Well, I Only Drink Oolong Tea

Literary title: Burden of Gratitude. People let each other down. Everyone has failed someone who once showed them kindness!

Plot-driven blurb: (Please bookmark, comment, and click!)

Bian Xianghong wants nothing more than to defy fate and change her destiny.

While hunting ghosts, she meets a strange man named Yan Zhengshan.

He looks a little like her master, who has turned into a pile of stones, and his swordsmanship is first-rate.

He's also amazingly good at turning danger into safety.

Most infuriating of all, he's even more of a nemesis to vengeful ghosts and evil spirits than she is.

The more Bian Xianghong looks at him, the angrier she gets. Why is her fate so wretched while he shines like a beacon?

She decides to take full advantage of this heaven's favorite and have him safeguard her journey to change her fate.

But before she can figure out how to win him over,

Yan Zhengshan confesses his feelings with heartfelt sincerity.

He says he likes her!

His love and his life, he'll give them both to her.

And Bian Xianghong accepts them all!

What she wants is indeed a life,

a long life, one whose fate will never again be controlled by anyone else.

Abstract blurb: (Bian brews Xiao Yan; green tea brews black tea!)

A little tea knowledge: Depending on how tea leaves grow, whether they are pan-fired during processing, and how far they are fermented,

one tea plant can produce six kinds of tea:

oolong tea, also known as blue-green tea, black tea, green tea, white tea, yellow tea, and dark tea.

Bian Xianghong: Hey, you over there, want some tea?

I know you're not human, but even ghosts need tea,

especially resentful, vengeful ghosts like you.

I'm great at tea preparation. Gongfu tea takes real skill, after all.

No, I don't brew green tea. (Long Jing: Isn't it because your master was sealed by you, so you can't brew it? Mao Feng: Senior Sister, do you really not brew green tea?)

Oh, you want black tea? But I think Zhengshan Xiaozhong's aroma is too strong. (Xiao Yan: That's nonsense! My tea fragrance is a delight to the soul. So what if I'm love-struck!)

Let's just brew oolong tea.

The leaves are black, and the tea is dark and glossy too.

After the bitterness comes a lingering sweetness.

Just right for life, and the afterlife!

Reader's Guide:

1. Oolong tea, also known as blue-green tea, is one of China's six major tea categories. The story specifically refers to oolong tea from southern Fujian, not Tieguanyin. After extensive roasting, the leaves turn black, and the tea is similarly dark brown and glossy, but its flavor is mellow and rich. Green tea is so unfairly maligned, as is the wonderful tea itself, and the phrase "fragrant with the aroma of tea." Tea lovers can't accept this.

Here, oolong tea represents the female lead's life. The dark color stands for hardship, but the ending is a happy one.

Bian Xianghong is named after the reddish-brown edges that form on oolong tea leaves during oxidation after withering and shaking. This is called "green leaves with red edges." The other characters are also named after teas.

2. Ghosts in this story: People who die of natural causes become ghosts and go directly to the underworld to be reincarnated. Those who die unnatural deaths and don't go to the underworld instead linger among the living and cause trouble. If they haven't killed anyone, they're wandering spirits. Their resentment grows after death because they have unfinished business, giving them some power. They are the female lead's main targets for spiritual deliverance. After a wandering spirit kills someone, its sins become too great and it turns into an evil ghost. These ghosts are much more powerful, and they continually gather wandering spirits to increase their strength. What happens next depends on the case: some can be delivered to the underworld to face judgment, while those who are too evil have their souls destroyed outright.

Theme: The more snow and wind beat against me, the more fiercely I grow.