[Full manuscript completed]
Spoiled, high-maintenance princess × Hong Kong tycoon daddy
Marriage first, love later | Brothers fight over the same wife | Hong Kong tycoon romance
1.
The Shu family of Hong Kong had a daughter who knew how to use her beauty to get her way. Her family doted on her and sent her abroad to study at a young age.
Then disaster struck: her arranged match, Second Young Master Li, died suddenly.
People feared the Li family's power and assumed that with the engagement broken, the Shu family was bound to fall. They waited eagerly to see the Shus make fools of themselves.
Shu Pei hurried back to Hong Kong to attend the funeral of the fiancé she hadn't seen in years. But as the ceremony was winding down, a handsome man identical to the man in the portrait suddenly appeared and called out to her.
“Miss Shu.” The man's gaze was cool as it swept over her eyes, red from her feigned tears.
Thinking her fiancé had come back from the dead, Shu Pei was terrified out of her wits.
“I'm A Xu's older brother.”
Seeing that Shu Pei had finally remembered the Li brothers were twins, the man continued slowly, “And I'm your future husband, Li Zelin.”
This time, Shu Pei was genuinely stunned.
2.
The engagement between the Li and Shu families went ahead, and before long, a wedding that all of Hong Kong had its eyes on was held. Even the Chief Executive came to give a speech, and the rest of the wedding was every bit as extravagant.
Seeing how much effort the Li family had put in, Shu Pei assumed Li Zelin had been head over heels for her all along.
On their wedding night, she dressed to the nines and swirled her red wine before Li Zelin, turning on all her charm.
But her husband didn't even look up, absorbed in the piles of documents on his desk.
“Miss Shu.” He still addressed her formally. “I forgot to tell you that we'll sleep in separate rooms after we marry.”
Shu Pei was furious. No matter how warmly she tried to treat her husband afterward, she was met with nothing but coldness.
One night, Li Zelin returned early from a long business trip abroad and, unlike his usual self, pulled her close and kissed her passionately as if he had become a different man.
Shu Pei was dazed by his kisses and was just about to pout and say something.
Then she looked up and caught sight of a tall shadow standing in the doorway.
The figure stepped out of the shadows, his face utterly impassive, though his voice could barely contain his fury.
“A Xu, stay away from your sister-in-law.”
3.
When Li Zexu returned, Shu Pei felt she'd been played for a fool and demanded a divorce from Li Zelin.
On the night before she moved out of the Li family mansion, her bedroom door opened. A beast drank lightly from the stream, leaving mud between her thighs.
Shu Pei held Li Zelin's head and snapped, “Are you crazy?”
Li Zelin looked up and wiped the moisture from his lips.
“If you divorce me, then I'll really go crazy.”
[Bonus scene]
Thirteen-year-old Li Zelin watched his younger brother play with the little girl he'd been engaged to since childhood. The two chatted and laughed together, while he stood alone, as though he were an unrelated third party.
But even he couldn't have imagined that one day he would dodge his brother's punch and turn his head with a mocking smile.
“Leave her? Sorry, I'm her lawful husband.”
[Reader's guide]
1. The male lead thinks he's his younger brother's substitute at first. The third party wins the girl in the end (once he does, he watches his wife like a hawk) (A man's insecurity is his finest dowry).
2. The female lead's life motto: Be strict with others and lenient with yourself. So the heroine has exes, while the hero doesn't. The author's life motto: Be strict with the hero and lenient with the heroine.
Theme: What you desire lies across the sea of fear
