After I Treated the Aloof Heir as My Confidant

The advance blurb for *A Second Spring Breeze* is at the very bottom. Please add it to your favorites! Fu Li was at the perfect age for marriage, with bright, lively eyes and delicate features. But after her family fell on hard times, she entered the Duke of Zhenguo’s mansion as a servant girl assigned to menial chores. Whenever she felt frustrated, she wrote her wishes on paper dragonflies and dropped them into a hollow tree. The kitchen was always so crowded she could never get a meal. “Little kitty, share a fish with me when you sneak one.” The steward was always getting handsy with the maids. “I think I put a little too much croton powder in the steward’s food. I’ll add some again next time.” The mistress of Shulan Court beat and scolded people at the drop of a hat. “Sigh, my palm’s swollen like a pig’s trotter.” Who could have guessed that the hundred-year-old tree would be as effective as the Temple of Lord Guan? Fu Li’s wishes came true one by one: delicious pastries, the wicked steward thrown out of the mansion, and a transfer to the Heir’s Quiet Reflection Pavilion, where the food was good and the pay was high. If there was one drawback, Fu Li gazed wistfully at the desk. “I’ve even been called a top beauty, but there isn’t a flower on my face.” The heir was reading case files by lamplight, his posture elegant and his voice even colder than his expression. “You have time to look at me. Why not look at the inkstone that’s been dry for half the day?” The heir, a workaholic who had become the judicial court’s second-in-command before turning twenty-five, was the biggest drawback of all. The work in the study was exhausting, so Fu Li slipped another note into the tree hollow. “Tree hollow, I want an easier job.” Something like tending flowers and plants. That night, Lu Zhifang returned from the government office and coolly ordered, “Starting today, you’ll serve in my bedchamber. First, help me out of my clothes.” Fu Li: ? Is the tree hollow not working anymore? Reading guide: 1. One-on-one sweet romance, cozy and angst-free, with plenty of sweetness. 2. Usually updated at 9:00 p.m. If there’s a delay or no update, I’ll leave a note in the comments. 3. 80% anti-piracy threshold, 72-hour delay. 4. Growth and comeback contest entry, “Everyone Has a Talent”: The heroine puts her artistic skills to use by helping the judicial court draw facial feature charts of infants and children, track down missing people, and fulfill her greater potential. * A Second Spring Breeze *: gentle cook x secretly in love with a general The masked customer always came on rainy days, when the restaurant was nearly empty. He sat down, his figure silent and imposing as a mountain. “A bowl of Golden Crumb Rice.” Yu Yan secretly examined the scars peeking out from the edge of his mask and his strong, muscular shoulders and arms. She added plenty of braised meat to his Golden Crumb Rice. “Could you come tomorrow afternoon? I’ll give you extra meat in your rice, free of charge.” His eyes behind the mask were sharp as a hawk’s, but he didn’t ask why. “What if that scares off your other customers?” “There won’t be any customers tomorrow, just lots of… nasty people demanding protection money.” She had divorced not long ago and ran the restaurant on her own. She kept running into local thugs, and her ex-husband wouldn’t leave her alone. She’d long been thinking of hiring a bodyguard. The customer looked like he could handle himself. After hearing her out, he replied in a low voice that he would. After that, neither the bullies nor her ex-husband dared come around again. Who would have thought that the bodyguard she hired with a single meal was a battle-hardened general who had clawed his way out of a mountain of corpses? * Later, on another day of torrential rain, the general removed his mask. His terrifying scars had vanished without a trace, revealing handsome features, deep-set eyes, and a strikingly martial air that made her heart race. Yu Yan paused. “Another bowl of Golden Crumb Rice?” Xu Xing’s voice was husky. “I’m afraid that won’t be enough.” * When Xu Xing was at his lowest, a girl from next door had sent him a steaming bowl of Golden Crumb Rice through a dog hole. For ten years at the border, with death always at his heels, he thought of that taste countless times. The girl was wonderful, and she already had a promising fiancé. Xu Xing wasn’t good enough for her, so he tucked her away in the cleanest corner of his heart and never let himself hope for more. Later, covered in military honors and scars, he was transferred back to the capital. He happened upon her walking the streets alone in tears. Only then did Xu Xing realize that someone else was the one who didn’t deserve her. Theme: Those who help themselves will always find others willing to help them.