A Beauty in My Arms

Yan Qi, a street punk, transmigrated and became an assassin who had failed to kill the sickly tyrant and been captured instead.

At their first meeting, Yan Qi, the "assassin," lost his mind and wrapped an arm around the tyrant's waist, giving him a deep kiss.

Afterward, Yan Qi, the "assassin," was thrown in prison, infected with a paired parasitic Gu, and tossed into a wolf pack.

Though he awakened incredible martial prowess as a result, Yan Qi was furious after being put through one ordeal after another. He was determined to make the mad tyrant beg him for mercy through tears!

But with the Gu inside him, he couldn't even beat the tyrant up. To remove the Gu and get his revenge, he decided to win the tyrant over by conquering his heart, making him fall deeply in love.

Wouldn't the Gu be easy to remove then, with a few comforting words and a little playing the victim? After that, he could do whatever he wanted!

So he gave the tyrant a little romance every day and confessed his feelings now and then. When assassins came for the tyrant, he played the hero and risked his life to protect him. When the tyrant was ill, he was gentle and attentive in every way.

Even when someone contemptuously called the tyrant a mere beggar and slave, Yan Qi was confused, but still stepped forward without hesitation to play the knight in shining armor.

At last, dawn broke through the darkness. The tyrant began showing signs of possessiveness and getting jealous from time to time. He disbanded his harem and said he was willing to quit Cold-Food Powder for Yan Qi, asking only to spend his life with him.

But just as it seemed the Gu might finally be removed, the tyrant grew increasingly possessive and sensitive. One day, Yan Qi happened to meet someone who looked exactly like the tyrant. Out of sheer curiosity, he exchanged a few words with the man. When the tyrant found out, he stabbed the man.

Then he started going mad, eyes red, consumed by insecurity and fear of losing Yan Qi.

And after that, he seemed intent on keeping Yan Qi like a canary in a cage!

How could Yan Qi put up with that?!

But what was even more outrageous was that he suddenly learned the paired Gu was basically impossible to remove. In other words, all that love had been for nothing.

Yan Qi felt as if five thunderbolts had struck him. He decided he had to run away with the Yan prince held hostage in the state of Nan Qi as soon as possible. If he couldn't get rid of the Gu, he might as well spend as many years as he could roaming free!

*

In the third year after Yan Qi returned to the state of Yan, Nan Qi lost a war against Yan. Its crown prince declared that he would marry Yan Qi, the general of Yan.

At the same time, news suddenly arrived from Northern Yue that Emperor Luan Fuqiu was gravely ill.

Yan Qi quietly infiltrated the Yue imperial palace and saw Luan Fuqiu, pale and frail, with his brows still furrowed in sleep.

Yan Qi was just about to approach and see how he was doing when Luan Fuqiu suddenly woke with a gasp, looking terrified and bewildered. His wide-open eyes were full of unease, and then he curled up tightly, grimacing in pain as both hands clutched his chest.

Yan Qi saw that his emotional turmoil had triggered the Gu, and that he was about to faint. He had no choice but to settle the trembling, pain-racked man in his arms and massage him gently, over and over.

As Luan Fuqiu gradually recovered, he stared blankly at Yan Qi's face. Large tears fell from his phoenix eyes without warning. His eyes reddened and his breathing grew ragged as he wept, as if he had not fully awakened from his dream.

Yan Qi furrowed his brow, about to say something, when the man in his arms spoke in a trembling, choked voice. "Yan Qi, please don't... don't leave me behind, okay?"

"Don't marry anyone else..."

[Content Warnings]

* The relationship may read like a scumbag top and a masochistic bottom. Not recommended for readers who are strongly attached to either role, especially bottom-role fans.

* Later, a second bottom who likes the top appears, gets jealous of the bottom, and tries to steal the top.

→_→ Currently updating... (bottom-focused story) "Ning Qi's Effortless Fate-Changing Chronicles"

Ning Qi, frail and chronically ill, originally just wanted to stay alive and then become a carefree wastrel.

However, one day when he was fourteen, he suddenly regained memories of his previous life and discovered that he was living in a book.

The protagonists in the book were his eldest brother and the current emperor. It seemed like a good thing, but the story was actually a tragic romance with a bad ending.

In the original story, Ning Qi had been born with a congenital deficiency and died not long after birth.

Now he had entered the book and become Ning Qi. Although he had survived, it was only because his companion spirit, Junhua, had expended too much of his scant spiritual energy to save him in his previous life.

And because Junhua's spiritual power was insufficient, he couldn't completely cure Ning Qi, who could die at any moment.

To completely cure the underlying cause of his frailty, Junhua needed to obtain enough spiritual energy.

Its source was a jade pendant worn by Prince Jin, passed down for countless generations.

Prince Jin could steady the realm with a brush and pacify the world from horseback.

He was also the emperor's full brother and enjoyed the emperor's utmost trust.

It could be said that he was The Outcast of Great Qi, second only to one and above all others.

To stay alive, Ning Qi tried every way he could to get close to Prince Jin. To change the fate of his eldest brother, who was poisoned, blinded, and ultimately died alone, Ning Qi entered officialdom to secretly investigate the culprit responsible for his brother's tragic fate in the original story.

He had expected both tasks to be extremely difficult, but somehow they were solved one after the other, with surprising ease.

And hadn't he accidentally earned merit after merit, too?

It was unexpected, but not bad.

The only strange thing was, why did his relationship with Prince Jin seem to be getting more and more awkward...

And why did his gentle, courteous classmate, Sima Shi, son of the Grand Princess, seem to be growing more and more obsessive...

The childhood friend he reunited with years later also didn't seem quite right...

Why did all three of them have such a strong desire to possess him? Was that really okay?!

Eldest brother, second brother, and third brother, come save your little brother!

*

In the summer of the first year of Zhaoyuan, Prince Jin Xiao Ziliang led troops north to put down a rebellion, where he met Ning He, who had donated grain to support the army.

The two got along famously and regarded each other as close friends and kindred spirits.

Over the next three years, the person Xiao Ziliang heard about most from his friend was Ning He's two younger twin brothers, especially the handsome but sickly youngest one.

After returning to the capital victorious, Xiao Ziliang never imagined that one day his elder brother, the emperor, blinded by love, would send the two younger brothers of the person he loved to Xiao Ziliang's manor, asking him to look after them.

As it happened, the emperor's beloved was named Ning, the same Ning as Ning He's eldest brother.

And the two boys were the twin younger brothers Ning He had told him about.

On the first night after they moved into the manor, the youngest, Ning Qi, was feverish and unconscious, carried in by his eldest brother, Ning Feng.

The next day, after recovering, Ning Qi woke up and sneakily hid behind a tree not far from the training grounds. Xiao Ziliang mistook him for an intruder from some enemy faction and nearly shot him through with a single arrow.

Xiao Ziliang had thought the new arrivals might bring him some fun, but they gradually became a headache.