Tempting and Spoiling

Jia Rou has a secret: every so often, she has to taste the Third Prince's blood.

Yan Jia Rou has lived in the palace for years, but she is not a member of the imperial family.

Her father died saving the Noble Consort. In recognition of his sacrifice, the Emperor made Yan Jia Rou a princess and brought her into the palace to be raised.

She grew up alongside several princes, and they were childhood friends.

Though she lived under someone else's roof, the Emperor treated her exceptionally well, and most of the princes doted on her. As a result, she grew spoiled and willful. Everyone in the palace indulged her, except for one person.

The Third Prince, Xiao Che, was strikingly handsome, far more so than the other princes. Yet he was unruly and carefree, and always went out of his way to antagonize her, delighting in teasing and bullying her.

Jia Rou hated the Third Prince most of all. Naturally, the one she liked was her eldest brother, the Crown Prince: a man as radiant as the moon, gentle and courteous.

But during a hunting trip, a wild fox bit her. Ever since, she has suffered from a strange illness. An inexplicable restlessness wells up from deep within her, leaving her uneasy all over. Only a certain medicine can calm it, and one ingredient is essential: blood.

Yet only Xiao Che's blood can make her crave it to the point of madness.

Recently, Crown Prince Xiao Jue has noticed that the younger sister who used to follow him around, sweetly calling him "Crown Prince Brother," no longer seems as close to him. Instead, she has been growing closer to Xiao Che, the person she used to hate most.

Uneasy, he follows them one day to a rockery in the imperial garden.

There, he sees his beautiful, delicate younger sister pressing Xiao Che against the rockery. She rises onto her toes and bends over the side of his neck. The vivid red at the corner of her lips stands out sharply against her porcelain-white face. It is blood!

And his Third Imperial Brother, who is usually at odds with her, has one hand on her waist as he gently bites her earlobe. His voice is magnetic as he drawls, "Yan Yan, take it slow."

"Don't forget what you promised me: after drinking my blood, you'll stay away from the Crown Prince, hmm?"

The Crown Prince, witnessing it all from behind the rockery, is so furious his eyes nearly burst.

Yan Jia Rou is troubled by her strange illness, but even more troubling is that it keeps getting worse. At first, it only required blood. Later, it began to require...

Blurb screenshotted and posted to Weibo on April 10, 2023

[Next novel: Scarlet Forbidden Zone]

Ming Fei first met Yan Xixu on the third day after her parents' funeral.

She was brought to the Yan family's old mansion, where a fourteen-year-old boy in a black turtleneck sweater slowly descended the stairs.

Sunlight filtered through the stained glass, casting dappled shadows over him. He looked like a beautiful young man stepping out of an oil painting: noble, languid, and naturally aloof.

The boy stopped in front of her. "Ming Fei?"

"By our family relationship..."

"You should call me Uncle."

Ming Fei's father had deep ties to the Yan family. After his death, Ming Fei went to live with them.

With the elderly Master Yan growing frail, Yan Xixu was practically the one who raised Ming Fei.

Yan Xixu was famous in their social circle for doting on Ming Fei.

She liked cherry blossoms, so he had a grove planted in the courtyard of the Yan residence. When she was sixteen, she needed a pink brooch for a dance, so he paid a fortune at auction for the "Heart of the Rose": a sixteen-carat pink diamond brooch he gave her.

Ming Fei had a habit of keeping a diary. Every thought in a young girl's heart was poured onto its pages, over and over again, nothing but three words: Yan Xixu.

It was easy to fall in love with Yan Xixu. She knew that what they had in that moment was like a dazzling soap bubble, destined to vanish the instant it burst. Yet when the day finally came, she felt a twisted kind of satisfaction.

Yan Xixu reacted just as she expected, with disbelief. Perhaps she acted so rebelliously and outrageously afterward that he eventually gave in.

That day, she thought she was the happiest person in the world.

At last, the day of her first date with Yan Xixu arrived. She left her phone on the hotel's observation deck and went back to get it. When she returned, Yan Xixu was leaning against the glass corridor, his hands casually tucked into his suit pockets, while the woman in front of him rose onto her toes to kiss him. When his gaze met Ming Fei's, he raised an eyebrow nonchalantly, his peach-blossom eyes charming and heartless.

As he wished, she asked to break up. He remained nonchalant. "It should have ended this way from the start. I could never be with you. Anyone but you."

"Listen, Fei Fei. I can only ever be your uncle. That can never change."

After that, everything went just as he hoped. Ming Fei stopped entertaining fantasies about him, devoted herself to her studies and dreams, and even began accepting other people's advances.

One day, she left the Yan residence with her boyfriend's arm around hers. As she passed Yan Xixu, she greeted him politely and distantly: "Uncle."

It was from that day onward that Yan Xixu changed completely.

Next novel: Tangled Hairpins

As the daughter of the Grand Preceptor, Xie Wan Ning has no choice but to disguise herself as a man and take her missing twin brother's place as the Crown Prince's study companion. Her brother vanished mysteriously on the eve of his summons to the palace, and she must do this to keep disaster from befalling her family.

Crown Prince Helan Heng is unruly and carefree, and refuses to be taught or controlled. They say he once drove a renowned scholar away in anger.

The Emperor and Empress are deeply concerned. Knowing that the Grand Preceptor's son, Xie Wan Xing, is upright and proper, they specifically order him to enter the palace as the Crown Prince's study companion and guide him.

Unable to disobey the imperial decree, Xie Wan Ning has no choice but to grit her teeth and keep the Crown Prince in line.

Lately, Helan Heng has found the new study companion extremely annoying.

A girly, neither-man-nor-woman sissy, yet she's got a lot of nerve. She keeps trying to control him, and no matter how much he tries to scare her off, she clings to him.

So he finds all sorts of ways to tease and bully her.

Until, by chance, he discovers her secret.

Then he finds a new way to keep "bullying" her.

After an accident, Xie Wan Ning is framed and has no choice but to use the Crown Prince as the antidote. They become physically intimate, and after he discovers her identity, she has to play along with him. But the way the Crown Prince looks at her seems more and more peculiar...

When Xie Wan Xing returns home, their identities are restored. Xie Wan Ning can finally put down her burden. To keep the Crown Prince from pursuing her, she fakes her death and flees in the dead of night.

She changes her name and lives in seclusion in a remote place for three years.

Three years later, she hears that the Crown Prince has ascended the throne. The new Emperor rules with an iron hand, and is no longer the carefree young man he once was.

At last, she lets herself relax and accepts a marriage proposal. Three years have passed, everything has changed, and he is a different person now. Perhaps he has long since forgotten her.

But on her wedding day, the Imperial Guards surround the wedding hall.

The guards stand in ranks on either side as a man walks toward her from the night, dressed in brocade and a jade belt, handsome and imperious.

He draws his sword and holds it to the groom's neck, then turns to her with a faintly mocking smile. "How could I miss Lord Xie's wedding? After all, you told me yourself that when the red candles burned bright, you would marry me."

Xie Wan Ning turns deathly pale as he walks toward her step by step and whispers her name at her ear: "Ning Ning." His voice is tender and lingering, as warm as it used to be, yet a searing hatred is unmistakable beneath it. He enunciates each word: "Little. Liar."

Completed historical novels in the author's collection: After the Concubine Ran Away, A Forced-Love Crematorium

Completed contemporary novels: Heartbeat Trap, a novel where the man suffers after seducing and abandoning an aloof beauty. Three years later, he is still utterly defeated.

Trapped in a Web: A crematorium story. The web of love he had carefully spun for Yan Qiao ultimately became a cocoon that trapped him.

Theme: Try to keep an open mind about everything