Heartbeats on the Wedding Day [Marriage Before Love]

My next novel, Steal the Little Fish, is now underway!

A gentle, capable fiance / a scheming, brooding faux-stepbrother. The male lead has no morals at all.

Please add it to your collection! The blurb is at the end!

This novel: Heartbeats at the Wedding

Both are sexually inexperienced / Married first, fall in love later / An aloof, reserved man lowers himself to seduce her step by step / Rivals competing for the wife / Sweet romance at 200 kilometers per hour

Mi Yanyan is forced into a blind date. Her match is from the Shi family of Nancheng, a prestigious family of doctors and pharmaceutical magnates.

Shi Zekai frowns at the roar of motorcycles outside the floor-to-ceiling window. Conservative and old-fashioned, he tells her that he expects his future wife to behave herself. Mi Yanyan slips her motorcycle key into her bag and pulls her clothes down to cover the design on her waist. Her profile is snow-white and luminous. Beneath her gentle, ethereal smile, she rolls her eyes as soon as he looks away.

A few meters away, a dignified, indifferent man takes it all in. Someone reminds him, “Shi Jingzhou, forget it. She's the woman your older brother is marrying for the sake of an alliance.”

Shi Jingzhou's lips curve almost imperceptibly.

“So what? Think bigger.”

Just as Mi Yanyan is about to leave, the chair opposite her scrapes back and turns around. A man strides over and sits down. He is the younger son of the Shi family, worlds apart from his stuffy, celibate older brother. He is single-mindedly profit-seeking and carefree.

“Marry me. Do whatever you want after we're married. I won't interfere.”

==

From the heroine's perspective:

It was only after they got married that she learned Shi Jingzhou was a notorious ambitious man in the business world. If he couldn't get something, he'd take it by force.

His specialty was taking advantage of people in a tight spot. His hobby was giving private lessons.

He gave up his long-term hotel suite and came home on time every day. He never missed a single one of his duties as a husband.

“Curfew at our house is ten. You're twenty-seven minutes late. Ten minutes counts as one, so rounded up, that's three.” In the quiet of the night, the man leans against the door and taps his watch. The smile on his lips is hard to read.

Mi Yanyan's long legs go weak. She wraps her coat around herself, hiding the tight, extra-short camisole beneath it, and protests in a small voice, “You promised before we got married that you wouldn't interfere with my life.”

“Only take a man's words with a grain of salt. Be good. Let's go home and do your homework.”

Pleasure coats the tip of her tongue like a small dose of poison. Bubbles rise in a witch's crystal vial. An indefatigable snake coils around her belly, searching through a hundred acres of flowers for the most bewitching blood-red rose.

The once-enchanting incense has changed its scent. A sweet, metallic fragrance fills the air, and the pleasure lingers.

“Fine.” Shi Jingzhou gives in completely. “What else do you want? Just ask.”

Mi Yanyan tugs on his shirt. “I might need a choker, too.”

From the male lead's perspective:

Half a month after they got their marriage license, Shi Jingzhou runs into his wife at a bar and realizes she doesn't remember him at all. She mistakes him for his older brother.

A month into living together, Shi Jingzhou discovers that half the books on her entire study bookshelf are professional books given to her by a man whose name starts with X.

Right now, downstairs, a childhood friend with a name starting with X is showing off his abs to her, all over each other.

The first time he picks her up from work, an old classmate whose name starts with X appears before him. He and his wife are laughing and chatting as they work together.

After more than half a year of this, he finally discovers he's gotten everything wrong. The real X's flight will land in ten minutes.

“Wifey, that's finally the last one, right?”

“Maybe not. Keep trying.”

==

Steal the Little Fish

Homewrecker romance | Scheming man rises to the top | Reunited after years apart, faux siblings pretend to be strangers

In a small northern city in winter, Cheng Yu only sees the message after her shower: [I haven't left.]

It was sent fifty minutes ago, while she was enjoying the unexpected surprise of her boyfriend showing up.

She passes her half-asleep boyfriend by the bed, closes the bedroom door, and lowers her voice to ask the man outside, “Did you hear everything?”

Cheng Xingnan's gaze fixes on the red marks on her collarbone. The intimate, breathless sounds that had just faded from his ears come to life again in his mind.

He recalls the tingling ache of probing a loose baby tooth with his tongue, and the taste of blood after it was forcefully pushed out.

People live out their lives with their permanent teeth. They are hard, with full crowns, and push through with unstoppable force, displacing the stubborn residents that came before them.

==

Cheng Yu always thought the fish in the house were ones Cheng Xingnan had randomly bought at the pet market, until only one remained in the glass tank: a jewel-blue fish with zebra stripes.

She clicked her tongue. “This fish really doesn't fit in.”

Cheng Xingnan merely smiled. How could a cichlid from Lake Malawi allow other species to invade its territory?

The person stolen away from him: even if he has to steal her back, he'll get her back.

Later, he discovers the fish isn't male.

Turns out he is the clownfish who gets eaten down to the bone.

==

Cheng Yu has graduated from university and settled into a stable career. Her boyfriend is her older brother Cheng Xingnan's best friend, and their relationship is peaceful and happy.

At her boyfriend's parents' dinner, she and Cheng Xingnan sit together, maintaining the outward peace between siblings.

No one knows how much of a weakness lies hidden in Cheng Yu's graceful, warm smile.

Under the flower-filled dining table, Cheng Xingnan holds her hand and asks her something utterly absurd: “Do you still love me, Cheng Yu?”

Cheng Yu feels as though a blade is at her throat. She can barely bring herself to recall how, years ago, she asked Cheng Xingnan if he liked her.

He had laughed with arrogant disdain and said, “Does your big brother look that stupid?”

Later, behind the door at dusk,

someone else brings the unexpected surprise.

Cheng Xingnan gets down on one knee and does everything he can to please her, but can't win even a single smile from Cheng Yu.

All he can do is call her childhood nickname again and again, trying to squeeze his way back into her coral reef.

“I was the stupid one. Punish me however you want.”

A few notes:

The leads are not related by blood. The heroine has no sexual experience, while the hero has had no previous partners.

The professions are written as realistically as possible. If you spot an error, feel free to point it out politely.

Theme: Loving someone means loving every part of them