Grind to Greatness: The Barista System - Chapter 17 - 16 – Side Paths and Small Wins

Xu Youyou, daughter of the Xu family who had been sent to the countryside to nurse her health years ago, had returned to uphold the marriage promise with the Lin family. On the eve of her wedding, the groom escaped abroad in search of his dream girl. The crowd gasped and watched on excitedly.

Xu Youyou’s only comment was, “Okay.” The next instant, her fair hands had seized the collar of a man’s shirt as she asked sweetly, “Mr. Mo, can you marry me?” The business tycoon, Mo Shenbai, was aloof, abstinent, mysterious, and kept a low profile. Having dominated the challenging business industry for ten years, no media was bold enough to post a picture of him, and no woman was able to catch his eye.

Everyone said that Mo Shenbai’s marriage with Xu Youyou was only a contract, and they would surely divorce after a year. Xu Youyou was happily reading these rumors about her, but then she noticed something was off, She didn’t have to pay for her shopping, nor choose her food, and everyone would ardently greet her wherever she went, calling her “Mrs. Xu.” Then, Mo Shenbai’s dream girl came back, and Xu Youyou’s ex-fiance confessed, “Youyou, only my love for you is true.

Come back to me. I won’t dislike you.” Before Xu Youyou could answer him, the domineering man embraced her and said in a low and seductive voice, “Baby, didn’t you tell him that you already have a proof of our love in here?” He placed his warm hand on her flat tummy. Xu Youyou blushed, and the ex-fiance’s eyes turned red…

It had been two years since their marriage. However, every time he had s*x with her, he always did it from backwards.

She was more than angry. “Sheng Youting! Why do you avoid my face every time when you had me? Is it because that you are afraid to see it’s me rather than my sister that you get laid?!”

“Are you asking me to look at your face when I’m in you? OK, as long as you can bear!”

He was like a beast and all she could do was to accept what he gave…

Yu Lan had loved Sheng Youting for 11 years despite no response from him. Inferiority became part of her when she was with Sheng Youting. However, when she found it was so hard to continue her unrequited love and finally decided to exclude him from her world, her heart ached extremely and it nearly cost her life. It turned out that her love had become a habit and if it was stopped, she won’t be a whole man.

Religious and cultural schisms wreak havoc on its internal politics, while revolutions are brewing in neighboring kingdoms. The aristocratic houses play endless power games amongst themselves, and the Emperor desperately abuses what little influence he has left to keep his rivals down.Amidst all of this, Arnold von Hohenfels, first son of the Margrave of Hohenfels, finds himself in the unfortunate position of having to attend the Imperial Academy, a notorious battleground of wits and brawn for ambitious young nobles.Armed with a magical gift that is as much a blessing as it is a curse, he must learn to navigate the treacherous waters of aristocratic entanglements. In the name of his family’s ambition, he must represent House Hohenfels' interests in this microcosm of Imperial politics, deal with his formidable enemies, form alliances of his own, and somehow keep his brash cousin Friedrich out of trouble.Frankly, he would much rather be anywhere else.

NOTE: cover art is a commission done by Ripcorez a fellow author on here and amazing artist. If you like his work, don’t hesitate to reach out to him with a request for a commission of your own

Samuel Foster would be turning 18 in two weeks. He grew up in a fairly normal low case family home with his parents and two younger siblings. The thing out of the ordinary was he knew for as long as he could remember he would be getting married at 18 to a girl he never had met before due to a promise his family had made.

Lena Scarlet, Princess Scarlet was feared by many, respected and loved by everyone near her. Deadly as she was calm, her one annoyance in life was the arranged married he father decided upon before she was born. Being fiercely independent and trained to protect herself, she never felt the need for a relationship or marriage as she fully capable of taking care of all her needs.

However, a promise was a promise and whether either of them liked it or not, their parents were at least going to force them to live together before calling the wedding off.

Please give the book a chance. I’m not the greatest of synopsis writers, as I am sure some of you can tell and the book may be slow at first due to the setup and lead in. But I promise it will getting more interesting as it goes along.

Scene excerpt from the story:

“You didn’t happen to think it was important to tell before now?! The princess was furious with the other woman.

“I..” She paused for a second to swallow,

“I never thought that it would come down to this. I promise though that they wouldn’t do anything terrible.”

“They said the same thing to my father.. but they were wrong. I don’t trust anyone’s word.” The princess replied standing up. The more her anger rose, the darker her eyes got.

“You should just be fortunate that I am not my father. Do you know what he did when faced with a similar situation?” with no reply, she continued

“He killed almost all of them. You could say it was a massacre. Me, I won’t got that far, but if anything happens to him, I will personally kill the person who touches him.”