A Midwinter Heartbeat

■ Next up: "Hubby, Don't Eat People!" A cold, nonhuman male lead x a sweet, shy, socially anxious female lead. See my profile for details!

■ Completed bittersweet romance novels: "Birds Flying Toward the Mountain" and "Intertwined Body Heat"

Female-first pregnancy | She runs away while pregnant | Winning her back | Sweet romance

[Overworked office drone x fake gentleman, genuine refined scoundrel of a boss]

1.

In Zhu Yiyi's mother's eyes, her daughter has made three major mistakes in life.

First, she failed to get into a top university.

Second, she dated a terrible man, then broke up with him herself.

Third, at a matchmaking dinner she'd spent ages arranging, she received a pregnancy test report from her ex-boyfriend.

Her mother gritted her teeth. "What on earth is going on?!"

Zhu Yiyi looked helpless and terrified. "Beats me..."

2.

He Shen lives up to his name: tall, long-legged, from a wealthy family, and a graduate of a top university. He's been the "other people's kid" in parents' eyes since childhood, and the perfect gentleman in girls' eyes.

His life has always gone smoothly, and he's only ever looked back three times.

The first time, he looked back and agreed to date Zhu Yiyi, an ordinary junior employee at his corporate group.

The second time, he looked back and let Zhu Yiyi's angry breakup stand.

The third time, he looked back and sent his ex-girlfriend, who was on a matchmaking date, her pregnancy test report.

3.

One is the heir to the group's headquarters, and the other is an utterly unremarkable junior employee. No one in the company thinks He Shen and Zhu Yiyi have anything to do with each other.

Until that day.

The company elevator is packed with employees in the morning. Zhu Yiyi protects her slightly rounded belly and edges into a corner, but her foot slips and she nearly falls...

A pair of hands firmly catches her around the waist.

Everyone sucks in a breath. They've run into the big boss at the worst time of the workday, when everyone's most fed up. The office falls silent.

Zhu Yiyi looks embarrassed too and tries to step away.

The man is impeccably dressed, his brows cool and refined. He reaches out and pulls Zhu Yiyi back into his arms with practiced ease. His usually indifferent voice now carries a hint of tenderness. "Sorry, my wife isn't feeling well. I'll take her in the executive elevator."

Everyone: "?"

He Shen adjusts the gold-rimmed glasses on his high nose. "You can thank me by bringing wedding candy for Yiyi and me another day."

Everyone: "!"

Zhu Yiyi's heart pounds like a drum.

Wait, weren't we supposed to break up amicably and go our separate ways?

Hey, the father of my child, calm down...

[The gentleman takes off his glasses, tears away his carefully crafted disguise, and reveals the obsessive desire beneath.]

[Yiyi, who told you I was a good person?]

Reader's guide:

1. One-on-one romance, single-couple, happy ending. The writing is a little bittersweet, very sweet, and extremely steamy (beep, ).

2. The male lead seems like a gentleman in glasses, impeccably dressed, but is actually a refined scoundrel, domineering and possessive. He's not a jerk, though. He's devoted to her in body and heart, and spoils her.

3. The female lead's personality is imperfect at first because of her family background.

4. The female lead is pregnant, and the pregnancy test report belongs to her.

5. No plagiarism-hunting, baseless accusations of copying, writing advice, or malicious attempts to start a fight. Comments like that will be deleted. Everything in the story is fictional, so please don't apply it to real life.

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Coming soon: the super-sweet romance "Hubby, Don't Eat People!" Here's the blurb:

#The story of how I picked up a powerful husband from an extinct species

#Cold, nonhuman snake male lead & naturally sweet, socially anxious female lead

There's been a burglar breaking into homes all over the neighborhood lately, and he hasn't been caught.

His next target is Apartment 602. He's been watching it for ages. Only one young woman lives there, and she's thin, timid, and rich.

The burglar always breaks in while she's out. As soon as he steps inside, a chilling draft sweeps through the apartment, as if he's fallen into an ice cellar. A faint animal stench hangs in the air. He shivers, grits his teeth, and searches everywhere for valuables, but finds nothing.

Then the burglar spots a locked, sealed room.

He picks the lock and gently pushes the door open. In the dim, eerie room, two crimson vertical pupils light up. A scarlet forked tongue hisses, and a massive, heavy body crawls slowly across the floor. Hard scales scrape against it with a grating sound as the creature slithers from the shadows to the doorway.

Sunlight falls on a giant snake, black from head to tail. It rears up and opens its cavernous jaws. Its sharp fangs reek of blood. The presence of this ancient beast is enough to make a tiny human collapse in fear.

The burglar hears the giant snake's cool, ethereal voice: "Are you the new food she found for me?"

Suddenly, hurried footsteps approach. A timid, gentle girl's voice says, "We had a deal. You're not allowed to eat people..."

The snake freezes.

-

Lin Jianlu rents a three-wheeled cart to go to the market. Under the owner's horrified gaze, she buys two hundred pounds of beef in one go.

The owner asks, "Do you run a livestock farm?"

Lin Jianlu is silent for a moment, then says, "No. I just have a pet with a big appetite."

That so-called pet is an ancient divine beast, long thought extinct: the last Jiuyin Teng Snake in the world.

Core theme: Life is a mix of sweet, sour, bitter, spicy, and salty.