Love at First Novel by Gu Lingfei

Kathryn looked up at Pedro. "I want to touch your face," she said.

Pedro's expression was tense, his features hardened with anger. But after a moment, he leaned down, letting her reach him easily.

She ran her fingers across his face. "Your face is as hard as marble. So handsome, yet so rigid. I don't like seeing you like this. I prefer when you're gentle, like jade."

Pedro's voice was low and firm. "Miss, I'm not gentle like jade."

Years of brutal training at the base had shaped him into a hardened soldier. Gentleness was not in his nature.

Yet, when he was in a good mood, his sharp edges softened.

To her, he was always handsome, always polite. To her, he was gentle like jade.

And as she spoke, the tension in his face eased.

head. They didn't chop me up and feed me to the fish. I knew their timing. I let them scratch my arm, nothing more. They were first-time killers, inexperienced and mentally weak. They panicked and only managed to

mischievously. "Of course,

knew her brothers had never

Neither had she.

the fish!" His voice was cold

sure those three brothers never left prison.

gave him a reassuring

this behind us. My plan worked perfectly. I won't worry about them anymore. Once I've

out of Jensburg. Aside from visiting my mother's grave during the Qingming Festival, I never

die from the cold. When I was little, no one bought me

adoptive mother forced her to wash the family's clothes

over, she had to haul water from the well

was ice-cold, stabbing her hands with pain