Halfway Up the Mountain, No. 1 [Pregnant First, Love Later]

Only 15 for the complete edition, plus free bonus chapters! Written with daily updates and no breaks for three months by the author. 😢 Pirated copies have no bonuses or in-chapter comments. 😋 The comments are in the chapters.

A marriage-first, love-later story in the same series, You're My Type, is complete.

☆Pregnancy before marriage, then marriage, then love × the powerful one learns to lower his head × an older man with a physique and age gap

[Two-faced hotel receptionist × ruthless, cold-hearted CEO who dotes on his wife]

A typhoon warning signal number eight was hoisted at the observatory. After waiting a week, Zhu Jin's flight was canceled, leaving him alone in bed, unable to sleep.

The candlelit dinner he'd carefully prepared had gone to waste, but at least the six-figure bottle of wine she'd given him wouldn't.

The wine burned her throat, just like that reckless night. It easily drew out the sorrow she'd buried deep inside.

At life's gambling table, Zhu Jin had somehow won a son and a daughter, as well as the life of a wealthy wife, as if she'd cheated.

She was only in her early twenties, envied by everyone, but only she knew how hard the journey had been.

She ought to raise a glass to herself.

The first glass was for herself, for the girl who dropped out of school to work in a factory alongside her mother.

The second glass was for herself, for living in the moment and taking what they both wanted from one reckless night.

The third glass was for herself, for the prenatal checkup slip tucked into a book, traded for a stack of prenuptial agreements.

The fourth glass was for herself, for never forgetting that, no matter how much she was cherished, she owed her status to her children.

The fifth glass was for herself, for daring to ask for a divorce and gamble on how completely it would shatter his world.

The sixth glass...

With no one there to pick him up and no phone call, Shen Qingzheng finally made his way home to find his wife passed out on the sofa.

She was mumbling to herself, a pitiful one-woman show.

A billionaire juggling his career and family, playing both father and mother, all because his wife never stays home.

Shen Qingzheng has to fly between two cities like Superman just to see Zhu Jin. Isn't he the poor one here?!

Annoyed, he took off his suit jacket, undid his cufflinks, and rolled up his slightly damp sleeves.

"Didn't I say I'd spend tonight with you? What are you making a fuss about now?"

He was covered in the dust of travel, and his words were impatient, yet he bent down and lifted her securely into his arms, enjoying the intoxicating scent of wine.

So what if he was the poor one? The one who fell in love first always loses everything.

The man she'd been thinking about all night was finally here. Zhu Jin wound herself around him, her slender legs hooked around his waist.

After tracing the tattoo on his arm, her fingers slipped inside his collar and ran over the muscles of his back.

It tickled.

What was most unbearable was how her whole body glowed with a soft pink hue. Her eyes glistened with tears as she looked up at him and whimpered,

"The sixth glass... What should I toast with the sixth glass, honey? Help me think of something..."

Shen Qingzheng's breathing grew heavy. How was he supposed to know how many glasses she'd had?

He suddenly pulled her into his arms, stopping her from acting up.

"You ungrateful little thing..."

He abruptly lowered his head, his hot breath brushing her ear. She could hear his chest rumble as he spoke.

"Toast me."

"Toast the fact that I didn't let you have your fun and then abandon me, and that our two kids still have their daddy."

#The muscular man's lifelong mission: spoiling his wife#

#The order may be all over the place, but as long as they're in love, that's what matters#

[Please Note]

Remember to turn on in-chapter comments. The author is very active in the comments, but if they get deleted, they won't be restored...

[Content Warnings]

1. Important: This is a pregnancy-before-love story. After the story goes premium, it will involve traditional romance, marriage, and having children.

2. Neither lead is pure or a good person. It's melodramatic and cheesy.

3. The plot, setting, and scenes are all fictional.

---Next-door neighbors story, You're My Type (complete)---

Finished tonight | Marriage first, love later | Love grows over time | Food | Older man | Both leads are each other's first and only...

A school administrator who's a whiz in the kitchen × a sharp-tongued, fastidious, scheming business tycoon

A sweet little story about a young couple sharing meals, bickering, and falling in love.

People say Professor Lin's son, Gu Yanchen, is one of the city's biggest taxpayers.

But he has an angel's face and a devil's heart.

An older bachelor, sharp-tongued, possibly a neat freak, and with countless secretaries coming and going,

he's on the matchmaking service's blacklist, covered in negative labels.

When Professor Lin introduced her son to Lin Zhi, she was happily thinking:

The professor is gentle, learned, and beautiful. She's the ideal mother-in-law!

Marriage is about building a life together. Sometimes choosing the family matters more than choosing the person.

Whoever she married, she was getting married anyway. If she married her son, wouldn't that be like becoming her daughter?

The Gu family was a family of scholars. Professors Lin and Gu were a loving couple.

As for their son, Gu Yanchen? He ran a company, so it was like getting a husband along with her mother-in-law.

He was a little arrogant at their matchmaking date, but handsome and well-qualified. Maybe she should marry him?

Lin Zhi tried on her custom-made wedding dress from overseas. It was only the second time she'd met Gu Yanchen before their wedding.

Who knew he'd make the teasing comment, "Now you finally look like a woman."

Even worse, after they exchanged rings at the wedding, all because of a jade bangle,

CEO Gu actually held her around the waist in front of all their friends and family and kissed her soundly for a full minute!

Her legs were still weak when she stepped down from the stage, and he even teased her about it.

The wedding fiasco made Lin Zhi the school's best-known "joke" among both teachers and students.

She thought it was an accident, and that at least she and Gu Yanchen would be a respectful couple at home.

But she soon discovered there was a reason Gu Yanchen had remained unmarried at his age!

He was really, incredibly hard to please!

After they married, Gu would come home and act like a picky, demanding capitalist toward the housekeeper, forcing Lin Zhi to lecture him.

At night, though, he would get back at her, biting her lips and whispering shameless things, claiming he was just making up for losing face during the day.

"Gu Yanchen, are you a dog or something?!" she protested, wrapped in the blanket.

He leaned against the headboard, twirling her hair around his finger and smiling like an elegant villain. "I'm just shameless. What can Teacher Lin do about it?"

Her plan to spend the holidays sleeping with her mother-in-law to hide from her husband failed.

Lin Zhi woke up late, her waist so sore she could barely walk straight. She rushed to the kitchen in a panic, only to find her in-laws already seated at the table.

Professor Lin, the traitor, beckoned kindly. "Zhi, come over. I made black soybean milk myself."

Professor Gu, her father-in-law and accomplice, cleared his throat, put down the newspaper, and said solemnly,

"Yanchen, your mother and I have been thinking. You two should move out."

"At night, you can do whatever you like."

Last night, she'd been forcibly escorted upstairs to fulfill her marital duties. Under the table, Lin Zhi blushed with anger and kicked Gu Yanchen.

The culprit, Gu Yanchen, remained composed as he put a peeled hard-boiled egg into her bowl.

"Sounds good," he said calmly. "Then nobody will keep running to her mother every other minute."

On their first night after moving, he held her in front of the floor-to-ceiling window, gazing down at the city's neon lights.

He didn't care that the glandular fluid on Lin Zhi's palms had dirtied the glass,

just as he didn't care that the space beneath them had grown wet.

"Now," he breathed, his hot breath burning behind her ear, "I'm the only one you can count on, and the only one who'll be there for every meal, every day, Teacher Lin."

If she wasn't going to live with her in-laws, what was the point of getting married?

Theme: Be brave enough to love.