Stealing Her Beauty: The Crematorium

Next story: "Bound Slave, Come Home." The pitch is at the very end.

Fake siblings / forceful pursuit / groveling redemption / both leads are sexually inexperienced

When Jiang Mingqian first met Shen Ning, she was hiding timidly beside the Empress Dowager. Her entire family had been killed, and she was the only one to escape disaster.

Out of respect for the Shen family's contributions to the state, the emperor granted her the title of Princess Yong'an.

From then on, the two were together day and night, until Jiang Mingqian led troops to war. Then the late emperor died, and Jiang Mingqian returned to the palace to inherit the throne.

They didn't see each other for three years. When they met again, he was hosting a banquet for meritorious officials, and she came to congratulate him on his wedding as another man's bride.

Jiang Mingqian showed no sign of it, but the blade called jealousy pierced deep into his bones.

That very night, the princess's husband, Zhao Ziqi, was imprisoned for embezzlement and corruption, and for forming a faction for his own gain.

To save her husband, she followed a eunuch's directions and knocked on the doors of Zhaohui Hall, then knelt before him and begged, "Royal brother..."

He regarded her coldly, his low voice almost a murmur. "For your husband, you're willing to do anything, aren't you, royal sister?"

Because the princess and her husband were often apart for various reasons, one night he pushed open the door to her bedchamber.

He asked her, "Would you give me a child?"

He never got an answer.

Instead, he saw someone beside her, leaning against her shoulder and looking at him with blatant defiance.

When they were together, Jiang Mingqian was always unpredictable, using every method Shen Ning had never even heard of against her.

She had been pampered since childhood, and everything outrageous she'd ever done was because he forced her to do it. Jiang Mingqian thought that, given her temperament, she would stay by his side forever.

Until she planned her escape and left with unshakable resolve.

He searched for her like a madman. When they met again, he quietly begged her to come back with him.

She lifted the corner of her eyes, her soft breath brushing his ear. "For me to come back, you're willing to do anything, aren't you, royal brother?"

Jiang Mingqian nodded.

She suddenly smiled, but the smile never reached her eyes. "Then go die."

He held her hand and guided the sharp blade inch by inch into his chest. Blood painted a vivid ink-wash picture across his long robe. His eyes swept over it as he smiled with dark, feverish delight.

She shoved him away and looked down at him, kneeling in a pool of blood. "What a shame. I lied."

Notes:

1. Forceful pursuit.

2. The male lead is the sort of man who will stop at nothing to get what he wants in the early part of the story.

Next up:

"Bound Slave, Come Home"

Forceful pursuit / powerful man humbled / both leads are sexually inexperienced / groveling redemption / age gap

Plainspoken, resilient beauty x domineering patriarchal man in power

Jiang Zhi was born in the countryside. After she came of age, her family arranged a marriage for her. She and her betrothed, Song Yu, had grown up together and shared a deep bond.

But the day before their wedding, she was abducted for no apparent reason and branded with a disgraceful accusation. Then her family's secrets were exposed, and her entire family was reduced to lowly slaves. Song Yu quickly cut ties with her... As she struggled to find a way to survive, she met again the general who had come to deliver an imperial decree that day.

Only then did she learn that he was Pei Yanpu, the current chief minister.

To find a way to survive, she got into his carriage.

Pei Yanpu's gaze traveled from her head to her feet. He spoke coldly.

"Offering yourself to my bed. Shameless."

A few days later, he pinned her against a screen. She was utterly confused... Why had he suddenly given her what she wanted?

From then on, she became his concubine. He was deep and calculating, and she had to endure no shortage of torment. But he protected her family, so she had intended to endure it one day at a time. Who could have guessed the truth would come to light, revealing that he had engineered everything?

Song Yu found a way to tell her everything he'd uncovered, including how Pei Yanpu had once been framed and how he had cut ties with Jiang Zhi.

That night, Jiang Zhi did as Song Yu had asked and cautiously sounded Pei Yanpu out.

But she'd barely begun when Pei Yanpu gave a soft laugh and interrupted her.

He stared at her trembling lips, his brow furrowing and his gaze turning icy. In an instant, a chill crept up from Jiang Zhi's tailbone. She heard him ask:

"Who taught you to say those things?"

*

To settle the matter from years ago, Pei Yanpu plotted and schemed, wielding life and death as he pleased.

In his eyes, Jiang Zhi was nothing more than a tool he could discard whenever he was done using her.

Until she plotted her escape from his side and left without looking back.

That night, the guards heard the usually self-disciplined and composed Minister Pei kick the table. After letting out a long breath, he coldly summoned someone inside to arrange everything. Then he sat alone in the Hall of Self-Discipline, motionless, until the first light of dawn.

The next day.

After safely sailing away from the pier, Jiang Zhi finally breathed a sigh of relief.

She looked back. The ferry landing had vanished into a thick bank of fog, impossible to make out. But seeing her mother and Song Yu behind her helped her feel calmer.

Then, in the very next moment, a sharp sword cut through the swirling white mist and grazed her ear. A spray of blood burst from behind her and splashed across her cheek.

Song Yu crashed down at her feet, his breathing faint.

The people around them scattered like startled birds. Jiang Zhi's mind went blank. Once again, she saw Pei Yanpu, his expression cold and hard.

He asked her, "Lost your way?"

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