The Hanging Moon Above the Palace Wall

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When Yu Yuechu's husband was demoted, Pei Xuan had just ascended the throne.

She sat quietly on the edge of the bed. Before her was the new emperor, who looked down upon all under heaven, yet she could no longer make sense of the childhood friend she had once known so well.

The man's voice was indifferent. "All you have to do is agree to become empress, and I'll spare your maternal family." His gaze fell on the hand she had instinctively placed protectively over her belly. "The child you're carrying will be mine."

She thought it over for three whole days, telling herself again and again: Yue Niang, you have to live. Your husband isn't all you have. You still have your family and your child.

Yu Yuechu agreed.

*

Yu Yuechu married into the Fifth Prince's household at fifteen and became crown princess at seventeen. She and her husband had never known each other before their wedding, but they treated each other with respect, and their life together was not bad.

They should have been a couple others envied, should have gone from young spouses to a deeply devoted pair...

But when Yu Yuechu was one month pregnant, upheaval struck the palace, and her husband left, never to return.

When she opened her eyes again, she saw Pei Xuan, now emperor. Just like that, she became empress and carried on living, bearing the hopes of her entire maternal family.

She watched Pei Xuan cherish her child as if the child were his own, and something in her heart seemed to soften.

That was until she heard that her supposedly dead husband was still alive.

*

Pei Xuan had watched Yu Yuechu grow up. Their hearts had once been in perfect accord, until she was betrothed to another man. Weak and timid, he hadn't even tried to fight for her. He simply gave up the future that should have been theirs.

Later, he spent seven whole years laying low and biding his time. He endured hardship and finally took revenge, killing his father and the emperor, and finding his own redemption.

But when he stood before Yu Yuechu, he discovered that her heart and eyes held only her husband.

He had people send her one precious gift after another, but she put every one of them away.

She wanted neither his gifts nor him.

Pei Xuan had become the most exalted man in the land. There was nothing he couldn't accomplish with a single word.

But when he saw the woman's calm, untroubled eyes and watched her cradle their daughter, gently soothing her, he finally understood:

It wasn't that she didn't love their child. She simply didn't love him.

[Content Warnings]

1. Happy ending. The female lead and all the male leads are sexually inexperienced. The age gap between the leads is five years; the age gap between the female lead and the second male lead is seven years.

2. The female lead's romance with the second male lead will be described in detail, and she has a child with him.

3. While the female lead is married to the second male lead, there is no romantic involvement between her and the male lead.

4. The story includes a medicine that a man can take beforehand to prevent a woman from getting pregnant.

5. Bittersweet romance, focused on feelings, with a twist in the blurb.

6. The male lead has no harem, either in name or in reality.

7. Writing and reading are for fun. Don't scrutinize the details too closely.

*See the author's note in Chapter 1 for detailed content warnings.

Below is the blurb for the upcoming novel, Like an Old Friend

Gentle and well-behaved bunny 🐰 × cold and heartless wolf 🐺

When Sang Yinzhan was three, she caught a chill and suffered a high fever that wouldn't break, leaving her blind and unable to see in the dark.

She was only fifteen when she ended up in Lotus Lane. How long could a pretty, slender, blind girl survive in Lotus Lane, where people would devour you without even spitting out the bones?

That was the first time she met Rong Qianyu. Shengjing was such a vast city, and she had never met a man like him before.

He was as handsome as his name suggested, and he was the all-powerful Prince Regent.

By chance, she helped Rong Qianyu, and he took pity on her, rescuing her from a life of prostitution.

He said the name "Yinzhan" wasn't a good one. He quoted, "A beautiful maiden, graceful and lovely," and gave her the name "Sang Qingxi," with the courtesy name "Jiaojiao."

*

He treated her well.

He paid to have her eyes treated, taught her to read, play Go, and play the qin.

No matter how busy he was with official duties, he often came to see her.

The illusion he gave her made her greedy, until his so-called fiancee threw the purse he had given Qingxi into a river.

Only then did she realize that a marriage proposal made her a wife, while eloping made her a concubine. And she was neither wife nor concubine.

Clutching her last shred of hope, Qingxi went to ask Rong Qianyu if, to him, she was truly nothing more than a plaything.

The man's eyes were dark, his expression as cool and composed as if he were looking at a madwoman.

Her heart slowly grew cold. "What am I to you, my lord...?"

"Now that you know, why ask?"

Qingxi begged him to let her leave, saying that from then on, whether she lived or died would have nothing to do with him. But the man clamped a hand around her slender neck and said coldly, "I taught you to read and play the qin, and gave you good food and drink. Now you want to take what I gave you and run away?"

He had raised her into a graceful, radiant beauty, with a figure that was neither too slender nor too full. How could she ever go back to a life of hardship?

*

Qingxi was forcibly kept in his residence as a concubine. Given her background, it was already the best possible fate for her.

But Qingxi knew what happened to the girls who left Lotus Lane to become concubines. They left in splendor, but most didn't live more than a few years. She didn't want to suffer the same fate.

In a downpour one day, she knelt outside his study all night, begging him to take back his decision and let her go.

With the doors shut tight, just before Qingxi passed out from fever, she heard him say through the haze:

"A ploy to win sympathy only works if you know your place."

Later, Rong Qianyu ascended the throne, and Qingxi, a former resident of his household, was made a Jieyu consort.

But the palace servants looked down on her and mocked her to her face and behind her back.

In the end, Qingxi couldn't take it anymore and fled in the dead of night.

*

Rong Qianyu had once rescued a little girl with clear, pure eyes. Seeing her trembling in fear had stirred his compassion.

He settled her in a private residence in the capital and provided her with every comfort, yet she foolishly asked what she meant to him.

A woman so incapable of reading the situation was of little use to him, but when she was heartbroken and tried to leave, he insisted on taking her as his concubine.

Later, Rong Qianyu ascended the throne and eradicated every faction that opposed him. When it came time to choose an empress, for no reason he thought of her.

She had been with him for so many years. It was time she got to enjoy the good life.

Who could have guessed that he would find her gone that very night?

Two years later, the emperor was traveling incognito when he heard a familiar tune from a tavern in the south...

It was like an old friend had come.

[Reading Guide and Content Warnings]

1. One-on-one romance, both leads are sexually inexperienced, with a twelve-year age gap. The male lead's marriage alliance falls through, and he has no harem.

2. The male lead is cold-hearted in the early chapters.

3. An unconventional coercive romance, centered on a tragic love that breeds resentment: they can't fully hate each other, but they can't bring themselves to love each other either. The feelings are unhealthy.

4. The blurb is misleading. The female lead suffers in the early part, and the male lead suffers in the later part. He truly suffers; they won't reconcile just because he gets injured and apologizes. If you're worried the author is luring you in, you can check the author's other historical romances. The male leads suffer even more than the female leads.

5. Bittersweet and aching; purely an amateur writing exercise.

(Blurb dated April 21, 2026)

Theme: Orchids bloom, then fall like willow fluff. Who bears the greater burden of past and present karma?