Only After Death Did I Learn Spring Had Come Early

[Marriage First, Love Later | The Aloof God Descends from His Pedestal | A Groveling Chase for Love]

Dao Yue had had enough of Ling Chunchi.

He was gentle and refined, humble and easygoing, a revered Lord among the immortals.

But in private, he was cold and merciless, treating human life as worthless. He had saved her only for his own amusement, summoning her whenever he pleased and dismissing her just as easily, like a dog he kept.

When he was bored, he would call her darling and have her play chess with him.

Yet when a raging fire broke out, he calmly withdrew his hand and watched her perish in the flames.

She begged him through her tears to save her. He replied coldly, "This is your fate."

Dao Yue was lucky enough to survive, but then she accidentally angered him and was punished with a trial by heavenly lightning.

Her hands and feet bound in iron chains, Dao Yue faintly heard someone relay a message: "The Lord says to keep the punishment going. If she dies, so be it."

She laughed bitterly. The one she had revered as a god had never once shown her compassion.

Luckily, she would not have to endure this anymore. She was going to descend to the mortal realm and be reborn.

*

Ling Chunchi sat alone all night, waiting for Dao Yue to come play chess with him. When he finally came to his senses, dawn was breaking.

He got up and returned to his bedchamber. The chess pieces were knocked over and scattered across the floor, and one of the white pieces Dao Yue liked to use had cracked.

His heart jolted. "Oh no..."

In the first half of his life, he treated all things as insignificant, without heart or feeling, indifferent to everything.

In the second half, he would spend the endless years he had left on a soul-deep journey of atonement.

*The heroine is reborn with her memories. The hero gets the most brutal groveling arc.

*The one in power lowers his head, and the aloof one descends from his pedestal.

*For readers who want to see how a cold-hearted hero learns to love: he really has no heart at first. One-on-one romance, both leads' first relationship, happy ending. (The blurb gives a misleading impression.)

Theme: Arrogance is a cocoon of one's own making