After My Stepson Took Me by Force

Powerful and influential stepson x aloof, ruthless widow

1. Jin Zhi poisoned her husband with her own hands.

On the day of the funeral, her stepson Xie Xun returned from his post away from home.

After ten years away, Xie Xun had become a trusted aide to the emperor and the foremost figure in the Xie family.

Beneath the drooping white mourning banners, he bowed respectfully. The guests praised him as the pride of the Xie family: disciplined, courteous, and as warm as jade.

The incense in the mourning hall was overpowering, yet Xie Xun leaned toward her.

“Mother, your hem is wrinkled.”

His fingertips settled on her skirt, the pads brushing her ankle.

Jin Zhi suddenly remembered the flash of a robe hem outside the door as her husband drew his last breath.

He was the only one who had returned to the manor that day.

2.

Xie Xun had never liked his father's second wife.

A daughter of humble birth, with delicate features as faint as mist and smoke, she had nevertheless become the matriarch of the Xie family.

Before leaving home, he had once passed the study and heard a woman inside the door stifling a mournful moan.

Xie Xun had paused, thinking coldly: Shameless.

Ten years later, the widow knelt before the mourning altar in plain white robes, her grief as pure as snow, tears poised to fall. She was so aloof she seemed like a flower blooming in a place untouched by sunlight.

Xie Xun watched her from afar beneath the covered walkway, and suddenly felt his throat tighten.

In the Buddha hall late at night, Jin Zhi knelt before the Buddha, turning prayer beads in her fingers, her profile as cold as white jade.

“Madam.” Xie Xun advanced step by step, his knee pressing against her cushion. His breath brushed her ear, and his voice dropped so low only she could hear: “You killed him. You ought to repay me for it.”

Jin Zhi stiffened all over, and the prayer beads scattered from her hand.

His fingertips slipped beneath the sash of her plain white robe, inch by inch.

“Killing your husband violates human morality. It is an outrage against heaven and reason.”

“You have already done the first, ”

His gaze burned like fire.

“Why not do the second?”

[Reading Guide]

1. Female lead, male lead C, 1v1, happy ending, an unconventional forced romance, with both leads tormenting each other.

2. The father dies from the start. There was no romantic relationship while he was alive.

Theme: Resisting feudal moral codes