Second-Rate Substitute

The main story is complete, but I'm still slowly writing the extras... [Cross-dressing at the start, danmei] Upcoming: The Fake and Real Young Masters' Scorched-Earth Romance II and They Regretted It After I Died to Sacrifice My Sword. Please add them to your library! Story blurb below.

1.

Tan Chen, S City's poster boy for spoiled rich playboys, has finally settled down. The woman he's fallen for has a face and figure anyone would call stunning. Too bad she's a nightclub singer.

How many people who come out of a cesspit like that are really clean?

Tan Chen doesn't seem to mind at all. He treats her like a treasure, pays off her crushing debts, and even helps her go back to school. Rumor has it his next step is taking her home to meet his parents.

But before this woman, wasn't Tan Chen madly in love with someone else, his one and only?

2.

Tan Chen first met Shen Diexin at a nightclub full of indulgence and debauchery. In the noisy room, a faint yet striking figure appeared on the tiny stage. Among all the heavily made-up performers, she wore a white dress, like a pure white butterfly that had wandered onto the wrong path.

Tan Chen heard people around him gossiping that she was the hardest girl to win over. She was practically dying for money, yet still pretended to be above it all.

How hard could she be to get? Tan Chen was determined to find out.

Under the cover of night, Shen Diexin stumbled out through the back door.

He braced himself against the wall and retched, then yanked the necklace off his neck...

Tan Chen, who had been watching coldly from the sidelines, narrowed his eyes.

-

The first time Tan Chen appeared before Shen Diexin was when Shen Diexin was at his most wretched.

He had no choice but to force himself to drink all the liquor those people brought over, then flee out the back door, dizzy and disoriented.

He needed money, but not this kind of money.

Shen Diexin pulled off the necklace hiding his Adam's apple and heard a voice come from the corner:

"You're a man?"

3.

Shen Diexin never thought anyone would take him seriously. So when a rich young master like Tan Chen pursued him, he took it as nothing more than a transaction.

Tan Chen used him for fun, and he accepted Tan Chen's contract.

But Tan Chen put in far more effort than Shen Diexin had ever imagined.

If this was just a transaction, why go to all that trouble for him?

Paying off his debts, handling the process of returning to school, taking a knife for him and ending up in the hospital when his enemies came after him, defying his parents and their objections to give him a place in the family...

Then the person Tan Chen's friends kept bringing up finally appeared.

He was just as kind and perfect as everyone said. Unable to bear seeing Shen Diexin continue to be deceived, he told him the truth.

He said he had left because he didn't want Tan Chen to fall out with his conservative family, but Tan Chen still hadn't given up. He had brought home someone neither male nor female, someone completely unsuitable, to meet his parents.

The day Tan Chen's parents finally gave in would be the day Shen Diexin was thrown out.

After learning the truth, Shen Diexin calmly accepted it all. When Tan Chen's family finally bowed their heads and compromised, he slipped away without a word.

Tan Chen got everything he wanted, yet he kept dreaming of Shen Diexin.

By the time Tan Chen realized that Shen Diexin was the only one he wanted, Shen Diexin had already vanished from S City...

[Please read before starting]

1. A legitimate nightclub: performing for money, not selling sex.

2. Originally titled A Servant Beneath His Skirts. A groveling romance. Tan Chen, go die.

3. As the saying goes, you can hit someone, but not in the face-slapping; flip the table, but don't curse the chef.

4. Updates of 3,000 to 6,000 words daily at midnight. If I miss an update, I'll post a leave notice or say so in the comments. Chapters are locked for 72 hours, with all chapters requiring a subscription.

5. The cover uses a template, and the character designs are not exclusive.

[Upcoming 1: The Fake and Real Young Masters' Scorched-Earth Romance II]

1.

Ye Zhou thought his life would rot away to the very end.

A nobody at the bottom of society, a useless scumbag, a bastard, a loathsome bug.

Then one day, while he was squatting on the street smoking, a group of people came up to him and said he was a child of the Gu family of S City.

The wound on Ye Zhou's face was dark with dried blood. He bared his teeth and told them to get lost.

The Gu family, one of S City's most prominent families, was so far above him he couldn't reach them even with a pole ten feet long.

If they wanted to scam someone, they should go after the rich. He was a worthless nobody. What could they possibly get from him?

But when Gu Shuhe appeared, he suddenly behaved himself.

2.

What did Gu Shuhe represent to Ye Zhou?

Perfection, excellence, omnipotence, and the unreachable. Talking to him might get Ye Zhou beaten up again.

But it didn't matter. Ye Zhou liked seeing Gu Shuhe angry, and the way he looked at him as if he were trash.

Whenever Ye Zhou saw the refined Gu Shuhe show his hypocritical true colors in private, it gave him a strange sense of satisfaction.

The Gu family's precious young master, held up high by everyone, wasn't even legitimate, and deep down he was just like me: rotten to the core.

Dragging Gu Shuhe down with him was one of the few pleasures in Ye Zhou's garbage life.

But when Gu Shuhe began to soften toward him, Ye Zhou didn't know what to do.

What was this? Did hearing about his past make Gu Shuhe pity him?

Ye Zhou didn't need sympathy.

If sympathy were any use, he'd have been rich as hell by now.

But this was Gu Shuhe.

Like a hedgehog, Ye Zhou exposed his soft belly, betting on whether Gu Shuhe would stroke him or stab him.

Unfortunately, he lost completely, left with his belly slit open.

3.

The Gu family had three children:

Gu Shuhe, handsome and accomplished, later discovered not to be their biological child, but still raised as the heir;

Ye Zhou, brought home later, ill-mannered and incorrigible, despised by everyone;

And Gu Tianci, sickly from childhood, kept hidden away at home but adored by the entire family. He had fallen gravely ill and urgently needed a blood transfusion.

Ye Zhou was a ready-made blood bag. Apart from his unruly nature, he had no flaws.

And Gu Shuhe took care of that one flaw.

Later, Gu Tianci would need a new heart...

-

Ye Zhou: A true young master who falls into depravity yet stubbornly grows, a prickly hedgehog on the outside but soft and naive underneath.

Gu Shuhe: A false young master, heaven's favored son, aloof and arrogant, seemingly a gentleman but secretly twisted and volatile.

[Reading Guide]

1. A full-on melodramatic groveling romance.

2. My own take on medicine, in service of the plot. Don't take it too seriously.

3. This is an early draft of the blurb and may change.

4. Not directly connected to The Fake and Real Young Masters' Scorched-Earth Romance. Different protagonists and a different story, but it carries on the core trope. The author is terrible at titles, so the name continues.

5. To be added.

[Upcoming 2: They Regretted It After I Died to Sacrifice My Sword]

As Min Yi dug the spiritual root out of his own chest, he thought: So all these six years, when I believed I was being saved, were a debt I had to repay.

*

Min Yi was born in a pool of blood. Perhaps Heaven was punishing him for causing his birth mother's death: a red birthmark covered half his face, and his sickly body left him panting after every few steps.

His father hated him for killing his beloved wife, and his family despised his ugly, mediocre appearance.

No matter how hard he tried to please them, he never received the slightest kindness in return.

Instead, they locked him in a small courtyard and forbade him from showing himself to anyone.

Min Yi spent ten years living among dust and keeping company with snakes and insects.

But children his age, dressed in fine clothes, would always run up to the fence, trick him into coming out, then throw rocks at him as they sang:

"Ugly freak, sickly ghost, hated by all and loved by none."

They loved seeing Min Yi tremble with red-rimmed eyes, but at least he could hide in the thatched hut.

It was filthy and chaotic, crawling with cockroaches and rats. No one wanted to go near it.

Then one day, a man as aloof as the moon and as beautiful as an immortal appeared before him. With fingers untouched by dust, he brushed aside the dirty hair covering Min Yi's face.

"Child, would you like to come with me to Wuwen Sect?"

*

Wuwen Sect was the greatest sword sect in the world, a sacred place no sword cultivator would allow to be sullied.

Feng Shengxue was the world's greatest sword cultivator, a revered master whose character was as bright and pure as the moon.

Min Yi became the most cherished junior disciple in all of Wuwen Sect, and Feng Shengxue's only disciple.

His senior sisters doted on him, caring for him in every way;

His senior brothers protected him, always rushing to his aid when he was in trouble;

And his master pitied him, keeping him by his side and raising him personally.

Min Yi spent six wonderful years beyond anything he had dared dream of, until his sixteenth birthday arrived.

Min Yi knelt in a pool of blood. The Binding Powder in the water that had robbed him of his powers was administered by his senior sister. The Demon-Locking Nail in his shoulder that left him unable to move had been driven in by his senior brother. And the person pointing a sword at him was the master he had silently fallen for.

Min Yi looked at Feng Shengxue's face, cold as the bright moon, reflected in the pool of blood. He grabbed the hem of his white robe and asked, "Master, don't you feel even the slightest bit of compassion for me?"

Feng Shengxue pried his fingers away and drove his sword down through Min Yi's spine.

A demon of the most yin and sinister kind had no value in this world unless its bones could be used to forge a sword. What gave him the nerve to speak of love?

But when Min Yi dug out his own spiritual root and stumbled off a deep cliff, the feelings Feng Shengxue's merciless sword path had sealed away for years suddenly stabbed at his heart.

He Wuju, the Demon King of the Three Realms, was said to be vicious and bloodthirsty, having slaughtered countless people. Even his spirit beast, the wolf Chi, had been raised on the hearts of beautiful people.

During the five hundred years He Wuju spent in seclusion, his evil reputation could still stop children from crying.

Then one day, Chi suddenly carried a blood-soaked person back in its jaws.

1. Blurb to be completed. The main plot is everyone groveling for forgiveness.

2. Min Yi is the gong. He'll get healthier and more handsome later.

Cover artist: Nicolas Ergou of The Record of Juan Si

Theme: Sincerity should be met with sincerity.