she says she loves her fiance, she suddenly senses something different in Lu Zhu's gaze. It must be her imagination. Why would he care whom she loves? He only wants her to stop bothering him. She finally stops making trouble and settles down to marry. * Years later, Qiaorong returns to the Lu family to visit with her husband. Seeing Lu Zhu again and remembering the foolish things she did in her youth, she feels as if a lifetime has passed. She has built the ordinary, happy life he wanted for her and let go of her feelings for him. At the banquet, as the wine goes to her head, she raises her cup to him from afar. "Thank you, Third Uncle, for raising me all these years. I have no way to repay you." Third Uncle? Lu Zhu looks up. Once, no matter how hard he pushed, she refused to call him that. Now she says it so easily. Lu Zhu says nothing and accepts her toast. Seeing that, Qiaorong relaxes, thinking the past is finally behind them. But before long, she sees Lu Zhu again aboard a boat where only her husband should be. He sits quietly and fastens around her ankle the chains he had made for her long ago. "You grew up by my side, and you did that sort of thing with me. So what am I to you now? Your uncle, your brother, or your lover?" Qiaorong is unmoved. "You were the one who didn't want me." "I regret it. So I'm taking back my decision to marry you off." The flower he raised can only grow in his home for the rest of her life. 1. Fifteen-year age gap. The male lead is pure in both body and heart. A man who has always been restrained finally gives in. 2. The heroine is already of age when she comes to live with the male lead. They have no legal or blood relationship. 2024/12/8 Coming soon: My Late Father's Wife, please add it to your library: [Honest, Delicate Young Widow X Rough, Scheming Stepson] Wanxiang's husband dies. Her relatives say she brought about his death and accuse her of having a lover. They threaten to report her to the authorities and have her thrown in prison. With nowhere left to turn, Wanxiang tries to hang herself. As she hangs her sash from the rafters, a tall, handsome man suddenly appears in the mourning hall and saves her. His face is full of murderous intent as he coldly sweeps his gaze over the relatives who bullied her. He smoothly returns the knife he used to cut her sash to its sheath, then respectfully calls her, "Mother." Only then does Wanxiang learn that he is the stepson her husband had told her about, Cui Fengcheng, who has spent years stationed at the border and whom she has never met. * Cui Fengcheng has never forgotten what his father once told him: "Your mother is young and has no one to rely on. If anything happens to me, she may not survive. For my sake, at least look after her a little. Consider it a way to honor the father-son bond we shared in this life." So he travels thousands of miles home, rescues her from the relatives who would devour her, and brings her to live under his care. At the time, he doesn't know that her body is unusual and that every night someone has to massage her calves, or else the pain makes her unable to walk. For a man who has never been with a woman, this is no easy task. The faint fragrance drifting from her when he draws near, and the muffled sounds she accidentally makes while he massages her, leave his back tense. By day, she is his elder, and he treats her with respect. At night, she is just a woman, and he quietly begins to want her for himself. Whenever he comes back from outside and sees their undergarments hanging beside each other in the courtyard, his lower abdomen tightens. But she is his stepmother. Though his father is dead and she no longer has any real connection to their family, he still keeps to his limits. Apart from letting himself have indescribable erotic dreams at night, he never crosses the line. He thinks they will go on living like this forever, until his father returns from the dead and appears before them. * Cui Xian never imagined he would make it home alive. The day he reunites with Wanxiang, he holds her and cries with joy. "Erlang." He thanks his son. "You've worked hard." His son replies with impeccable manners, "Looking after Mother is my duty as her son." But that very night, his wife disappears. He finds her two months later. He reaches the door and hears suggestive sounds from inside. His eyes turn bloodshot with rage. He is about to kick in the door and kill the beast abusing his wife, when a strikingly familiar voice comes from within: "Good Wanxiang, listen to me. Lift your hips a little higher." "Has Father ever come here?" #The heroine divorces the male lead's father at the beginning and was never entered into the Cui family genealogy. She has no legal or blood relationship to the male lead. 2026/4/1 Theme: Live well and be happy every day