Stranger's Handbook - Chapter 7: Marriage Partner

Shuu is a member of the literary club that can’t write. One day, he gets a mysterious message on his phone from a girl called Eina, and from that impulsive contact, they begin to exchange messages. They talk of things like their shared interest in novels and grow close. However, when they try and meet, they discover a shocking truth. Eina lives… not in the present, but five years in the past! How will their love develop, parted by five years of nights…!?

Arakawa Kouki is reincarnated to a Japan with a different history than the Japan he knows with the memories of his previous life still intact. Kouki was discouraged, “Aren’t reincarnation stories supposed to be at some fantasy world filled with swords, magic and elves?!”

Entering the world of cultivation, Brandon Jiang thought he was stepping onto the path of immortality, but little did he know, he was actually walking a path of death!An immortal once said, “If you are not at the dining table, then you are inevitably on the dining table.”Humans are the spirits of all living things, endowed with natural dao embryos and the great medicine of heaven and earth.In this world of cultivation, only by absorbing others' abilities and fortunes can one cultivate!Therefore, mortals are raised as Sacrificial Furnaces.If you don't absorb others, others will absorb you.Brandon Jiang is unwilling to become a Sacrificial Furnace, nor does he want to commit heinous acts.Until the fairy who loved him died in his arms, Brandon Jiang was driven completely mad.Many years later, when Brandon Jiang looked back, he realized that he had become the most ruthless demon in the world.

“Why didn’t you tell me?”“Tell you what, Richard? What would you have done?”“I don’t know. Apologized sooner? Bought you a burger to make up for it?”Her eyes lit up with fire, “You think what you did to me… you think a burger can make up for it?” her eyes twinkled like she was fighting tears. Did I hurt her that badly? I was just a foolish teenager.“Nita, I am sorry. I was young, I was stupid. I wish I could take it all back and tell you how I feel instead of being a constant jerk to gain your attention.”“How did you feel that would justify what you did to me?”I paused for a minute, finding the words. “I had a huge crush on you at the time. And I didn’t know how to express myself. I was full of myself, I was the school’s ladies' man and the one girl I had eyes for didn’t even care if I existed,” “And that justified what you did to me? Richard, you broke me. I can forgive you for ‘accidentally’ spilling your ice cream on me, or throwing my due assignment in the toilet, or the gum in my hair, or the glue in my chair but tell me how can I forgive you for what you did that night? Tell me!”“What night? Nita, what are you talking about?”“Remember when you asked me if I knew who sexually assaulted me?”I nodded, but what does that have to do with anything? The more we spoke, the more confused I became.“You did and I cannot believe that you would stand there and pretend like it didn’t happen!”Nita has spent years trying to forget the torment she endured at the hands of Richard. When her family’s financial ruin forces her into an arranged marriage, she is horrified to find out the groom himself was her bully.Richard, a charming and successful businessman meets the first woman to be repulsed by him. Intrigued, he proposes a deal of a one year marriage of convenience.Navigating life as a couple, old wounds reopen, buried memories surface. As Richard learns more about his wife, he finds that he has enemies that followed him from his past to continuously cloud his wife’s judgement.Will Nita believe the truth and bury old wounds or will the pain of the past prove too strong to heal?