The Cold-Hearted Concubine's Daughter

The super-sweet pursuit romance, "The Little Maid Only Wants to Get By", is currently updating. Come take a look, everyone!^

My upcoming novel, "A Commoner Girl Follows Her Husband to the Capital", is also open for pre-collection. Please add it to your favorites, everyone. Sending love~~

Blurb:

[The Heroine's Story]

Fu Yao, the legitimate eldest daughter of the Left Vice Censor-in-Chief, is renowned throughout Fengdu for her chastity and grace.

She keeps her heart in check and her nature restrained, hoping only to earn a good reputation and marry the man of her dreams as his principal wife.

But fate has other plans, and disaster strikes her family.

Caught between troubles within and threats without, she thinks of one person.

Shang Tuan, the legitimate grandson of the Grand Secretary, is praised by all as the Young Master Xian Guang, the unattainable ideal of Fengdu's noblewomen.

He once made her a promise: if she ever needed help, all she had to do was trade her good name, and he would help her no matter the cost.

Fu Yao steels herself and sacrifices her reputation, arranging to meet Shang Tuan at a teahouse by the river.

-

Fu Yao always thought Shang Tuan only wanted to ruin her reputation, and would never truly marry her.

But as she stood in a bright red wedding gown, about to bow with another man, he rode back at a breakneck pace, killing all in his path... The wedding hall became a hall of blood, and his white robes were stained red like a wedding dress. He seemed like a demon who had fought his way out of a sea of blood, bearing a curse of blood as he walked toward her, step by step:

"From now on, A Yao belongs to me alone. You can never marry anyone else!"

[The Hero's Story]

Shang Tuan rose to fame in his youth, looking down on all beneath him and devoting himself to securing his family's reputation for generations to come.

The only time he ever stepped out of line was after saving a young woman, when he suddenly took it into his head to expose her false facade.

He never expected that after he removed her mask, she would steal his heart.

He gave everything he had to love and protect her.

Yet on the day of the palace coup, after enduring three days and nights of torture, he was killed by her own hand.

Blood splattered across her delicate face, just like the tears of the red candle beside their bed on the night they pledged themselves to each other in secret.

He remembered that night, when spring passion filled the air and she endured the pain to whisper softly in his ear: "Young Master, A Yao... has no regrets!"

When he opened his eyes again, he was back at the teahouse where he had arranged to meet her, two years before the palace coup.

Her soft, gentle voice rang out by the river: "Young Master! I'm Fu Yao. Do you remember me?"

-

He thought that if he saw through her true nature, he could stay far away from her or repay her pain a hundredfold.

But time and again, right up to the end of his life, he found that the only thing he could do was still to love her!

Reader's Note:

Happy ending. A sweet-and-sour romance, with sweetness and angst interwoven. The hero is reborn, but the heroine doesn't know.

The story is a little slow to warm up, with detailed emotional groundwork early on. Once the emotions really build later, it gets much more engaging! Thank you so much for your support, everyone. Sending love~

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Blurb for the ongoing novel "The Little Maid Only Wants to Get By":

Since she was old enough to remember, Guan Yuan has served tea to Dou Zhao. Naturally laid-back, she only wants to get by and stay alive, but Dou Zhao criticizes her and finds fault with her every day, forcing her to strive for more. She has always been afraid of him.

Dou Zhao is an influential young nobleman whose power reaches across the court. Though still young, he is already the Crown Prince's Grand Tutor. With his otherworldly beauty, he grew up aloof and detached, indifferent to everyone around him. Especially women.

Noblewomen hoping to marry him line up from the south of the city to the north, but he has never taken an interest in any of them, and has remained unmarried into his early twenties.

She thought he simply had no interest in women by nature. But one day, on his birthday, the Old Madam gave him several cups of wine, and he returned home slightly drunk.

Guan Yuan simply made him tea to sober him up as usual, but instead of taking the cup, he put an arm around her waist.

"My A Yuan, you've grown up..."

After that night, Guan Yuan finally learned that a man who has had a taste of pleasure and wants more is truly terrifying.

He had told her not to tell anyone about their relationship, so Guan Yuan kept their secret, waiting for the day she might be formally acknowledged as his woman.

But instead of a status, she got news that he was to be married to a princess.

Everyone knew the princess was domineering. She had once had a lady-in-waiting beaten to death just for looking at Dou Zhao a little too long.

Guan Yuan thought her days here were probably over.

That night, she went to beg Dou Zhao to let her leave, only to overhear him telling the Old Madam:

"A Yuan is only a maid. Just find her some servant to marry and be done with it. Why go to all that trouble?"

Guan Yuan was shocked and devastated, and fled that very night.

**

Dou Zhao had always thought there was nothing in this world he couldn't have. It wasn't until the little maid he'd carefully kept by his side ran away, and he searched all of the capital without finding her, that his heartbroken self finally understood: the one thing he wanted most was truly beyond his reach!

**

Later, Guan Yuan's exquisite tea skills and exceptional beauty caught the attention of an official in the place where she was staying. He took her to serve tea to the Crown Prince, who was traveling incognito.

The Crown Prince liked her at once and invited her to sit beside him, only to hear Dou Zhao, the Crown Prince's Grand Tutor who had even refused a marriage arranged with a princess, say in a low voice: "You seem to have a cold constitution. How convenient that I'm warm-hearted. You should sit beside me."

Guan Yuan: "..."

Theme: A woman should know what she will and will not stand for