I Loved Him, but I Choose Power

[Currently revising the story. Bonus chapters are being updated. I'm not responsible for pirated copies.]

[The female lead is a virgin; the male lead is not. A highly capable, flirtatious woman × a powerful man who secretly loves her]

[After losing her memory, the heroine changes her name and pretends to be her own double. She's relatively oblivious until her memories return.]

[The male lead uses coercion early on, imitates her rival, and fabricates a romantic history with her. He suffers later.]

Blurb:

Cheng Yaoling was a fine daughter raised by a matrilineal clan, but an accident of bloodline led to her being reclaimed by a patriarchal society. For ten years, she saved the ruler, defended the frontier, and died far from home. She had repaid every kindness in full, and those she left behind were teachers and friends in life and death.

Some called her promiscuous, fickle, and faithless.

Some called her unfilial, disobedient to her clan, and guilty of forcing her mother into a convent.

Some called her bloodthirsty, and accused her of killing loyal and virtuous people to seize military honors.

But no matter how many rumors spread, three years after her death, they all returned to the dust.

When she returned to the capital, she had forgotten everything about her past and had become a rebel. To carry out a rebellion, she impersonated herself, spending every day rushing from one man to another to placate them and fighting with women.

What she didn't know was that every man she had placated had once hated her, and every woman she'd fought with had once loved her.

But it didn't matter. In this patriarchal society, deeply devoted men were the true enemies, while women who had once turned against one another would ultimately find their way to the same cause.

A new world was rising in their hands.

The male lead's perspective (romance):

At first, Cheng Yaoling eloped with someone, and Duan Tan burned everything connected to her. He hated her to the death.

Later, when he watched Cheng Yaoling propose to someone else, Duan Tan was so jealous he vomited blood. At last, he understood that he loved her so much it hurt.

But Cheng Yaoling suddenly died, and Duan Tan discovered that all she had left him was an old scar.

She knew nothing of all the love and hate he'd felt over the years. It was all as absurd as a joke.

Duan Tan had no choice but to become a calm madman. If they couldn't have a grand wedding, then they'd have a ghost wedding. If he couldn't be Cheng Yaoling's lover, then he'd be her widower.

When he missed her, he would tear open that old scar.

After all, if he couldn't shed tears for her, he could at least bleed for her.

But after Duan Tan spent years bleeding, she returned. She had changed her name, become a widow, lost her husband and child, and no longer even knew who she was...

Fortunately, Duan Tan would always recognize Cheng Yaoling. This time, even if it meant fabricating a romantic history and serving as her double, he would have all of her and all of her love.

P.S.:

1. A faux double-substitution trope, with a powerful male lead and an even more powerful female lead.

2. The male lead has secretly loved her for nine years and loves only her. There will be scenes of him suffering for love.

3. The female lead has a rich romantic history and truly loved all her exes, but she never goes back to them.

4. A melodramatic, all-consuming romance with a Mary Sue, strong female lead. She's not the typical career-focused heroine.

5. A very, very slight ensemble cast, major character reversals, and lots of plot foreshadowing.

6. Fictional history. No need to check it against real history.

A preview of another upcoming story

"The Human Empress Wants It All"

Three hundred years ago, Jiang Xuanli was the only mortal in the immortal sect. She humiliated a god.

Three hundred years after humanity went extinct, Jiang Xuanli reappeared in the world as the only human left in the Six Realms, and the last one as well.

Immortals, demons, devils, and ghosts used every trick in the book to pursue her, begging her to inherit the long-lost throne of the Human Emperor and restore the mortal world.

But she was having the time of her life. She held on to her power without taking the throne, and blew up every immortal who came looking for her like a firework.

Until, bored out of her mind, she encountered that god again. At last, she turned her gaze to him and asked with a smile:

"Dear husband, do you remember me?"

The wicked wife who made you fail your tribulation of love utterly, and shattered your Dao heart.

The incomparably handsome god stared at her for a long time before suddenly saying:

"I like you. I don't remember."

"I like you too," Jiang Xuanli said with a beaming smile. "I'll make you remember."

Then she took the god back to their old haunts, reliving their past together time and again.

She could hardly wait to see the look on his face when he remembered everything.

Unfortunately, she had mistaken the god for someone else.

Ji Hongxi was a god by birth: noble, radiant, perfect, and pure. To prove his divinity, he descended to the mortal world to undergo a tribulation of love, only to be toyed with by a mortal and nearly destroyed. From then on, he slept in the divine realm.

What he didn't know was that he had a twin brother named Xie Chenyan.

Xie Chenyan was greedy, dark, obsessive, and cruel, the opposite of his brother and the alternative chosen by the Heavenly Dao to inherit the divine throne.

As Ji Hongxi traveled through the Six Realms, Xie Chenyan had yet to take shape. He was imprisoned beneath the divine throne, unable to move or speak. No matter how unwilling he was, he could only watch all living beings through his brother's eyes.

They both fell in love with Jiang Xuanli.

As their divine powers waxed and waned, after Ji Hongxi fell asleep, Xie Chenyan couldn't wait to break free and descend to the mortal world.

But by then, spiritual energy in the mortal world was too thin to sustain a god, so his powers greatly weakened and he forgot his past.

Fortunately, he still met Jiang Xuanli.

Unfortunately, just as he and Jiang Xuanli were losing themselves in passion for the first time on their wedding night, Ji Hongxi, far away on his divine throne in the Great Firmament Heaven, opened his eyes, sharing the experience as he grew feverish, broke out in sweat, and writhed with unbearable desire.

Theme: The heroine remains true to herself in the struggle for power and ultimately brings peace and prosperity back to the land.