Recklessly Plucking a Tender Branch

[My new novel, Locking Spring's Colors, is now underway! Abduction and possessive love, followed by a wife-chasing crematorium. If you like the sound of it, please add it to your favorites and take a look!]

A hothouse flower x a rough, burly man

Height difference / size difference / possessive love

Jiang Wanshu is the most beautiful woman in the capital. Though she lives within the palace walls, she knows no peace. When the Central Plains arrange a marriage alliance with Xirong, she becomes a commodity to be bargained over.

Bandits attack on the way to the marriage alliance. The large force of frail soldiers is no match for a hundred bandits, and they die along the road. The bandits have never seen anyone as beautiful as Jiang Wanshu and want to take her then and there, but a returning throwing knife kills them instead.

##

In September, amid heavy frost and dew, Jiang Wanshu wakes after three days unconscious in a thatched hut.

She never expects to see a tall, big-eared man with striking features and an almost unnaturally handsome face.

As a princess of the noble court, she has a basic sense of propriety. Panicking, she pulls the quilt up to cover her chest, only for the man to yank it away the next second.

"What are you blushing for?"

"If it weren't for me, you'd have ended up the wife of those bandits."

Zhou Yan flexes his powerful muscles. Seeing Jiang Wanshu's fear, she timidly says,

"Let me go, and I'll give you wealth and honors beyond your wildest dreams."

But Zhou Yan is unimpressed. He gives a scornful laugh.

"I saved you because I intend to marry you. There's no way I'm letting you go back!"

He finally has an interesting woman. How could he let her go?

-#- -#- -#-

When Jiang Wanshu, forcibly kept at Zhou Yan's side, hears that trouble is about to break out in the Central Plains, she wants to use Zhou Yan's status to stop the war.

To win Zhou Yan's favor, she loops her slender arms around his neck in the dim candlelight.

"Zhou Yan, are you really willing to help me put an end to this coming war?"

Beneath a sky sparkling with stars, the man's face is strikingly handsome. He pulls her into his arms and presses his cool lips hard against her delicate cheek. Gently squeezing her graceful neck, he murmurs a few words:

"If Wanshu wants it, I'll not only end this war. Even if you want the life of the Xirong khan, I'll bring it to you."

[Reader's Guide]

1. The male lead is mixed-race, with a powerful build inherited from his foreign ancestors and features that are half from each side. He's definitely handsome!

2. The male lead grew up among wolves. Since a wolf chooses only one mate for life, he is especially devoted to the female lead.

3. The male lead is gentle only with the female lead.

4. The setting is entirely fictional, very fictional!

P.S. If you like this story, little angels, please add it to your favorites!

The next book, please add it to your favorites: Locking Spring's Colors

Si Luyao is the legitimate daughter of the Marquis of Yuanning's household. Her family is framed in a single night, her father dies horribly, and her older brother goes missing.

To learn her brother's whereabouts, Si Luyao leaves the protection of the man who has sheltered her for years and resolutely throws herself into the arms of the crown prince, the current ruler.

But when the man sees through her scheme, Li Yancheng imprisons her in a magnificent palace.

*

As the rebel army enters the city, Si Luyao remembers all the schemes she once plotted against the new emperor and shudders. She is about to pack her things and flee the palace, hoping to save her own life.

But corpses cover the ground before the palace gates, and a river of blood flows through the streets.

In her frantic escape, she trips over a dead body and falls.

She scrambles to her feet, never expecting that

in an instant, the palace gates will swing wide and the sound of hooves will thunder through them.

Li Yancheng rides in, clad in shining silver armor. With sharp brows, bright eyes, and a deep, handsome face, he cuts a dashing figure on horseback.

When he reaches her, the man dismounts and strides toward her. His bloodstained sword presses against her slender chin, forcing her to look up.

Li Yancheng watches her with a cruel smile. Like a vicious wolf that has found its favorite prey, his gaze makes no secret of its hunger and possessiveness.

"I told you then: if you ever betrayed me, the day I succeeded would be the day you were left to keep the hounds company."

Li Yancheng has clawed his way out of a sea of corpses to become the new emperor of the Central Plains.

The first thing he does after taking control of the Central Plains is search for the woman who set his heart ablaze, then betrayed him to become his brother's strategist.

In the once-glorious palace, blood runs like a river.

As he wished, he watches Si Luyao, once known as "the most beautiful woman in the Central Plains," fall in disgrace before him.

Thousands of soldiers await his order to slaughter the entire palace. She will be the first spoils of Li Yancheng's rise to power.

Looking at the former beauty who betrayed her lord, Li Yancheng sneers.

"The faithless deserve to fall into a boundless hell and never rise again!"

[Reader's Guide]

1. Both leads' first time, one-on-one romance.

2. The setting is entirely fictional.

Upcoming: Spring Boudoir Affairs

Shen Jiaojiao has skin as fair as ice and bones as delicate as jade, and is peerlessly beautiful. Yet she is a country girl who has never been loved by her birth parents.

She believes that one day she will have no choice but to pick a man from the countryside and spend her life with him. Then scandal breaks out about the bride-to-be of the Hedong Pei family, and an imperial edict summons Shen Jiaojiao back to the capital.

As the future head of the Hedong Pei clan, Pei Ju has been raised to rule the family. He was born with an air of refined elegance and handsome features, and cultivated a temperament free of worldly desire, devoted only to the family's prosperity.

He should have married a virtuous young woman renowned outside the home and capable of managing a household within. But just as he is about to marry, scandal about his bride-to-be comes to light, and a single letter makes it clear that the two are no longer a match.

At this time, the realm has only just fallen into chaos, and imperial power has slipped from the royal family's hands.

Eager to secure his position, Emperor Mingyang immediately sends people to Hedong. In secret, they reach an agreement with the current head of the Pei family and bring to Pei Ju the young woman who was raised in the countryside, far from home.

The wedding is grand and lavish, but rumors swirl beneath the celebration. Pei Ju is naturally deeply displeased with his new bride.

Night after night, she presses close to him, hoping to share his bed, but he always turns her away.

Until one day, the young man who has been close to her for so long, her elder brother from the countryside, comes to visit. Pei Ju sees his wife greet him just as she greets Pei Ju, then happily run past him to another man and pour out how much she has missed him in the man's arms. He goes completely mad.

Under the dark night, with the moon hidden behind clouds, Pei Ju holds her helpless in his grasp. Eyes red, he stares at her and forces out words that make her burn with shame:

"Shen Jiaojiao, you are my wife, and the person who will share my grave a hundred years from now. Now that you're so intimate with another man, tell me, how should I punish you?"

Reader's Guide: 1. The imperial family has lost its power, and the great clans rule. 2. An entirely fictional setting.

Theme: Only sincerity can call forth sincerity.