Delicate and Demanding

Huai Zhen had barely arrived in Yunxi Village when the farm girl next door latched onto him.

Yu Nong was the village's brightest, liveliest girl. To look after him, a down-on-his-luck scholar, she brought him rice and vegetables, then kept making excuses to ask him about writing, lingering in his room and refusing to leave. She could clearly write her own name, but insisted on making it crooked and messy just to spend a little more time with him.

Knowing these little tricks girls played, Huai Zhen never called her out. He simply treated it as a bit of amusement in his secluded country life.

But then he watched her tuck the wild chicken eggs she'd been saving for ages into his arms, counting on her fingers how much tofu her family had sold again. "Once I've saved enough for the betrothal gifts and my dowry, remember to come marry me."

He was simply too poor, so she had to save up for both of them.

The heart of a man as hard as iron began to crack open. Huai Zhen was moved. He was no longer young, and there was no telling when he could return to the capital. Starting a family didn't seem like such a bad idea.

He had just convinced himself when he unexpectedly learned that the person who had framed him for treason, toppled him from the position of Crown Prince, and forced him to hide under an assumed name in this impoverished backwater was none other than the elder brother Yu Nong said had gone to seek his fortune in the capital years ago and never returned.

The heart he'd just let open a crack locked shut again. Huai Zhen's face turned cold, his manner even more distant than before.

He was the one who had pulled away, yet for some reason, seeing her walking side by side with another man along the field ridges left a sour taste in his mouth.

He had to settle accounts with his enemy eventually. Marrying the man's sister, watching him fume and maybe even get so angry he vomited blood, wasn't that a way to get revenge without deploying a single soldier?

Once he'd made peace with it, Huai Zhen swallowed his pride and went to find her. He thought she'd run happily into his arms just like before. He even worried over whether he should hold her with one arm or both. Instead, he was told she'd gone out to meet a prospective husband.

Watching some strange man hold an umbrella over her and tuck a flower into her hair while she shyly lowered her eyes, as if she were about to enter the bridal chamber and do something indecent, Huai Zhen covered his faintly aching chest and let out a laugh.

Yu Nong couldn't believe it either. Men were even more fickle than women. Just the other day he'd been sweet-talking her, and now he had turned cold and wanted to cut ties completely.

When she unexpectedly learned that her brother might be his enemy, Yu Nong put her feelings away for good. She did as the man wished and stopped getting involved with him. Then he came looking for her again, pestering her like a puppy and staring at her with such a gloomy, unsettling gaze, as though she'd done something unforgivable to him.

It wasn't until her brother returned home that the man, wearing a stern expression, pulled out the ugly handkerchief she'd casually tossed aside and demanded, "Your sister and I pledged ourselves to each other long ago. Here's the token. What do you mean by changing your mind?"

Her brother was equally solemn. "That certainly isn't right. It's my fault for being away from home too long to keep her in line."

Yu Nong: ...What in the world? Aren't these two sworn enemies?!

#LoveAtFirstSightAndNoRegretsStraightforwardSweetheart vs ColdOnTheOutsideJealousOnTheInsideObsessiveWhoArguesWithHimselfAndTalksHimselfIntoIt

Recommending a friend's new novel, "A Bewitching Spring Boudoir"

#SoapyAndSensualLiterature #MatureManAndWomanPushAndPullToTheLimit #UnorthodoxKinks

After returning to the capital years later, Shen Zhuoyin felt no joy. She kept to herself and rarely went out, politely turning down every invitation from her old friends.

Her husband was still young and naive. In less than half a year in the capital, he'd already been promoted twice, and he was riding high. He said she couldn't go on being so lazy. Other men's wives were busy working for their husbands' futures, but she was the only one wallowing in apathy and getting addicted to doing nothing, without giving him a thought.

Hoping to stir up his lazy wife's ambition, he half-jokingly threatened that if she kept this up, he'd take one or two concubines to make her nervous.

Shen Zhuoyin looked at the fool with his head so green it practically gleamed, and could only resent how women were born at a disadvantage: picked over and judged before marriage, bullied when they tried to make a life for themselves, and still denied peace after they married.

"Take ten or a hundred, if you can afford to support them. Just don't bother me. Do as you please."

That night, her husband was summoned by his superior again to drink and listen to music. Shen Zhuoyin couldn't talk him out of it, and was thoroughly fed up. She turned out the lights and locked the door early.

Past midnight, somewhere between dream and waking, Shen Zhuoyin's legs trembled. A sudden sting made her quiver like a fledgling swallow, and she slapped him.

"You brute. I told you not to bite, but you wouldn't listen."

In the darkness, silence fell.

The man bent over her, like a dog licking its master.

Devout. Frenzied.

The new dynasty had just been founded, and every industry was waiting to be rebuilt. A few ministers argued themselves red in the face over whether to preserve the old system of sons inheriting their fathers' positions or break down class barriers and recruit worthy talent. Unable to reach a decision, they could only ask the silent man seated above them, who seemed to be dozing, to decide.

The man languidly lifted his eyelids, looking rather troubled. "I had a snow bunting in my garden. It seemed tame and never flew off, but one day it escaped and never came back. Years later, I found it outside my garden wall, playing with an ugly wild sparrow behind my back. What do you think should be done with such a disloyal pet?"

The ministers were startled, but for once, they came to a consensus.

Naturally, bind it, cage it, train it, and make it submit.

A moment later, the man gave a faint, mocking smile.

How trite.

#ForcedLoveAndReverseControlLoveWithoutReciprocationTheMoreYouHateTheMoreYouLove

#NoOneIsInnocentThePowerfulBecomePuppiesForLoveTheHeroineLovesOnlyHerself

Theme: True love can overcome anything, even mountains and seas