Extra Pages: The Author's Odyssey - Chapter 330: Hidden doungen [6]

As the original heroine in the novel, Lin Yueqi’s life was made a complete mess by the traitorous female side leads: her top millionaire husband wanted to divorce her, her daughter became a villain, and the internet users wanted her to leave the entertainment industry.

Female side lead #1 brought her own magnificent and beautiful traitorous persona. Female side lead #2 transmigrated over and became the villain’s mother.

Female side lead #3 was even more extreme… In the end, her career and family were ruined and she died from excess of anger.

Lin Yueqi transmigrated to before the nightmares began, but she only had her memory up to when she was 17! She was dumbstruck. As an unfavorable heroine, Lin Yueqi found it more important to survive. She decided to give up her daughter and her top millionaire husband and retreat to being a stranger, staying far away from the goldfinger female side leads!

She spread rumors of her loveless marriage with her husband and how she picked up a child in order to swindle herself into a marriage. She decided to squander her luck with strangers and believed that she could almost successfully retreat from the heroine position when the negative news about her on the internet were cleared!

Her husband, Lu Ting, came looking for her with their daughter, saying sternly, “Madame Lu, we have a loveless marriage? That’s not what you were saying when we were in bed.”

Her daughter pursed her lips and sobbed, patting her stomach with her chubby hands. “Mummy, you said that you picked me up! This bun’s heart is aching!”

Lu Yueqi glanced at the little girl who hugged her stomach while crying, causing her heart to ache as well.

Heh. How could she have given birth to such… a cunning little girl?! She must’ve picked her up! She refused to be the stepmother!

(Rebirth + Business warfare + Pampering spouse + Dog food)Investing today? I've got more important things to handle.Financial crisis? Not my problem; anyhow, I won't be losing money.Huh? This stone of yours is pretty nice, wait for a call at home!Xiao Ming closed the door, turned around, and took out a fist-sized diamond: “Honey, let's grind this into a ball for the kids to play with!”

He was tired of being broke. Tired of pretending. Tired of watching others win a game he didn't even understand.But when a failed job interview leads Alex into the world of a mysterious millionaire, he’s thrown into a hidden war, one where money isn't just earned… it's engineered.Guided by Uncle Raymond, a man with a dark past and deep wisdom, Alex begins to discover the suppressed history and secret systems behind money, from cowries to crypto, banks, black markets, and so on. He learns that wealth isn't something you chase... it's something you attract by understanding value.But then, Alex stumbles upon The Sovereign Circle, a group of elite powerbrokers who don't just make money... they control its very definition and rig the system for profit. Raymond? He’s unknowingly tied to them.Being torn between exposing the truth and protecting the man who changed his life, Alex faces a final test: Will he play the game like everyone else or will he rewrite the rules?***This is a story for anyone who has ever asked, “Is there more to money than making it?”

[COMPLETE] Can a royal Romeo and Juliet find their happy ending?

Ayleth, Princess of Zenithra, is secretly trained in hand-to-hand combat, and collects swear words she doesn't know how to use. During the Festival of Peace, in which every royal son on the continent will be at the castle for a month, she is instructed by her parents to find a husband. Yet, Ayleth has never even been kissed—until the very first ball, when she meets the man in the Lion mask.

Etan is a seasoned warrior, and the Prince of Summitras. He attends the Festival hoping to find a powerful wife who will help him conquer the dark sorcery of their bloodsworn enemies, the Kingdom of Zenithra. But at the very first ball, he discovers the masked woman who captures his heart is the Heir to the evil empire.

Ayleth and Etan face an impossible battle. Will their love survive? Or will their parents' dark dealings keep them apart forever?

[Mature content. No sexual violence.]

******

“You…” She stepped back. Then back again, her mouth dropped open. “You… You cannot be…”

“I am,” Etan said, and his hair raked back as he pushed his mask off his handsome face. So handsome her heart raced.

His hair was ebony black, his skin a warm brown that threatened to fade in in the winter months. He stared at her with glittering green eyes, over high cheekbones and a noble nose, his jaw tight and shadowed this late in the day. His chin was high over the pillar of his neck that she’d just touched with its hard lines and steel strength, so different to her own. And his chest... She gasped and covered her eyes. She’d humiliated herself revealing her stupid, childish curiosity.

“No, Ayleth. This changes nothing.”

“How can you say that? It changes everything!” She was horrified to realize she was crying.

“Ayleth, please.” His voice cracked on the plea and she stared at him, shoving her mask up and off, despite how it would pull her hair out of the beautiful twist the maid had managed for her.

His eyes locked on hers and she couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe.

She had met her One. And he was the son of her bloodsworn enemy.

She stared at him as he stepped forward again, offering both hands, palm up. “Touch me,” he whispered. “Hold my hands. This is real, Ayleth. I don’t know how it happened, but this is real. Please don’t deny it.”

She couldn’t resist. She raised a trembling hand to his cheek, letting her palm catch on the scruff of his jaw. He blew out a breath and put his hand over hers, and that jolt that happened whenever they touched shivered through her again.

“Please, Ayleth.”

“I cannot deny it,” she whispered.