The Third Year of Marrying Up

Reserved, serene noblewoman x unrestrained, freewheeling young general

As dynasties rose and fell, the once-prosperous Cui family gradually declined.

To keep the Cui family among the capital's great houses, its head swallowed his pride and went to the Xie family, claiming that he and the old marquis had once verbally agreed to a marriage.

The old Marquis Xie was dead, and the Xie family had no choice but to honor the engagement and take the Cui daughter as a bride.

Cui Tanxue was a daughter of the Cui family. Like her sisters, she had been made to learn music, chess, calligraphy, and painting from childhood, all in the hope of winning the favor of her future husband's family.

But her husband did not seem to like her much. The very day after their wedding, he left the capital to guard the border.

He did not return until three years later.

*

When Xie Zhu was young, he was forced to marry Cui Tanxue. He disliked the Cui family, and that extended to his wife.

In his eyes, the wife he had married three years earlier was proper in everything she did, with a gentle, quiet temperament and utterly dull manners.

Still, because she took care of every detail for him and always thought of his needs, he was willing to give her the dignity due to the heir's wife.

Until one day, he overheard her laughing with a friend.

He discovered that she was not as reserved as she seemed. She could joke and play around with others, and confide in them about the misery of being married to him.

She had once pursued what she wanted without hesitation, and he was the shackle holding her back.

He did not care about any of that.

But when he heard her laughingly say she did not like husbands younger than herself, Xie Zhu clenched his fists, his eyes reddening in an instant.

So he had not been the only one unwilling on their wedding day.

So she did not like him...

Reading guide

1. One-on-one romance, both virgins, happy ending, marriage first and love later

2. The heroine is twenty-two, and the hero is nineteen.

3. The hero is pure in body and heart. He's stubborn, but pursues his wife.

4. The dynasty's official system and customs are a hodgepodge. The setting is intentionally vague, so please don't fact-check it.

Coming soon, an older woman-younger man romance: "The Art of Adornment"

Full-figured, glamorous older beauty x pure-hearted puppy who can't handle being flirted with

Yan Yuzi knows her fiance, the young master of the Helan family, doesn't like her. He's in love with someone else and sees her as a plague.

Fortunately, the two families only have a verbal engagement, which can be called off at any time.

Yan Yuzi finds an opportunity to tell him that their marriage is off. Who knew she would accidentally ruin his romance?

Worse, everyone misunderstands and thinks she loves him deeply and cannot live without him. The two families believe the rumors and quickly arrange their wedding.

*

Helan Yin has always thought Yan Yuzi looks like a femme fatale. She's not only vain, but also scheming.

She's always one way to his face and another behind his back. She first tells him she isn't interested, then turns around and makes people think there's something between them.

She left him no choice but to marry her.

After they wed, they agreed to go their separate ways behind closed doors. But first she took his bed, and then she started meddling in his affairs.

No matter how much he resisted, she always looked at him with a smile, sometimes with an emotion in her eyes he couldn't understand.

Just as he began to lose himself in her tenderness, disaster struck the Helan family. Yan Yuzi left a divorce agreement and ran away.

So the emotion in her eyes had been guilt, used to manipulate him.

Helan Yin gripped the divorce agreement, his eyes red with rage.

*

Yan Yuzi finally escaped the people and troubles of the capital and began a quiet life in a remote place.

One day, while chatting with a neighbor, she had barely begun speaking when the neighbor tried to set her up with his younger brother.

She smiled. "Older men are better. They know how to treat you, unlike younger ones."

As soon as she finished speaking, she noticed her neighbor fall silent while looking behind her. She turned around and met the eyes of a man who had shed his youthful awkwardness.

His face was dark. "You like older men, Big Sister?"

Helan Yin was barely holding back his anger.

Not only had she abandoned him when he was in dire straits, she even wanted to find someone else?

Theme: Where mountains end and rivers flow, the wind rises and harvests abound.