Schemes And Conspiracies
The Tale of Xihe
After Southern Xu fell, sixteen-year-old Princess Xihe fled through a land at war with the young heir to the throne, only to be delivered into a Northern Qian military camp.
An enemy general fell in love with her, believing her to be an ordinary girl, while she watched those dearest to her die before her eyes.
Hatred for a fallen nation and vengeance for her family drove her onto a road paved with thorns.
Years later, she became empress of Northern Qian and laid her plans one careful step at a time amid court intrigue and bloodshed.
Even when she had been wounded beyond bearing, someone still broke through every obstacle to reach her – but she would have to choose between her own love and hatred, and the lives of all beneath heaven.
Clear Skies, Perfect for a Royal Wedding
Before I was born, my father dreamed of a phoenix.
The very next moment, my mother went into labor.
Father therefore decided I had been born to a magnificent destiny.
And since good fortune ought to stay in the family, I would simply have to find myself a live-in son-in-law.
Requiting Your Soaring Ambition
My mother was a woman from another world.
Right beneath my imperial father’s nose, she taught me that all people are equal and that women hold up half the sky.
Because the emperor doted on her, he made an exception and let me, a princess, attend the imperial school.
Once I learned to read, everything became clear.
I understood exactly why my brothers fought for the throne.
Bewitched by a Wicked Beauty
I was the widow everyone despised.
One summer night, I went out intending to seduce Censor Zhang, only to be stopped by the Crown Prince.
He bent to my ear and murmured, ‘Aunt, am I not good enough for you?’
Oh, he was good.
Just rather exhausting.
The Moon Never Returns
“Fine. I’ll marry him.” I raised my hand from behind the other princesses.
Father had many daughters, but his favorite was Princess Changning, his eldest and the only daughter born to the Empress.
I was the most inconspicuous of them all; Father had probably forgotten I existed.
Ballad of the Purple Bamboo
Liu Yin survives by refusing to be ashamed: after her husband sells her, her song wins Prince Chen’s favor and carries her from the streets into the heart of imperial power.
Between a calculating prince, a brilliant consort, a former husband who never stopped protecting her, and a court that despises her origins, she learns to turn every humiliation into leverage.
When death leaves her holding the imperial brush, the woman once dismissed as secondhand goods must defend a child emperor and rule a realm that never meant to make room for her.
The Counterattack of the Original Wife
A gripping tale of betrayal, revenge, murder mystery, hidden identities, an original wife’s counterattack, and one woman’s awakening.
Qin Jiajia, granddaughter of the renowned painter Qin Mo, loses her womb and then her life in a fire after being betrayed by her husband, Zhong Mingjiang, and his mistress, Luo Xia.
But soon afterward, an anonymous text appears on Luo Xia’s phone.
“A life for a life. Your reckoning is here. Are you ready?”
On his way home from work, Zhong Mingjiang encounters something equally horrifying: photographs of Qin Jiajia’s charred, mutilated body suddenly appear inside his car, along with a blood-soaked uterus on the passenger seat.
Every chilling incident leads back to Qin Jiajia’s death.
Trapped in boundless terror, the cheating husband and his mistress cry out for help, but no one answers….
Peace, Year After Year
I am the future Crown Princess.
One day, a woman who has traveled a thousand miles in search of her husband stops my carriage in the middle of the street.
She produces the Crown Prince’s personal jade pendant and declares that he married her while living among the common folk.
Unfortunately for her, she does not understand that making me Crown Princess is the Emperor’s way of proclaiming his favor before the realm.
This is not a position she can take.
Soft Jade
I ran a wonton stall and raised a young master who had fallen on hard times.
But young masters do not stay fallen forever.
He was a wealthy family’s son, born with a silver spoon in his mouth. Sooner or later, he would return to the heavens and become a star.
I had grown up begging for scraps from swill buckets. No matter how you looked at it, I was mud beneath his feet.
Soft Spot
After a brilliant student leaps to his death during the high school entrance examination, Officer Zhong closes the case as a tragic suicide.
One month later, his own son vanishes, and every clue points to the dead boy’s father—a gifted mathematician and convicted rapist.
A strange number sequence becomes the key to a staged kidnapping, a buried miscarriage of justice, and a dying son’s final attempt to turn his father’s greatest weakness into armor.