Breaking the Willow Branch

Upcoming novel: Taking My Sister-in-Law. Blurb at the end

Exclusively serialized on Jinjiang Literature City. We are not responsible for pirated copies.

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Not-quite-siblings / one-sided love | possessive love | melodrama | powerful man humbled by love

Cautious, timid, overlooked stepsister X cold, scheming heir

(PS: The heroine is a dependent brought along by her mother. She was never registered as part of the Marquis's household, and was never truly the hero's sister.)

The year Lu Chaoying was born, a foolish emperor ruled the land. The people were destitute, and rebellions erupted everywhere, plunging the realm into war.

When she was six, her father died in an accident. As her mother accompanied his coffin to the burial, she caught the eye of the newly victorious Marquis of Yingchuan. He took her into his household as a concubine, and Chaoying followed her mother there, becoming the most inconspicuous person in the manor.

A dependent brought along by a concubine, she walked with her shoulder nearly brushing the corridor pillars, like a slender willow growing in the shadows. Her one wish was to grow old enough to be betrothed, find a suitable husband, and spend the rest of her life tending to her husband and raising children.

She thought she was invisible in the Marquis's household, never realizing that a pair of eyes watched her from every shadow and every patch of light.

Fu Weiyan's bedroom was in the deepest courtyard of the manor. Outsiders merely said that the heir preferred quiet, but no one knew that a rosewood box was locked in a hidden compartment beside his bed.

He was in the habit of lighting a candle late at night and using a fine brush to sketch the shadow her eyelashes cast on her cheek when she lowered her eyes. The ink soaked into the paper, like the feelings he had buried for seven years.

Then one day, he heard his stepmother say that a matchmaker from the Meng family, a secretary at the Directorate of Education, had come to propose on behalf of their son. They would observe all the formal rites and bring Chaoying into their family.

Fu Weiyan snapped his brush in two. The rosewood box hit the floor with a clack, spilling countless portraits across the ground.

Every single one depicted Lu Chaoying's graceful figure.

At the spring banquet the next day, he blocked her path in the flower-lined corridor where she had gone to hide. A jade clasp threaded with willow strands was concealed in his sleeve. His fingertips brushed the wisps of new hair behind her ear.

"Are you getting married, little sister?" He smiled, but there was not a trace of warmth in his eyes. "What marriage in the world could be better than becoming your older brother's princess consort?"

The evening breeze carried willow blossoms onto his sleeve, like the madness he had hidden for years, finally about to spill out.

Both leads are sexually inexperienced. Set in a fictionalized version of the Ming dynasty. The exact dynasty and regions are unknown, so please don't nitpick the history.

Written to indulge the author's personal tastes. Please don't use it to make judgments about the author's values.

Upcoming novel: Taking My Sister-in-Law

[Forbidden love between a man and his brother's wife, marriage before love]

Stoic, scheming, rough-hewn steppe warrior X resilient, clever princess sent to marry abroad

Yuan Jiahe was the apple of Prince Jiangxia's eye. Had nothing gone wrong, she would have grown up like every other noble girl, reached marriageable age, been married off by her parents, and lived a quiet life.

But fate had other plans. When she was ten, Prince Jiangxia was implicated in a rebellion. Because she was a member of the imperial family, Yuan Jiahe was lucky enough to escape execution. She and her family were instead exiled to the imperial tombs.

When she was fifteen, the emperor, unwilling to wage war, signed a peace treaty and agreed to send a princess to marry into Northern Rong.

Though she had the title of princess, who would willingly leave her parents behind and spend her whole life in a barbarous land? Who would want to waste away there?

When the imperial decree came, everyone avoided the matter.

Only Yuan Jiahe looked at the mountains stretching beyond the imperial tombs, then at her little sister's fever-flushed cheeks, and made up her mind.

Going to Northern Rong might give her a chance to carve out a future for herself. It was better than waiting to die in a place like this and wasting her life.

The emperor was overjoyed when he received her petition. He gave her the title of Princess Chenghui, adopted her as his daughter, and promised to have her mother and sister brought out of the imperial tombs and treated with respect.

The Crown Prince escorted her north. As Yuan Jiahe watched the landscape grow more desolate, her unease deepened.

At the border between the two countries, Northern Rong gave her a humiliating welcome. The man she was promised to did not appear. Instead, he sent his younger brother to receive the bride on his behalf.

The young man was unruly. He shot an arrow that knocked off Yuan Jiahe's veil. "Sister-in-law, forgive me."

But when Yuan Jiahe looked up, the smile froze on his lips. He stood stunned in the bitter northern wind.

*

As the younger brother of the Khan of Northern Rong, Ashina Daiqing had always done as he pleased, living freely and without restraint.

The day the princess from the Central Plains arrived to marry into the family, his elder brother refused to go out and greet her, so he casually ordered Daiqing to go in his place.

At the border, he watched as servants helped the delicate princess down from the bridal carriage. Her scarlet wedding gown looked like rosy clouds on the horizon. A wicked impulse took hold, and he drew his bow and shot off her veil.

The princess did not panic at all. She lifted her head and stared at him coldly. "Is this how your country treats its guests?"

Her peerlessly beautiful face was branded into his heart from that moment on.

That night, he dreamed of her. In his dream, she smiled sweetly, her pale fingers lightly tracing the lapel of his robe.

When he woke, music and dancing filled the air outside. His attendant told him that the Khan and the princess were holding their wedding ceremony.

A jealousy he had never felt before took root in his heart.

She was clever and beautiful. She taught the herders to read and write, taught the shamans to identify medicinal herbs, and, after a white blizzard, petitioned the emperor of the Central Plains for supplies to help the people through the disaster.

His elder brother treasured her more and more. The sight of them always together nourished that seed, helping it take root and grow into vines that bound his heart tight.

The thorns on the vines pierced his heart, pouring in deadly poison.

At last, on a stormy night, he lifted the flap of her tent.

"Sister-in-law, my brother is gone. By the rules of the steppe, you are now my wife."

Theme: Staying by each other's side and living well together.