Chapter 1

I had transmigrated into a matriarchy.

My father was soft and delicate, my older brother fair and tender, and my younger brother slender. In this world, all three were considered peerless beauties.

I immediately realized that this world’s beauty standards were nothing like mine.

Years ago, I had won over my family by preaching about “one heart, one love, one lifetime.” It had bought me a reprieve from marrying too young.

But after Grand Tutor Pei Lin rejected an imperial marriage decree by claiming to prefer women, my situation became rather awkward. My family began to worry that I shared the same preference.

The young gentlemen of the capital kept inviting me to their banquets, hoping I might finally take a liking to one of them.

After attending a few, I could feel my taste being forcibly rewired.

Those slender, alluring men were beginning to look almost delicious. Even the pale, baby-faced boys were starting to seem vaguely adorable.

Fortunately, I came to my senses in time.

Su Yunzhao, you cannot betray yourself!

Had I forgotten how I used to lose my mind over muscular men? How I had furiously liked and saved every thirst trap with a set of abs?

I could never forget the sacred bond between me and a magnificent pair of pecs.

Xie Tingyue was the legitimate son of the Grand General’s household.

Not long after returning to the capital from the frontier with his mother, his reputation as a hideous, big-chested man had spread everywhere.

The capital’s pampered young gentlemen disliked him. He had no desire to mingle with them either, but when he heard that Miss Su—the woman who had once vowed herself to a single husband for life—would attend this banquet, he came anyway.

The moment Xie Tingyue appeared, the other young men began to ostracize and bully him.

Their grand scheme amounted to shoving him into a pond.

Unfortunately for them, Xie Tingyue was taller and sturdier than every man there. They pushed once. He did not budge. They pushed twice. He still did not move.

With an iron core and a firm abdomen, he stood rock steady at the water’s edge—until someone cried out behind him.

“Miss Su is here!”

“It’s really Miss Su!”

Where? Where?

Xie Tingyue craned his head to look. His concentration broke, and at last they managed to shove him into the pond.

The splash drew every eye.

“Did the general’s young lord throw himself in as soon as Miss Su arrived? Is he hoping she’ll rescue him?”

“Be careful, Miss Su. Don’t let that ugly, big-chested brute latch on to you. If you pull him out and touch his body, you’ll have no choice but to marry him. Think how many young gentlemen in the capital would have their hearts broken!”

“Ugly men really do make the most trouble.”

“One of the maids should fish him out. With those disgusting broad shoulders and that huge chest, marrying a servant is the best he could hope for.”

I turned toward the commotion—and stared.

A sharp-featured, devastatingly handsome man stood waist-deep in the water.

Droplets slid from his hair, traced his deep brow and high nose, then fell toward his full, crimson lips.

His soaked clothes clung to every line of his body. His shoulders were broad, his pecs enormous, and eight hideous abdominal muscles ridged his stomach. From behind, his back tapered into the most appalling V shape.

Worse yet, he wore robes of moonlight white. The wet fabric had turned nearly transparent. If one large hand had not covered his chest in time…

Every noblewoman at the banquet might have discovered that although the general’s young lord was wheat-skinned, certain hidden parts of him were very pink indeed.

One young gentleman covered his mouth and snickered.

“Look at Young Lord Xie. His chest is enormous. What part of him even looks like a man? I hear he spends all his time riding and practicing archery. He has completely ruined his figure. I suppose a military household has no sense of refinement.”

Another slender young gentleman, himself the son of a military family, sneered.

“Not every military son looks like that. Xie Tingyue simply never learned to take care of himself.”

Xie Tingyue’s lashes trembled.

He did not know why he had been born this way—with broad shoulders, a narrow waist, and a particularly shapely backside. He had merely trained with blades, ridden horses, and practiced archery like his mother and older sister, yet somehow his body had become an embarrassment.

His mother and sister had worried endlessly about his marriage. Even they could not bring themselves to call his figure attractive.

Amid the ridicule, Xie Tingyue’s eyes darted helplessly about. The moment they met mine, all the color drained from his face.

He looked like a man whose beloved had witnessed him at his most humiliating.

The elderly lord husband hosting the banquet came over at the noise. He took one look at the ugly man in the pond and turned away in disgust.

“Have you not spent long enough in there?”

“The water barely reaches your waist. If you refuse to climb out, are you hoping everyone will stare a little longer?”

Xie Tingyue’s cousin stepped forward, all willowy grace and fragile beauty.

“Please don’t blame him, my lord. Cousin’s clothes are soaked, and no one has offered him anything to cover himself. How could he dare come out?”

“His chest isn’t the only thing that’s indecently large. Down there, he’s also…”

The cousin trailed off.

Yet Xie Tingyue remained in the pond despite the crowd gawking at his soaked body, keeping everything below his waist hidden beneath the water.

Everyone understood.

The old lord husband’s expression grew even more revolted.

“Call a maid to drag Young Lord Xie out.”

“He has polluted my pond long enough.”

With that sentence, Xie Tingyue’s future was all but sealed. If a maid carried the legitimate son of the Grand General out of the water, he would have no choice but to marry that servant.

Then again, with a chest that large and an equally disgraceful body below the waist, it was hard to say who would be getting the worse bargain.

Just as everything seemed decided, I finally tore my gaze from his glorious body.

I strode to the pond, extended my hand with reverence, and declared,

“O muscular man of the mighty pecs, descend at once into the palm of my hand.”