The Lone Isle's Returning Boat [Secret Identity Revealed]

Coming soon: Taming, a willful heiress x a restrained adopted son. Blurb at the end!

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Fresh back from a graduation trip abroad, Shu Yu is forced to take her older sister's place on a blind date.

Fuming, she tells the guy to his face that she smokes, drinks, and keeps male models. She makes up one outrageous story after another, waiting for him to run away.

But the man across from her stays perfectly calm. He simply pours her a cup of tea and says mildly:

"Miss Shu, it's hot out. Have some herbal tea and cool down."

Shu Yu: Oh no. I've finally met my match.

She takes a closer look and realizes he's extraordinarily handsome, with a captivating mole beneath his phoenix eyes. He's almost enough to steal her soul.

Finding him more and more interesting, Shu Yu's mischievous streak kicks in. She simply pretends to be her older sister and dates him for three months.

Then her identity is accidentally exposed. Shu Yu rushes over to explain, but before she can get a word out, she discovers to her astonishment...

The man who spent last night tangled up with her in bed wasn't her sister's blind date at all.

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After they break up, Tan Zhou thinks he and Shu Yu will never have anything to do with each other again.

Until one day, Shu Yu finds him and asks:

"Do you want to marry me?"

He says yes.

Shu Yu says this marriage is a business arrangement, and she doesn't like getting emotionally involved with business partners.

So she asks him whether he likes her, even a little.

Tan Zhou looks away and shakes his head. He lies.

He says he doesn't like her.

If liking her means losing her again, then he can try his best to pretend he doesn't like her.

He can lie to her one more time.

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[Bonus scene]

One day, after a tender night together, Shu Yu gets up and heads back to her room as usual.

Tan Zhou lets out a low laugh, sounding almost scornful.

"You sleep with me and leave every time. What do you take me for, a gigolo?"

"Whatever you think I am."

"We're legally married."

"We're getting divorced soon."

Dusk lingers, and the last light of day falls across the man's profile. His feelings are tangled in the dust drifting through the air.

The normally cool and distant man leans against the doorframe and finally bows his head to beg.

"I don't mind being your gigolo."

"Could you... stay?"

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Content warnings:

1. The heroine is not a virgin; the hero is. They will break up, then marry midway through the story. They have some feelings for each other when they marry, but not many. It's a partly marriage-first, love-later romance.

2. Both leads have their own careers and aren't consumed by romance (the hero gets a little that way later on).

3. The company and business details come from the author's immature imagination and unreliable research. Please point out any inaccuracies.

4. The setting serves the story and is not intended to reflect real life.

Coming soon: Taming. Here's the blurb. If you're interested, please check it out in my author profile!

When Shan Gui was twelve, her father brought home a boy and told her, "From now on, he'll be your older brother."

The boy stood with his hands at his sides, his features cool and distant. He raised his eyes slightly and glanced over her face.

Shan Gui curled her fingers tightly beneath her sleeves. She glanced at the boy's thin shirt, washed almost threadbare but spotless, then turned halfway away and gave a one-word reply:

"Oh."

-

Shan Gui never calls Nan Du "Brother."

For many years, the words she says to him most often are:

"Nan Du, help me."

So he's gotten into fights for her, taken the blame for her, and done her homework. The list goes on and on.

In her sophomore year of college, her father finds an opened box of condoms in Shan Gui's car and demands an explanation. Shan Gui looks at Nan Du, standing not far away, and smiles serenely as she silently mouths:

"Help me."

Without a moment's hesitation, Nan Du walks straight toward them. He pulls up the payment record for the box he bought for her and her boyfriend last time and shows it to her father.

"I'm sorry, Uncle." He stays composed, one shoulder partly in front of her. "They were mine."

-

Later, Nan Du gets his hands on the same kind of foil packet.

He holds it between two fingers and waves it in front of Shan Gui.

"Is this the box I bought?"

Shan Gui's mind has wandered. She can't think straight and answers on instinct.

"I don't think... so."

Dark clouds cover the moon, and the last sliver of light in the room vanishes in an instant.

Shan Gui lifts her face slightly, then suddenly shivers.

A thin stream of warm breath brushes her ear.

"Yinyin, are you using the ones another man bought on me?"

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Content warnings:

1. The heroine is not a virgin; the hero is. The heroine has several ex-boyfriends.

2. No wealthy-family background. The heroine's family is comfortably well-off by ordinary standards.

3. The leads aren't on the same household register and aren't blood-related. She was simply fostered in his family.

Premise: Live life with optimism.