The Crows Vie to Cross the River

Xie Zhenyue had a moonlight lover she could never have, Xu Zhaoxue, the son of the provincial governor.

And then there was the fifth uncle she had wronged the most, Xiao Huai, who wished he could kill her. She had once burned all the rare medicines and ancient prescriptions he treasured, and caused the death of the person closest to him.

Newly transmigrated Xie Zhenyue declared that none of this had anything to do with her. Let bygones be bygones and all grudges be forgotten.

But before she had even settled in, her personal maid came running over, bursting with excitement, to tell her: It worked! Tonight, right now, Xu Zhaoxue was waiting for her in the stone chamber so she could consummate their relationship!

Xiao Huai had a secret. By day, he took on the role of a stern, unsmiling fifth uncle.

When Xie Zhenyue acted sweet and obedient in front of him, he treated her coldly. When she showered others with attention, he ignored her. On the rare occasions when he had to speak, he said nothing but high-minded rules and propriety.

Everyone thought Xie Zhenyue was the person Xiao Huai hated most.

Only he knew that every night he was trapped in that dark stone chamber, his heart burning, his pillow and blankets drenched in sweat.

When he woke with a start, all that remained was sticky desire and self-loathing. He could almost still hear her tearful, plaintive voice, trying to please him as she called out "Xu Zhaoxue!" again and again.

He had never imagined that one day he would disregard public opinion and his good name, take her hand, and parade her through the streets, telling everyone that she was the woman he loved most.

Even knowing she only used and manipulated him, as long as she stood there, he felt like an iron tree that had been barren for ten thousand years, suddenly bursting into a thousand pear blossoms.

The leads are not related by blood.

Dark tone. The hero is hopelessly lovesick, an older, restrained but secretly passionate type. Everyone is obsessive.

The heroine is irresistible to everyone and an extreme self-interester.

1v1, happy ending, with torrential melodrama in the middle and later parts.

Please add my upcoming novel, The Dragon Protagonist Wants Me Dead, to your collection!

A mutually destructive romance, with the hero as the one who suffers.

A married couple on opposing sides, an unusual take on falling in love after marriage.

Xie Wang ascended to immortality at a thousand years old and had never known defeat. On the day of his ascension, he went alone into the demon clan's sacred mountain. With just himself and his sword, he swept through the demon realm and forced its king, Lu Zhong, to hide away. His fearsome name shook the Three Realms. All who heard of him trembled, and all who saw him bowed their heads.

Huaisu, wrapped in an obviously oversized robe, looked at the man kneeling in the snow. Thin and frail, his face and head covered in frost and snow, he bowed before a crowd of people around him who jeered and laughed. She could not make herself believe he was Xie Wang.

She was an evil thought given form. The Prophecy Stone bore the words: When the evil spirit emerges, all living things will perish. Xie Wang had issued an order to kill her.

Betrayed by a friend, she had suffered every hardship under the sun and become a rat in the street, hated by everyone.

At last, by taking advantage of Xie Wang and Lu Zhong's bet, she fought for a sliver of hope to survive.

She pretended to be his wife in the mortal realm, using her identity to turn everyone against him, leave him frail and sick, make him unable to attain what he wanted or love whom he wanted, and even deny him the right to die.

She never imagined that the person responsible for her suffering would bend a back that had never bowed, just to beg someone for a bowl of hot water for her.

Xie Wang opened his eyes and instinctively lowered his head. He had cultivated for a thousand years, and his body was as strong as iron, but the pain in his chest felt utterly real.

The few short decades in the mortal world were no more than flowers reflected in a mirror and the moon in water, gone in the blink of an eye.

The bet had been made. He walked past her without so much as glancing her way, as if none of it had ever happened.

Theme: Break through the deadlock to survive, and walk toward the light