After Breaking Off My Engagement with My Aloof Cousin

After Grand Tutor Wen passed away, all that remained of the Wen family was Wen Qinghan, an orphan with nothing but her beauty.

With the only keepsake she had left, she entered the Xie residence, a desperate and awkward dependent seeking shelter.

At the other end of the betrothal was Xie Chiyu, the man everyone in the capital looked up to:

The emperor's nephew, a Vice Minister of the Court of Judicial Review, and a handsome judge untouched by romance.

Noble and self-possessed, he looked at her as indifferently as if she were an old possession.

The day they first met, the spring rain was chilly, and her dress was soaked as she stood beneath the eaves.

He passed by without slowing.

She lowered her gaze, not daring to look at that refined figure.

She didn't dare entertain even the slightest hope of having him, yet she couldn't suppress her innermost longing for him.

She flirted with abandon and lost herself in her fantasies.

"Cousin..." By day, she addressed him with proper respect, but by night, she indulged in every kind of fantasy.

Until the day she decided to set herself free.

If she couldn't reach for the unattainable flower on the mountain peak, she would choose a good man and live a peaceful life.

After ending their verbal betrothal,

she began accepting invitations from her childhood friend, the heir to a noble house. She accepted a poem from the Minister of Revenue's nephew, and even secretly began embroidering a wedding dress.

Xie Chiyu saw it all.

He watched her smile at other men, accept their gifts, and twirl red thread between her fingers as she embroidered a sachet for someone else.

He remained cool and self-possessed, reviewing case files and handling important matters.

But the brush in his hand snapped three times in a single night.

Everything changed on the night her marriage was arranged.

It was only when he saw her hand the mandarin-duck handkerchief she had embroidered to another man

that he crushed the marriage she had not yet made, all in a single night.

"Cousin, your marriage," Xie Chiyu said, placing a jade pendant gently beside her pillow, his voice so tender it made her tremble, "was always meant to be with me."

Before the betrothal gifts from the man's family had even entered the residence, a group of black-clad guards silently flooded in.

In less than the time it takes an incense stick to burn halfway, all the gifts had vanished without a trace, the matchmaker was trembling in fear, and the heir who was her childhood friend...

"He came down with a sudden illness last night," Xie Chiyu casually remarked over breakfast the next morning. "His whole family has left the capital to recuperate."

She stood before him, ice-cold all over.

He unhurriedly wiped his fingers clean and looked up at her:

"Qinghan," he suddenly smiled, though the smile never reached his eyes. "You wanted a peaceful life. Could I not give you that?"

That night, she was brought into his study.

The room was filled with candlelight. He sat behind his desk, with the wedding dress she had embroidered for someone else spread out before him.

The golden-thread mandarin ducks were painful to look at.

"I hear you want to get married." His voice was very soft, but the scissors in his hand gleamed coldly.

The wedding dress was torn to pieces in his hands.

He rose and walked toward her, his fingertips brushing her deathly pale face.

"Then get married."

"Marry me."

She was horrified to discover

that the eyes that had always been so calm and composed were now filled with a madness she had never seen before.

Later, everyone in the capital learned:

The Vice Minister of the Court of Judicial Review, who had never shown interest in women, had married an orphan living under his roof.

He clipped all her wings, yet gently wiped away her tears when she cried:

"Qinghan, you should have known from the start..."

"From the day you stepped into the Xie residence, you could only ever belong to me."

Skin hunger syndrome x a restrained, aloof man who turns possessive

Reader's Guide:

1. The female lead has a severe case of skin hunger and often makes overly intimate advances toward the male lead. She pursues him in the beginning; later, he goes mad with jealousy and obsession.

2. One-on-one romance / both leads are virgins / happy ending.

3. The female lead isn't clever, but she has a clear-eyed view of herself (or so she thinks; she doesn't, actually).

4. There's very little plot, almost none. What there is serves the romance between the leads.

5. This novel is set in a fictional dynasty, with elements mixed together from many different eras.

The first version of this blurb was written on November 13, 2025, and revised on January 10, 2026. It has been archived and documented.

----------------Pre-release blurb for "Imprisoning the Imperial Sister"----------------

Wei Shu was the one variable he had miscalculated on his path to imperial power.

He was the Great Jing dynasty's most calculating crown prince, always plotting several moves ahead.

When Cui Congyu brought her into the palace, everyone praised the crown prince's benevolence for taking in the orphaned daughter of a general who had died in battle.

Only he knew what a brilliant move it was.

He would use her innocence to highlight the imperial family's "kindness" and cover up the hypocrisy of the entire dynasty.

"Your imperial brother treats you best of all."

Wei Shu believed him.

After losing her memory, she was like a blank sheet of paper. She would fall asleep without a care, resting her head on his knees in the study late at night. At palace banquets, she would get drunk and curl up in his arms, blinking up at him as she softly asked, "Imperial Brother, will you always stay with me?"

He watched coldly, enjoying her complete dependence, as if taming a songbird he had chosen himself.

Until the night she came of age, when moonlight filled the courtyard.

She suddenly tugged on his sleeve and looked up, her eyes full of innocence. "Imperial Brother, they say... I'm going to get married soon."

"Does getting married mean spending the rest of your life with one person, never to be separated?"

She paused, her voice as light as a butterfly's wing. "Then... can I marry Lin Lang?"

The white-jade hairpin he had been using to arrange her hair snapped in his palm without warning.

Blood trickled between his fingers, but he didn't feel a thing.

It turned out the songbird he had personally tamed had silently pecked through his heart long ago.

Later, her memories came rushing back like a flood.

The blood in the general's residence, the brutal deaths of her parents, and his face, terrifyingly calm in the firelight...

"Imperial Brother, let me go."

For the first time, she looked at him with fear.

But he only smiled and wiped away her tears, fastening a golden chain around her ankle.

"Shu'er, you should have understood when you turned sixteen."

"From the day you entered the Eastern Palace, the only person you could have for the rest of your life was me."

"You promised you'd always stay by my side."

He imprisoned her deep in the palace, keeping her from all contact with other people.

His ministers called him immoral, and the entire realm condemned him as a madman.

Yet late at night, he gripped her chin, his eyes bloodshot with obsession:

"Tell me, who do you want to marry now?"

She trembled and said nothing.

He chuckled and kissed away the tear at the corner of her eye.

"Good girl. Say, 'I will marry only my imperial brother.'"

Theme: Love can withstand anything.