After Marrying the Brooding, Beautiful, Strong, and Miserable Man

Complete//text//now. Coming soon: The Female Assassin, but a Lovable Airhead. Please add it to your reading list ❤️ [Blurb] Chi Ying is supposed to marry the blind, sickly Prince Zhao in place of her elder half-sister. She figures that since the sickly man won’t live long anyway, she’ll be free as soon as he dies. But after marrying him, she discovers that Prince Zhao isn’t just gloomy and ruthless. He also loves tormenting people, and his favorite pastime is wickedly exploring her body, tracing her features inch by inch with his fingers and leaving his mark on her. Chi Ying wants to cry, but she can only endure it. No one expects Prince Zhao not only to survive, but to murder his father and elder brother, eliminate his rivals, and ascend step by step to the throne above all others. And so the common-born Chi Ying, who married him in her sister’s place, naturally has to return the honored title of Princess Consort Zhao to her elder sister. Luckily, Prince Zhao is blind and has no idea what the woman beside him looks like. - Chi Ying flees a thousand miles away to Jiangnan, but one rainy night, a man in imperial robes appears at her door. Chi Ying is cornered against the wall with nowhere to run. Not only can he see now, but he fixes his blazing gaze on her, leisurely tracing her cheek with his fingertips. “So this is what you look like, A-Ying.” “You thought I wouldn’t recognize you if you found an impostor?” “Your earlobes grow hot at a touch. Your collarbones rise enough to hold a cup of wine. Your waist is barely wide enough for one hand. There’s an old scar three inches below your navel, and your legs are three chi long, with my bite marks still on them… A-Ying, I know you inside and out.” Chi Ying’s cheeks turn scarlet, and even her toes curl. Chi Ying had thought he would punish her severely for deceiving him, but instead, he presents her with the imperial phoenix seal with his own hands. Of course, his “punishment” is part of the deal: From then on, she is the only one in his bedchamber night after night, and the emperor has no one else in his harem. Gentle, resilient, honest heroine vs. blind, ruthless hero with an extreme need for skin-to-skin contact [Reading guide] The male lead is not a morally upright gentleman. He has an extreme need for skin-to-skin contact, but only with the female lead. He regains his sight later, but his need for touch never goes away. He falls in love first. Don’t ask how; it’s simply an instinctive attraction. He loves every last strand of her hair from head to toe. He’ll die if he can’t cuddle her, but he’s very good at hiding it. [One couple, both virgins] [Blurb written on 2024/06/12; screenshot saved as proof] ★★★★★★ Recommended friend’s novel: Bewitching Array by Jin Kui Zi Shen Xiyin’s husband is gravely injured while killing an evil ghost, leaving him unable to father an heir. As the head of a sect, he doesn’t want to leave his position without a successor, nor does he want anyone to know this shameful secret. He wants Shen Xiyin to put the greater good first and secretly conceive a child with another man, giving birth to his “heir.” To that end, he schemes to push Shen Xiyin into the Bewitching Array. Inside the array, there is another man besides Shen Xiyin. She must pass through forty-nine trials of love with him inside the array to break free. Otherwise, her body and soul will be destroyed. The man looks familiar. He is the very senior whom her husband admires most. He is aloof and untouchable, a model of virtue in the eyes of the righteous immortal sects, someone the world can only admire from afar. Just yesterday, she accidentally spilled wine on him. He didn’t even look down at her, merely responding with polite detachment, “It’s all right.” As a woman of humble birth, Shen Xiyin knows that attitude all too well. It’s the indifference a cultivated person of high status shows to someone beneath them. The Bewitching Array’s prompts ring out one after another: First trial: Draw close and learn each other’s scent. Second trial: Interlace fingers and feel each other’s warmth. Trial number X: Open your mouth and kiss hard… Shen Xiyin knows this is wrong. She tries to discuss another way to break the array with the man, but the fertility pill her husband secretly gave her takes effect at that very moment. Theme: Bound as husband and wife, we will never doubt each other’s love.