Du Xingzhou

[Honey-coated poison, frosty Xue Meiniang x jade-faced, black-hearted, flirtatious fox]

In the thirty-second year of Yongkang, Jiang Xingzhou pins Feng Yi against the window of a high tower as he watches her burn down everything she has worked for.

He leans close to her ear, his breath domineering as it slips inside: "Come back with me, or stay here. You choose."

Choose? Does she even have a choice? This lunatic is even crazier than he was three years ago!

Feng Yi turns and wraps her arms around his neck. Her almond eyes curve up, her dimples brimming with sweetness. "I'll go back with you. From now on, I beg you, dear cousin... be gentle with me..."

She offers him her red lips, but beneath her gaze, dark currents surge: Jiang Xingzhou, why do you have to push me?

If that's how it is, then let's fight to the death, shall we?

*

Five years ago, Feng Yi transmigrated into her own book and became the nominal cousin of Jiang Xingzhou, the deranged second male lead.

The reason she transmigrated was ridiculous: because she'd tormented the second male lead too cruelly, the "Save the Second Male Lead" System caught her. Her mission was to give Jiang Xingzhou a happy ending. After explaining the task, the System vanished without a trace, leaving her not even a single hair's worth of a golden finger.

To complete her mission and go home, she did everything she could to match Jiang Xingzhou with the original female lead.

But matchmaking costs money!

She rolled up her sleeves and went back to her old line of work. Whatever paid quickly, she wrote, including the kind of stories that wouldn't pass censorship.

One day, while working on a manuscript in a pavilion, Feng Yi chuckled...

A voice sounded softly behind her: "Peach pastry, tender willow, lovers deep; flowers bloom, dew gathers, and spring breezes sleep."

Jiang Xingzhou toyed with her hair, his jade-like face smiling. "Cousin, what does this poem mean? Why don't you explain it to your cousin in detail tonight, hmm?"

She's done for!

Her secret identity is exposed, and it's this secret identity of all things!

Weren't they supposed to be setting him up with his one true love?

That look in the lunatic's eyes...

*

Jiang Xingzhou knew perfectly well why his stepmother had brought Feng Yi to him. She was just some trinket she wanted to foist on him, not worth his attention.

But one day, this little trinket got a new soul. He lifted an eyebrow, intrigued. He wondered whether his new cousin was a ghost or a demon.

One day, while he was playing the qin, he saw her gazing at him from a distance. Suddenly she smacked the back of her own hand, then crouched down and curled herself into a ball. She looked just like the cat he'd raised years ago, or the soft, sweet Xue Meiniang dessert he'd had at lunch.

For some inexplicable reason, his hands itched to pet her! His teeth itched to bite her!

Who could have guessed that this Xue Meiniang would be bold enough to write erotic stories, and bold enough to... run away?!

But in the end, he begs in a low voice: "Yiyi, please love me one more time!"

*

Everyone says that Jiang Xingzhou, heir to the Marquis of Jing'an, is pure as the moon, elegant as an orchid, gentle as jade, refined as bamboo, and equally accomplished in letters and arms, a rare immortal-like gentleman in this world.

Ha! As if!

Feng Yi wants nothing more than to rip away his false front. He's clearly a lecher! A libertine! A shameless pervert! A flirtatious fox who's always in heat!

Behind the bed curtains, this scoundrel coaxes her into trying all 108 positions from her own notes, and has her recite the erotic verses she wrote again and again.

*

Someone asks Jiang Xingzhou what Feng Yi is to him.

He smiles. "She's my comeuppance!"

What a coincidence. Feng Yi says the same thing: "He's my comeuppance!"

Reading Notes:

1. One-on-one romance, both leads are virgins. The male lead has no romantic storyline with the original female lead.

2. Includes possessive romance, a redemption arc, and the female lead taming the male lead. Read with care if that's not for you! The story begins when she fakes her death and is found.

3. The male lead is a complete bastard!

4. Happy ending, yes!

5. Neither lead is perfect.

6. No female rivalry.

Theme: Be the author of your own life