The Little Violet Lotus Groom's Escape Plan

. My name is Chu Rong. The steward's older brother gave me the stage name Zitang. He said it was auspicious and would surely bring in a lot of money.

I believed him and worked hard, hoping to earn enough to buy back my freedom.

As you can see, I'm a male dancer at the Mianhua Pavilion, a singing house in the capital, where I'm paid to dance for the noblewomen of the city. People know only that Mianhua Pavilion is filled with music and dancing every day, a place of refined elegance. They don't know that behind the scenes, it's as sordid as any brothel.

I have to save enough money before I turn eighteen, the deadline for selling myself.

I turned eighteen.

The bad news was, I hadn't saved enough money.

The good news was, officials from the capital had come to inspect the place, so I wouldn't have to sell myself.

But the even worse news was that one of those officials was, in a manner of speaking, my sister, though we share neither father nor mother.

You ask how she can be my sister if we share neither parent? Because she said so herself.

When I was still a child, I chased after my father for four villages, trying to find him after he remarried. But when I got there, I saw him living happily with his new family, smiling in a way I had never seen back when we were poor.

I was crying as I prepared to leave when she came out the door. After asking who I was and where I came from, she declared herself my sister and said she'd take me home with her. How could I possibly agree? So I ran without looking back.

Ten years later, when she saw me being shoved against a wall by the constables, she told me again that she was my sister and wanted to take me home.

Who knows what she was up to, going to all that trouble to claim a male dancer as her little brother? I'm clever, of course I ran.

But all my escape plans failed. And I found out she never considered me her little brother at all.

An excuse! It was all an excuse! That woman was purely lusting after my looks!

Just as I was falling deeper and deeper into her tender advances, unable to break free, ready to give up on all those escape plans and spend the rest of my life with her, I saw a face that looked five parts like mine.

Everyone said my so-called sister had been in love with that man for a long time, but fate had kept them from ending up together.

He was the moon in her sky, the blood in her heart, the man she could never forget.

And me? I was just a substitute she'd found an excuse to keep around.

I should leave. This isn't my home.

The spoiled little pet of the smiling demon of the capital's judicial office had run away.

When they found him, he was on a blind date with a farm girl.

The civil official, who always wore a smile, kicked the door open with a cold laugh.

“When it comes to people who abduct my little husband, I'm pretty handy with my fists. ^-^”

Overbearing, scheming capital official, a big dog × spoiled, bewitching little wildcat of a male dancer

* The main story is told in third person.

* A little story about making a cat puff up in a huff.

* The male lead's father is the female lead's stepfather. The leads are not related by blood, and they aren't even siblings in name.

Cover artist: Shuimo Danqing - Fu Zei

Theme: When retreating, weave a net