The Gloomy Psychopath's Relentless Obsession

My next book is Zhe Luan. The blurb is below. Please add it to your reading list~

Blurb:

On the night Jiang Yunchan was to be married, the man she had longed for was nowhere to be found.

Her bridal sedan chair was abandoned in the middle of the bustling streets.

A lone orphan with nowhere else to turn, she pushed open the door to her cousin Xie Yan's room.

Xie Yan was the perfect product of an aristocratic clan's upbringing: refined and virtuous, unfailingly gentle.

Jiang Yunchan knelt at his feet in tears, choking over every word as she spoke of her lover, pleading only for Xie Yan to find him.

Amid the curling sandalwood incense, Xie Yan glanced at the red-clad girl with tears on her cheeks. His writing hand paused.

A drop of cinnabar ink fell onto the neatly written Heart Sutra, staining it bright red.

After a long while, the immaculate young gentleman gave a solemn nod.

From then on, on countless nights when no one could see them,

Jiang Yunchan would slip off her fox-fur cloak, grind ink and tend the incense beside him, accompanying him as he copied sutras and paid homage to Buddha, sweetly calling him "Big Brother" again and again.

All so she could get a little news of her lover from him.

One day, Jiang Yunchan accidentally knocked over the enormous blood-red Heart Sutra hanging behind Xie Yan.

Behind the cramped space, her lover was dressed in the wedding robes he had worn on the day he was meant to marry her, bound in chains.

The hand that had held hers, the lips that had kissed hers, the ears that had heard her words of love: blood trickled down them and dripped into the inkstone.

Jiang Yunchan retreated in terror, only for a large hand to press against her slender waist.

"Do you want to save him?"

Above her, a warm breath brushed her pearly-white skin.

*

Xie Yan was born with a sinister nature.

No one knew how much he despised this hypocritical facade.

Yet the woman he admired was painfully conventional, always going on about propriety between men and women.

Xie Yan didn't dare cross the line. All he could do was cut off his claws and fangs, play the upright gentleman she liked, and hope she'd look his way.

Until he glimpsed her through a crack in the door, rising onto her toes to kiss another man's cheek.

Only then did Xie Yan understand:

She didn't like rules after all.

So, in the study lined with Buddhist scriptures, Xie Yan slid a hand around her waist and guided her, hand over hand, as they broke every rule to pieces.

Content warnings: 1. The male lead pines in vain early on, then takes her by force. Later, he faces a long, agonizing road to redemption.

2. When stroked the right way, the male lead is a lovesick puppy. When provoked, he's a mad dog. All in all, he's a dog: calculating and a charming villain.

3. The female lead grows over the course of the story. She seems pure but has a dark side, and is emotionally detached. Later, she keeps plotting to kill the dog and attain the Dao.

4. Both leads have only ever been with each other. A passionate love born of hatred, with enough melodrama to drown in.

--

Zhe Luan blurb:

A military marquis has risen in the north, and no one has ever survived the sweep of his seven-foot sword.

With the three-year deadline approaching, the imperial court has been forced back at every turn, and the dynasty is on the brink of collapse.

To stabilize the situation, the court sends a princess to marry the marquis, along with ten thousand taels of gold.

But although the envoys fill his gates, the marquis's residence keeps its doors firmly shut.

From within, they receive only a single demand: County Lady Shen Jianyue of Ningyang must be sent as the princess's dowry.

*

Shen Jianyue never imagined that, as the wife of a minor ninth-rank official, she could cause two great upheavals in the treacherous court.

The first time, she presented evidence of treason and sent Xie Ji, the young marquis of Shengjing, from a life of gallantry to the executioner's block.

As the young man's prison cart passed the Shen residence, an imperial edict conferring the title of County Lady was delivered into Shen Jianyue's hands.

The second time, a single casual remark from a military marquis she had never met turned a noble county lady into a mere maid in the princess's dowry.

The marquis was ruthless, the princess was merciless, and Shen Jianyue knew she had no way to deal with them. She could only try to flee on her wedding night.

But in the cramped, pitch-black maid's room, porcelain suddenly clinked.

"Where are you going?"

The marquis, who should have been at the wedding ceremony, sat behind her in a black robe embroidered with a python, blending into the night.

Only his long fingers, marked with winding whip scars, were exposed to the moonlight as he slowly stirred his tea.

On his fingertips, there were still the two old tooth marks left by the girl who used to playfully bite him...

*

For the year since the princess entered his residence, the marquis had refused to spend the night in her room, claiming he was too busy with military affairs.

One night, the princess came to see him with a warming tonic and happened to glimpse a floor strewn with military books through a crack in the window.

The broad-shouldered, muscular marquis had her sickly, distracted maid pinned in front of a mirror.

In the mirror, the girl had her hair in disarray and was biting the man's index finger, holding back her sobs. "Xie Ji, it's been a year. Isn't that enough?"

"Shen Jianyue, this is only the beginning..."

Back then, she abandoned him and ruined him, turning him into a monster everyone despised.

So he would break her and shatter her, drag her into this lightless hell, and let them rot in the mud together, locked in a battle to the death.

Theme: Respect the one you love