Indulging the Beauty on the High Terrace

Blurb:

Everyone says that Chancellor Xie Sui is ruthless, cold-blooded, and unscrupulous. That is how he rose from obscurity to immense power in just five years.

After Gu Qingying was jilted, Xie Sui asked for her hand in marriage.

The court officials were all stunned.

Who didn't know that he and the Gu family were sworn enemies?

He must be marrying her to humiliate the Gu family. Who knew how cruelly he would treat their daughter once she married him?

Years later, the rumors were still going around. Gu Qingying wholeheartedly agreed. "They're right. You love throwing your weight around."

Facing the mirror, Xie Sui touched the bright red bite mark she'd left on his shoulder and calmly retorted, "No one in the whole capital knows how to throw their weight around better than you do."

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Gu Zheng was every bit as upright and unyielding as his name suggested. Though he was only a minor civil official, he managed to make countless enemies at court.

As his daughter, Gu Qingying had to learn from childhood to be cautious and keep her head down.

Xie Sui was the most successful of Gu Zheng's students, and the first to turn against him, breaking with him more completely than anyone else.

When the Gu family fell into the dirt, Xie Sui was at the height of his glory.

Gu Qingying once warned herself to stay far away from him.

She never imagined that all the uninhibited indulgence she had never dared allow herself would eventually be coaxed out of her, bit by bit, by his own hands.

-- Below is the blurb for the upcoming novel, After Climbing the Wrong Branch --

As a low-ranking constable earning three taels a month, the boldest thing Ruan Yueyao ever did was seduce Xue Huai, the wealthiest man in Jiangdong.

She did it to get back at her cousin, who had seduced and abandoned her.

But Xue Huai turned out to be breathtakingly handsome. Unlike his worthless cousin, he was a billionaire who was both refined and devoted.

He was also very good at taking care of her.

...Could she really have lucked into such an incredible catch?

Day after day, they lived in sweet harmony, and Ruan Yueyao simply let herself go along with the deception, right down to the bitter end.

Until one night, when she got up, she discovered several terrifying, deathly silent warriors surrounding the house.

And the man who should have been beside her in bed was accepting their bows and giving them orders.

His voice was cold, his expression vicious. She had never seen him like this before.

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Only after making inquiries in secret did Ruan Yueyao discover that Xue Huai's origins were unfathomable.

She didn't dare investigate further, but she knew all too well that someone as formidable as him would never let her off lightly after she'd played him for a fool.

So she left without a word and volunteered for a transfer to Wuzhou.

Then the Song and Wei kingdoms went to war, and Wuzhou was the first place to suffer.

On the day the city fell, Ruan Yueyao was bound and thrown into the enemy camp.

Seated in the place of honor was Zhou Huaixue, heir to the enemy kingdom.

He was also the very Xue Huai she had seduced and abandoned.

He didn't untie her. Instead, he grabbed the knot at her waist and tossed her into the tent.

A few months had passed.

The man who used to be so gentle that he worried she would be hurt while he combed her hair now held her down by force, his eyes filled with a darkness that would not lift. "You said you loved only me. I believed you. So for the rest of your life, you can only be mine."

A laid-back little constable * a seemingly gentle but secretly ruthless heir to an enemy kingdom

Theme: Never forget your original aspirations