After Being Reborn, the Obsessed Female Lead Has Let Go

Xiao Zhixue, the youngest daughter of the Xiao clan of Lanling, had skin like jade and an icy grace, and was renowned as the most beautiful woman in the capital. Spoiled since childhood, she had grown up bold and spirited.

She loved wearing red, riding at full gallop, climbing trees to steal birds, fishing in rivers, and rushing around with a crossbow in hand. The Xiao clan cherished her as the apple of their eye.

Xiao Zhixue had a secret everyone knew: she loved the Crown Prince, Duan Zhiheng. She had fallen for him at a palace banquet when she was twelve, when she first saw Brother Zhiheng seated at the head of the hall, as distant and untouchable as the moon in a lonely sky.

Duan Zhiheng was a man of noble thoughts, gentle as jade. When he was seventeen, a little shadow began following him everywhere. She would trot along behind him, lifting her skirts, her smiling face appearing from time to time, along with jade carvings she made by hand and her endless chatter. She was passionate and sincere, innocent and direct.

But Duan Zhiheng never spared her a second glance. His heart remained like a stone that could never be warmed.

Zhu Qinrao laughed at Xiao Zhixue for pursuing an impossible dream.

Xiao Zhixue didn't care. After three years of dogged pursuit, she finally became mistress of the Eastern Palace. Though Duan Zhiheng was always cool toward her after their wedding, he treated her with courtesy and respect, and never refused her anything she wanted.

She thought he loved her, that he truly saw her as his wife.

Her father and brothers were willing to let the Crown Prince use them for her sake, yet she devoted herself entirely to the Crown Prince, oblivious to everything. Her face full of love, she exhausted herself trying to make Duan Zhiheng happy, only to see one side consort and favored concubine after another brought into the Eastern Palace.

Her mother-in-law's disdain and the side consorts' and concubines' contempt slowly made her once-bold smile falter. She hesitated before speaking, and no longer treated Duan Zhiheng with the same passionate frankness as before. After three years of marriage, she had become proper, restrained, and unfailingly obedient.

Duan Zhiheng simply assumed she had grown older and more mature.

Only after the Crown Prince ascended the throne, when the former Crown Princess became one of the imperial concubines, did she understand. The new emperor was consolidating his power and suppressing the Xiao clan. Her elder brother had been framed, and her father's hair was gradually turning white. She finally realized that an emperor had no heart. She had been the one in the wrong.

Her father still stroked her head as he had when she was little. "Rongrong, don't worry." Then news arrived that her elder brother had been beheaded.

Xiao Zhixue fell gravely ill. She thanked the emperor with cold formality and kept her distance. Duan Zhiheng watched her and looked as though he wanted to say something, but in the end he said nothing.

Red plum blossoms were buried beneath the snow, and the sky hid the moon. Dressed in white, barefoot, her black hair loose, she took her own life beneath the Snow Moon Tower. Her blood stained the earth red.

The emperor went mad. His hair turned white overnight.

[Short scene:]

Xiao Zhixue dreamed a long dream and, dazed, was reborn on the day of Duan Zhiheng's coming-of-age ceremony. She opened her eyes, still confused, as the slightly boyish Duan Zhiheng angrily shoved her with more force than he intended.

She was so weak that she fell into the snow. Duan Zhiheng and Zhou Yunxi, standing nearby, both froze.

Duan Zhiheng frowned and was about to scold her, but the girl who seemed to have lost her soul suddenly flinched, then calmed down. She knelt and kowtowed, turned without sparing him a glance, and walked away briskly. If one looked closely, one could see that her steps were a little unsteady.

Duan Zhiheng stared at her back, stunned. For a moment, it seemed to overlap with something he had seen before. A sudden wave of heartache hit him. His chest felt as though an invisible hand had clenched around it, leaving him so heartbroken he could hardly breathe. The next instant, he spat out a mouthful of blood.

The red blood splashed across the snow like ink.

As Xiao Zhixue walked on, her dazed face suddenly broke into a smile. She began with a quiet laugh, then laughed louder and louder, tears rolling down her cheeks. Her voice was full of grief, with the clarity and relief of someone awakened from a long dream.

Heaven and earth may end, but this sorrow will endure forever.

Reading guide and warnings:

1. A major groveling-after-the-breakup story. Both leads are reborn, and there are misunderstandings between them. Both leads are each other's first and only. The male lead did not destroy the heroine's entire family.

2. The heroine's childhood is covered in only one or two chapters. She's a lovesick fool, a silly, beautiful, spoiled darling, and she's still like that after being reborn. (Warning.)

3. No need to tell me if you drop the book. (P.S. The male lead really isn't perfect. He's not the all-powerful, traditional hero of historical romance. The author would like to point out that not every novel's male lead has to be an overconfident, impossibly cool, all-capable, perfect man. If he were, why would there be a groveling arc? Smile.)

4. Additional reading notes are in the author's note after Chapter Two.

Upcoming book: "Her Late Husband's Brother Was Once Her First Love," a forced-marriage romance

A two-brothers-one-wife setup, married first, love later

Meng Yuning loved one man, as untouchable as the moon in the heavens. She would marry no one but him.

But on the day she came of age, he threw the token that revealed her feelings into the water, humiliating her in front of everyone at the banquet.

By a twist of fate, a young gentleman came to her rescue. The two married and became husband and wife.

After marriage, they treated each other with respect and lived in harmony, while her first love went off to the frontier and did not return for years because of the war.

Little by little, happiness and affection went to her head, and she forgot about that long-ago humiliation.

In the third year of their marriage, her husband was discovered to be the missing younger son of the Duke of Ningguo. Their good fortune did not last long. She had barely been the second young mistress for any time at all when her husband died of illness.

She had no children and was still young, yet became a widow. Just then, her late husband's elder brother returned, and her mother-in-law proposed that he take on the responsibilities of both branches of the family.

Yuning stared at the tall, aloof figure before her in shock, feeling as if she had been plunged into an icy cellar.

Memories of the rejection she had suffered years ago came rushing back, filling her with shame and humiliation.

Yuning met his cold, indifferent gaze and was certain he would refuse. After all, he hated her, and she herself did not want to betray her late husband. She had held on to the small hope that she could spend the rest of her life in a convent, praying before the Buddha.

Unexpectedly, her brother-in-law gave a faint nod and agreed.

Yuning stared at him in disbelief, but this time, she was determined not to become entangled with him again.

Reading guide:

The heroine is not the hero's first and only, but the hero is hers. Aloof beauty gets humbled and falls hard. Includes a forced-marriage plot!!!

Theme: Loving yourself is the beginning of a lifelong romance