A Guide to Taming the Puppy General

(A sweet romance about a young couple who marry first and fall in love later)

Shen Yan is the daughter of a minor seventh-rank official. She is breathtakingly beautiful, with skin like ice and jade, but people have always said she is slow to understand matters of the heart.

Gentle and dutiful by nature, Shen Yan marries Jiang Shuo, the young general to whom she has been betrothed since childhood. She is careful and conscientious, determined to be the perfect wife and build a loving marriage with him.

But a man’s heart is hard to fathom, and Jiang Shuo is especially difficult to read.

He pours out the soup she makes with her own hands. He throws away the sachet she spends all night sewing, pricking her fingers in the process. He even refuses when Shen Yan asks him to share her bed.

Shen Yan is determined to be a good wife. She even thoughtfully offers to take concubines for him, but Jiang Shuo is so furious that he refuses to speak to her for days.

Sure enough, a marriage forced upon them will only turn them into bitter enemies. Shen Yan secretly begins to think about asking for a divorce.

Then Jiang Shuo suddenly storms in, holding the **Husband-Taming Handbook** she hid in her dressing case. He throws it in front of her. “So all those tricks of yours came from a book?”

Young General Jiang Shuo is the dashing youth who rides his horse beside the arched bridge, drawing the attention of every lady in the teahouse. He is handsome and ambitious, and had already won one glorious victory after another by the age of eighteen.

Yet at the height of his youthful pride, he is forced to marry the daughter of a minor official.

At first, Jiang Shuo can’t stand her, calling her “a nobody from a lowly family, shamelessly trying to marry above her station.”

But after they marry, he keeps blushing whenever she is near. Her fragrance draws him in, and he can’t help being captivated by her softness and tenderness. Even the attentions she so obviously goes out of her way to show him are strangely pleasing.

Jiang Shuo thinks to himself, “Well, she has a few tricks. This woman must be deeply in love with me.”

The moment he sees the handbook, he trembles with fury. He pins the young woman to the bed, and at last his stubborn lips part. All the sweet words he has been holding back come pouring out. “Do you even like me or not? Even if you don’t, I still won’t let you leave.”

Shen Yan is utterly bewildered. Sobbing, she says, “You poured out my soup, threw away my sachet, sent away the person I gave you, and wouldn’t even share my bed. You’re the one who doesn’t like me! I want a divorce!”

“I drank all the soup. I wear the sachet every day. And I drove every person you sent me out of the house.”

“If you ever dare send anyone to my room again...” The young man bites her red lips, his eyes dark with desire.

Afterward, behind the red silk curtains, Shen Yan is kept in bed for three days while he insists on teaching her things that aren’t in the book.

Reading guide:

A slow-burn sweet romance, marriage first and love later. The male lead wins himself over, and says one thing while meaning another.

A wooden beauty × a proud young general

She never gets it × he refuses to say it

Both leads are each other’s first, happy ending

Please add my next novel, **Notes on Assassination After Marriage**, to your reading list!

As the most formidable assassin in the martial world, A Qi is confident she can play the role of a delicate young lady without breaking a sweat.

The real Lin Chan is dead. With her similar-looking face, the assassin A Qi takes Lin Chan’s place and marries into the Zhang family.

“Big Brother” tells her, “Keep an eye on Zhang Xun and report back regularly.”

To make sure her “undercover” mission goes smoothly, A Qi diligently keeps her **Assassination Notes**. She even takes a muscle-relaxing poison so she won’t expose her martial arts skills.

But that very night...

[The dose of muscle-relaxing poison was too high. Unable to resist Zhang Xun’s request to share a bed.]

[Zhang Xun is eight chi tall, waist xx cun, chest xx cun, xx long xx cun. His heart is three cun to the right, making a single strike fatal.]

[Zhang Xun carries no weapon when sharing a bed. A good opportunity to assassinate him.]

[Zhang Xun is an inexperienced kisser, consistent with the information that he has no interest in women.]

[Zhang Xun likes to do women’s eyebrows. His results are hideous.]

[Correction: Zhang Xun is an experienced kisser. His lack of interest in women is questionable!!]

[Zhang Xun doesn’t like scallions.]

[Questionable: Does going out for fun increase the frequency of sharing a bed?]

[Correction: Meeting other men increases the frequency of sharing a bed.]

[Husband is obsessed with sex, incomprehensible...]

[Husband said he would protect me for life. What a shame his life is so short.]

[Questionable: Husband says he never lies.]

[Husband never lies.]

[Husband wants me to escape the capital first?!]

[Sharpened one knife today *^o^*]

[Mission complete. Assassination successful ^ω^]

If it hadn’t been for the need to bring good fortune to the family’s elderly patriarch, Zhang Xun would never have thought he’d get married.

Least of all to a delicate, sickly beauty.

As the Jin Yiwei commander feared by all in the capital, Zhang Xun has never shown his prisoners the slightest mercy in the imperial prison. But when it comes to his wife, he is willing to learn how to be a “good husband.”

It’s just that... why are women so fragile?

A slight squeeze of the wrist leaves a red mark. Raise his voice a little and she starts crying. Even the faintest smell of blood makes her gag.

He carefully considers how to treat her. What he can offer her is the greatest freedom a man worn down by a life of violence can give.

On one condition: she must be a proper, dutiful wife.

But then a palace coup erupts, and Prince Yan seizes the imperial palace. Zhang Xun escorts the emperor to safety through a secret passage.

At the brink of life and death, the one who delivers the final stab is his delicate wife.

Three years later, he meets Lin Chan again. She is married to another man, with a bastard child beside her whose father is anyone’s guess.

In the interrogation room, Zhang Xun uses his whip to lift her chin. “Do assassins have to get married and have children before they kill someone?”

“Come kill me, then have my child.”

Lin Chan watches helplessly as she is taken from the imperial prison to a villa in the suburbs. Every morning when she opens her eyes, the first thing she sees is Zhang Xun’s corpse-like face.

She expects him to unleash his full revenge on her. So why doesn’t he say, “I hate you”? Why does he keep saying, “Don’t leave me”?

Lin Chan opens the notebook she always carries and finds a line tucked in the corner: [Husband never lies.]

An obsessive, old-fashioned tyrant whose long-dormant passion has caught fire × an emotionally clueless, seemingly gentle but secretly ruthless female assassin

Theme: Live positively and make the most of every day