All Novel

The man I was to marry was a young general who had lost the use of his legs.

Rumor had it that he suffered from an unspeakable ailment and didn’t have long to live.

Later, behind the bed curtains, I discovered just how vigorous he truly was. Face burning, I shouted, “Stop bullying me!”

The man laughed hoarsely and caught my hand. “Then how about Qingqing bullies me this time?”

In my last life, I married Wei Zheng, and everyone in the capital said that the eldest son of the Wei family and I were a match made in heaven.

Wei Zheng and I spoke of the realm and its people, dreaming of peace beneath all four seas.

We spent more time apart than together, never dwelling on petty romance, because greater duties filled our hearts.

When he went north to guard the frontier, I set up porridge kitchens outside the capital.

When he reviewed official papers in his study, I sat beside him annotating ancient texts.

When work kept him overnight at the government office, I thoughtfully sent him a letter: “All is well at home. Do not worry.”

He said I was unlike other delicate young ladies who cared only for moonlight and flowers and pestered their lovers to count their eyelashes.

He praised me for being calm, sensible, and mindful of the greater good.

What he never knew was that, as an imperial princess, I had once been the most pampered, vivacious girl of all.

I had simply spent everything I had chasing after him, running until I could barely breathe.

Then one day, I quarreled with someone while Wei Zheng watched coldly from the side.

Only after we returned home, when no one else was present, did he say in that mild voice of his, “The other person did have more reason on their side.”

That was when I realized he had never once stood on mine.

The day I decided to divorce Pei Qingshu was an ordinary one.

Only the night before, he had promised that he would send Miss Liu away the next day, then celebrate my birthday properly with me.

It finally seemed as though our life was about to get better.

Delighted, I rose early, opened my dressing case, and carefully drew my brows while looking into a copper basin.

Then I dug an old pomegranate-red skirt out from the bottom of the camphorwood chest.

After seven years of marriage, I did not own a single decent piece of jewelry.

Seeing my bare ears, I pinched off a balsam blossom and tucked it behind my bun.

On my way out to buy vegetables, I ran into Chunxiang’s mother, who caught my arm with a teasing smile.

“I saw Master Pei buy two hairpins the other day—one gold, one jade. Let me see which one you’re wearing.”

Then she noticed the balsam flower in my hair and froze.

While I waited at the hospital for my follow-up appointment, a live broadcast of a celebrated director accepting an award overseas played on the giant screen.

During his acknowledgments, he said nothing and placed a call in front of the entire world.

Then my phone rang…

My mother waited for my father her entire life.

Even when illness confined her to her deathbed, she never got the snowy stroll among plum blossoms he had promised her.

So when Second Young Master Cui and I took a liking to each other, I told him I would wait for him only three times.

The first would honor the joy of our meeting.

The second would honor the bond of truly knowing one another.

The third would honor the love we had shared.

After the third, our ties would be severed, and we would have nothing more to do with each other for the rest of our lives.

Second Young Master Cui agreed with a smile, saying that such a fine match was a blessing from Heaven and that he would never dare cast good fortune away.

Later, he rescued a young woman.

For her sake, he made me wait again and again.

The final time, he sent word that our wedding would be postponed and that we could discuss it again after he had safely brought the young woman back.

I gave a cold laugh and asked, “Whether I marry, and whom I marry, is no concern of yours, Young Master Cui.”

The wedding went ahead as planned after that.

Only the groom had changed.

Anyone who tried to steal my betrothed was certainly detestable.

But anyone who tried to steal Cui Zhaoyu’s bride was, in my eyes, utterly adorable.

After ten years of training for the wrong kind of ‘dance,’ the formidable Li Rourou must win an emperor’s favor or die.

Her strength, appetite, and spectacular misunderstandings turn every elegant harem scheme into chaos.

While the emperor plays rival clans against one another, Rourou blunders through assassination attempts, poisoned soup, princely feuds, and a brewing coup.

When imperial gratitude proves dangerously short-lived, she discovers that becoming the harem’s number one woman may require replacing the man at its center.

The man I secretly loved was the legitimate princess’s fiancé.

I was the unfavored Seventh Princess, and the fiancé bestowed upon me was a drunken libertine who gambled, kept concubines, and maintained a mistress outside his estate.

But that was all right.

My best friend had the ultimate cheat code.

Shen Qi had secretly loved my elder sister for years.

When she and I fell into the river together, he mistook me for her and pulled me out first.

My sister was swept away and drowned.

Knowing none of this, I fell hopelessly in love with him.

I made such a scene about marrying him that he gladly agreed.

After the wedding, however, he alternated between warmth and coldness.

At times he treated me tenderly.

At others, he looked at me as if he hated me to the bone.

Once bright and willful, I withered day by day and lived in misery.

Only as I lay dying did I discover the truth…

He was kind whenever I reminded him of my sister.

He was cruel whenever he remembered that he blamed me for her death.

After I was reborn, I climbed onto the bank by myself and watched him rejoice at having my sister back.

Then I turned and walked toward the most exalted man in the realm.

Qiu Yue learned young that in troubled times, only a hard heart and a ruthless hand could keep a woman alive.

When the innocent Jiang Wanning searches an entire city and saves her from death, Qiu Yue vows to protect her for the rest of her life.

So when a scheming scholar tries to ruin Wanning’s reputation and force his way into her family, Qiu Yue quietly leads him into a dark alley.

The scholar dies, a tale about a pig demon spreads through the capital, and her trusting young mistress believes every word.

Anyone who wants to hurt Jiang Wanning should understand one thing: Qiu Yue may wear the sweet smile of a harmless maid, but she has never hesitated to kill.

When I was fifteen, my royal father chose me from among his many daughters.

I was Xizhou’s brightest pearl, yet he sent me by carriage across the Gobi, the desert, and the grasslands.

I was to travel to the distant Central Plains and marry their Crown Prince.

The Crown Prince had his moonlight and his childhood sweetheart.

But the bright moon must sink, and green plums must ripen.

In the end, only the pearl’s light endures.