Taming a Brooding Man

■ The story is complete! Please leave a rating, everyone. The blurb for my next book, My Tsundere Little Brother Makes an Alt Account to Pursue Me, is below!

■ Black Lotus × Brooding, Possessive Man

■ Reunion after a long separation | Rekindled romance

Li He first saw Ruan Li by a secluded lake at A University in the UK.

She appeared in his line of sight in a white dress.

He watched her say goodbye with a kiss to a rich senior one moment, then accept a designer handbag from a junior the next.

Through the swaying shadows of the trees, their gazes met in silence.

Ruan Li smiled faintly, raised her slender finger to her red lips, and gestured for him to keep quiet.

From then on, the light, fluttering hem of her dress was imprinted deep in Li He's eyes.

*

The next time he saw Ruan Li was at a friend's villa party.

His friend bragged that he was dating a goddess who could pass for the campus belle, then urged Li He to find a girlfriend too instead of living like a monk.

Li He said nothing and excused himself to go to the bathroom.

A wall stood between them. Outside, friends chatted and clinked glasses. In a shadowy corner inside, two figures were entwined.

Li He had cornered Ruan Li, who was alone, against the wall. His shadow engulfed her, and the palm of his hand bore red marks from where she'd bitten him.

At the sight of Ruan Li's flushed face, Li He's cool, aloof expression softened like melting ice, and a faint smile appeared.

At last,

he raised a hand to his lips and repeated her gesture, giving a quiet shush.

"You don't want your boyfriend finding out about our secret, do you, baby?"

Ruan Li has three secrets.

First, her image as a rich, beautiful goddess is fake.

Second, only one eccentric weirdo knows her secret.

Third, she's started a secret relationship with that weirdo.

Li He is devious, obsessive, and shameless.

Ruan Li is vain, hypocritical, and pretentious.

They are a perfect match.

*The heroine is flawed: materialistic, vain, a liar, and lacking in morals.

*The hero is no good either: intensely brooding and possessive. The heroine is his whole world.

*Set in a fictional foreign country. The hero has no sexual experience; the heroine does. Younger man and older woman.

Here's a preview of my upcoming sweet older-sister/younger-brother romance, My Tsundere Little Brother Makes an Alt Account to Pursue Me.

Jiang Baiqing has an annoying little brother named Xiao Zhu.

To outsiders, he's a cold, aloof beauty on a high peak. To her, he's a sharp-tongued pain in the neck.

Jiang Baiqing thinks his only good point is that he has a handsome roommate.

When Jiang Baiqing asks her brother for his roommate's WeChat, Xiao Zhu gives her a cold glance. "He wouldn't like an idiot like you."

Jiang Baiqing smiles. "Want to make a bet?"

Xiao Zhu says nothing. His eyes dart away, and something strange flickers across his face.

Winning over her crush isn't as hard as she'd imagined. After a month of chatting on WeChat, Jiang Baiqing turns him from a taciturn cool guy into a clingy puppy.

She holds up a screen full of her crush's clingy messages and smiles sweetly at Xiao Zhu, gloating:

"You lost the bet. Remember to wash my dirty clothes for a month~"

For some reason, Xiao Zhu's cheeks turn faintly red. After a long pause, he manages to choke out two words.

"...Idiot."

What she doesn't know is that,

since the night he came of age and dreamed of his sister in a compromising situation, Xiao Zhu has bought two phones.

One is for normal communication.

The other is full of secretly taken photos of her.

Through countless sleepless nights, his forbidden possessiveness toward her grows like mold in the damp.

He's jealous of everyone around her, but can only open the WeChat alt account he used to chat with her for a month and type, then delete, his messages over and over.

Later,

in the tenth year of Xiao Zhu's secret crush on Jiang Baiqing,

she finally discovers his second phone.

Premise: Love gives people courage.