Moonlight over a Thousand Mountains

Next up: My Brother Became My Husband After I Lost My Memory. Love and hate | A sea of hatred and heartache. Synopsis at the end. Please add it to your favorites.

The Veritable Records of Sheng: Annals of Emperor Xuanzong, Volume Nine

In the seventh year of Antai, the Qiang Rong invaded the border. The emperor was furious and personally led an expedition, only to be ambushed at Blackstone Ravine. His hundred thousand elite troops were wiped out, and the emperor was captured. Yanyun fell, shaking the Central Plains.

In the eighth year of Antai, Prince Xuan, Qi Meng, ascended the throne and changed the era name to Jingfu, becoming Emperor Xuanzong. He promoted Meng Jue to commander, drove back the Qiang Rong, and recovered Luojing. But the nation was already weakened, so he ceded the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun to make peace.

During the Jingfu era, the emperor governed diligently, reducing forced labor and taxes, and the nation's strength gradually recovered. In the twelfth year, Meng Jue requested a northern campaign, and the emperor approved. In the fifteenth year, Jue died of illness in camp, leaving a memorial recommending Shen Qi.

Shen Qi defended the northern frontier and was adept at caring for his soldiers, repeatedly defeating the Qiang Rong. In the twenty-second year, while the enemy was in turmoil, he captured nine prefectures in succession and restored the old lands, winning fame throughout the realm. In the seventh month, the emperor ordered him back to the capital. In the tenth month, he was imprisoned on the charge of "treason." In the first month of the following year, Shen Qi and his two sons were executed in the marketplace, and their heads were displayed for three days.

*

The first seven years of Shen Qian's life were like the rising sun over the northern army camp. Her father and brothers doted on her, and she lived freely. Then, in a single night, the Shen family was destroyed. Shen Qian barely escaped the sea of fire in Jinling with her life. When she returned to Luojing, she saw her father and brothers' heads fall beneath a sky filled with snow.

For the next ten years, Shen Qian became an assassin at the Lost Phoenix House alongside Su Zhaoyue. She willingly tested poisons, learning medicine and poisoncraft at the cost of carrying many toxins in her body. Hatred became her pillar, while Su Zhaoyue was the only light in those ten years.

Ten years later, Su Zhaoyue is dead. Carrying Su Zhaoyue's ashes and using her identity, Shen Qian returns to Luojing. In public, she is the gentle, virtuous young lady of the Su family. In private, she is a hellish demon who kills without blinking.

*

When Han Lu first meets Su Zhaoyue, he thinks only that she is skilled in medicine, sensible, and knows how to read the situation. In his eyes, she is nothing but a compliant pawn, useful because she can treat the Empress Dowager.

But gradually, Han Lu realizes that this pawn seems different from the others. During the Lantern Festival assassination plot, she is panicked one moment, then killing without a trace the next. Watching her silhouette beneath a sky of dazzling lights, he suddenly begins to feel something different.

Later, Su Zhaoyue treats his wounds, helps him investigate cases, and shows him great concern. Naturally, he assumes she admires him. But he doesn't know that he is the real pawn.

When he discovers that Su Zhaoyue's identity is forged, he burns with anger. In the end, however, he chooses to help conceal it, telling himself that she is still useful. But when her life hangs by a thread, he loses his composure for the first time.

Later, his love grows wildly amid her lies. Just when he thinks he has finally seen through her and understood her, he discovers that everything was a scheme from the very beginning, and that she never had a heart at all.

*

Amid the falling snow, Han Lu stares at the person before him, his eyes bloodshot. "This is the road you chose?"

Su Zhaoyue laughs softly. "Lord Han, you were an accomplice too. Who will take the blame for regicide, you or... both of us?"

Reader's Guide:

1. A fictional Ming Dynasty setting. Don't nitpick the history; there are original alterations.

2. Both are each other's first, and neither has been with anyone else. There are a few domestic power struggles in the early part and a few palace power struggles later on. Not many, but they are there.

3. The story has three volumes. Volume One is about obsession, Volume Two about redemption, and Volume Three about ruin. Simply put: in Volume One, revenge must be had; Volume Two is a push and pull between them; and in Volume Three, no one can save a hopeless romantic.

4. Volume One focuses on the plot, with a little romance. The romance is slow-burn, not love at first sight, and is mainly in Volumes Two and Three.

5. The heroine isn't truly kind and virtuous. She's an actress, a real black-hearted schemer, with blood on both hands. The hero is a hopeless romantic to the core, beyond saving. Please don't read if that's not for you.

Synopsis: My Brother Became My Husband After I Lost My Memory

Forced possession | A sea of hatred and heartache | Love and hate

Scheming beauty x vicious warlord

Gu Lingyin, the fifth daughter of the Duke Who Guards the Nation, is dazzlingly beautiful and radiant. Yet since childhood, she has known that beauty is no blessing, but the root of disaster.

She is not Gu Lingyin. She is a wandering soul from another world, and the first thing she saw upon opening her eyes was a murder. The victim was the biological father of the body she now inhabits; the killer was the man who later became her father in name.

Ah Yin doesn't want to spend her whole life trapped in a cage, so she plans two marriages for herself, only to have both ruined by her younger sister, Gu Yushu. If beauty is the root of disaster, it can also become a blade. Since Gu Yushu destroyed her marriage prospects, she ought to make it up to her.

The result: the chance encounter Ah Yin carefully arranged fails, and she instead runs into a lecher.

A few days later, Ah Yin sees the lecher again at home and discovers that he's her older brother, Gu Junchi, who went missing four years ago. A smile she can't understand rests on his strikingly beautiful face. "Little sister Ah Yin, it's been a long time."

While Gu Junchi is away from Luojing, Ah Yin finally gets her stepmother to approve of her marriage. But Gu Junchi returns to the capital overnight and corners her between the pillars of a corridor. "A father's debts are repaid by his daughter. It's only right."

"Your little sister has nothing to offer. But I do rather like this body." He bends down, his lips brushing her ear. "Why not let me have what I want?"

Ah Yin doesn't dare stay any longer and flees that very night. On the way, she falls and hits her head, losing her memories.

--

When she wakes, the first thing she sees is a strange man sitting beside her bed. His sideburns are sharply defined, his brows ink-dark, and his eyes like jade submerged in a cold pool.

When he learns that she remembers nothing, his icy gaze turns tender. "Ah Yin, I'm your husband."

Ah Yin decides Gu Junchi isn't so bad. Though his moods are unpredictable, he never denies her food or clothing, nor does he restrict her freedom. Only at night does he constantly demand more than she can handle.

At last, when he leaves the capital, Ah Yin goes out, only to have a man grab her by the wrist in the street. His eyes are bloodshot as he calls her in a trembling voice:

"I'm Ji Lan, your fiance. Don't you remember?"

Her memories come rushing back like a tide.

When disaster struck the Duke Who Guards the Nation's household, she fanned the flames. Gu Junchi fell off a cliff, leaving no body behind.

--

Red candles blaze as Ah Yin sits in the bridal chamber, feeling neither joy nor sorrow.

The veil is lifted. The man before her smiles gently, yet Ah Yin feels as if she's fallen into an icy abyss.

"I didn't die. Are you very disappointed, Ah Yin?"

Gu Junchi takes the gold hairpin from her hand and bends down to whisper, "Don't do anything foolish, Ah Yin. Even if you don't care about Ji Lan's life, you should at least think of your mother. She never stops missing you, her daughter."

Ah Yin wipes away her tears, her eyes alluring. "The night is long and the dew is heavy. Second Brother, do take good care of yourself."

Theme: Faced with a blood feud, only by moving your own pieces can you break out of the trap.