After Spending a Night with My Brother

[Next book: Raised in Turn by My Twin Childhood Friends. Please add it to your favorites!] Li Tingyuan once did something wrong. Before leaving the capital, she spent one night of passion with Cui Zhuo, the cool and upright elder brother of her close friend. Fortunately, the man had been drugged and was not in his right mind. He had no idea who the woman he'd shared that night with was. Three years later, a calamity befell her family. With nowhere else to turn, Li Tingyuan returned to the capital and sought out the Cui family. Cui's mother pitied her for being alone and considered taking her in as a daughter. Three years had passed, and Cui Zhuo was now the head of the Cui household. When his mother brought up the matter, he glanced at Li Tingyuan from beneath lowered lashes, his expression indifferent, and casually delivered his verdict: “The Cui family has been distinguished for generations, a great noble house. This girl is lowborn and cannot be entered in the family register. Mother can take her as an adopted daughter.” - Li Tingyuan thought Cui Zhuo disliked her. He never looked her in the eye. When she and her friend were caught sneaking into the kitchen at midnight for a snack, Cui Zhuo let her friend go but made her grind ink for him in the study until dawn. When the top scholar came to propose, he had made it clear that he wanted to marry the Cui family's adopted daughter. But Cui Zhuo ignored the difference in their status and married off one of his own cousins to that handsome, promising young scholar first. Li Tingyuan couldn't endure another day of the harsh life in the Cui residence. She waited and waited until Cui Zhuo finally went south to investigate a case. Taking advantage of his absence, she begged Cui's mother to arrange a marriage for her. But on the night before the betrothal gifts were to be delivered, Cui Zhuo, who should still have been on the road, suddenly appeared in her room. The man's features were cold and stern. He advanced step by step, gripping her wrist. His voice was hoarse from the long journey as he asked solemnly: “After sharing a bed with me, you still dare to marry someone else?” “Li Tingyuan, if you've forgotten what happened three years ago, I don't mind helping you remember it again tonight.” * Upcoming story 1: Raised in Turn by My Twin Childhood Friends Jiang Ningxi has two twin childhood friends who are ten years older than her. A fortune-teller predicted that she must not enter the capital before turning eighteen, so her parents sent her to live with the twins' family from the day she was born. But she could never tell them apart by their faces, and had to distinguish them by their personalities. The elder brother, Zhou Yu'an, was gentle and refined, patiently teaching her everything. She even learned to write her own name sitting on Zhou Yu'an's lap, his hand guiding hers stroke by stroke. He was also the first to know when she got her first period. He gently calmed her when she was frightened and confused and prepared sanitary cloths for her. The younger brother, Zhou Yanjing, had a foul temper and a rebellious streak, and was always making her angry. He once snapped a flower branch someone had given her, then insisted on giving her a bunch of begonias she didn't like. Whenever it was cold, he would crawl into her bed with icy clothes and use her as a foot warmer. As the years went by, Jiang Ningxi naturally came to like Zhou Yu'an more. - When she was sixteen, her parents arranged a marriage for her with a family in the distant capital. When the news reached the Zhou residence, Zhou Yanjing tied her onto a horse and galloped all the way to a cliff. He said nothing, his face cold and grim. More than once, Jiang Ningxi thought they would both plunge into the abyss. Terrified, she went to find Zhou Yu'an as soon as he returned to the residence that night, throwing herself into his arms for comfort. Zhou Yu'an gently patted her back and coaxed her: “Zhou Yanjing is so bad. From now on, Ningning won't want him anymore. You'll only want Big Brother Yu'an, all right?” Jiang Ningxi nodded against his chest, wanting him to kiss her as he always had. Just then, someone lifted the brocade curtain to the inner room. A refined-looking man curled his lips into a smile. “See? I told you she can't tell us apart at all.” Jiang Ningxi turned in surprise to look at the person holding her, but he seized her chin. Zhou Yanjing's voice was dark and menacing. “Jiang Ningxi, how dare you even think of not wanting me?” Zhou Yu'an also slowly stepped forward and gently stroked her hair, his tone still mild. “How can you say she doesn't want you? She doesn't want either of us. But Ningning, after all this time, you still can't tell me and Yanjing apart. Don't you think you deserve a little punishment?” [One heroine, two heroes; age gap] [Soft, adorable, and alluring little sister versus refined schemer versus wild and untamed rogue] [The two male leads sometimes share each other's sensations] Upcoming story 2: Elder Sister After Yu Wanqiao was murdered, her spirit wandered the human world. Only then did she learn that the one who ultimately ascended the throne was her sixth younger brother, Yu Chengyuan, whom their father and mother had always neglected. Her younger brother was a bona fide madman. He murdered his brothers to seize the throne, ruled with a murderous hand, and was volatile and unpredictable. He even sent people to dig up her grave and placed her coffin in his bedchamber. Not long afterward, he set fire to the place, burning himself and her coffin together. - Reborn, the first thing Yu Wanqiao did was go to the cold palace to get rid of the “madman,” who had yet to gain any power. But when she saw him on a snowy night, dressed in rags and lying in the snow while palace maids and eunuchs trampled and tormented him, her heart softened. From then on, she secretly protected him for years. Under her guidance, he shed his violent nature and became as obedient and sweet as any other child his age. Until the year Yu Wanqiao turned eighteen, when an imperial edict ordering her to marry into a foreign country arrived at her Zhaohua Palace. That night, a violent storm raged as a figure burst into her bedchamber. A flash of lightning illuminated the dark, anguished expression on Yu Chengyuan's face. Rain streamed from the hem of the young man's black robe, and a thick stench of blood clung to him. Yu Wanqiao felt as if she were seeing that cold, isolated boy from the past all over again. She rose to greet him, but before she could speak, he pressed her against the desk and stole her first kiss. He pinned her down like a madman. Amid the roar of thunder, he begged in a trembling, anguished voice, “Sister, please don't abandon Chengyuan.” Theme: Love must be sincere.