Burning Pearls and Jade

"Don't cling to life, and don't fear death. Everyone on the road to the underworld is your accomplice!", Leng Zheng.

Back then, the eldest princess died after taking an arrow meant for the Retired Emperor. By now, that story has spawned hundreds of different versions.

Some say she faked her death to abandon her husband and daughter, then followed her lover to the ends of the earth. Others say she deserved to die, since strong-willed women never meet a good end. The rumors are so absurd they're almost impossible to believe.

Hearing those ridiculous rumors, Leng Zheng feels nothing but sorrow for her mother. In this world, people seem unable to live without gossiping about women.

It seems people shouldn't eat too well or live too comfortably. So she resolves to become a nightmare in other people's peaceful dreams. Following these baseless tales and unpicking their threads, she actually finds some suspicious details.

She has few friends and even fewer acquaintances. She hears that it was her rival in love who saved her life back then. But when that rumored rival comes to her door, Leng Zheng, at a most inopportune moment, finds herself thinking of it all as an observer. To her, Shen Yue, that man who cherishes his life above all else, dying alongside her and being buried with her in the same place, then marrying into her household, sounds like a joke.

The little pickpocket wants to become a notorious river pirate, stealing the imperial seal one day and playing dumb the next. This childhood friend has far too many sides to him.

Leng Zheng shakes her head and turns to admire the rival's unexpectedly remarkable words.

But how can a rival in love become a confidante? They were more than just rivals, after all. Perhaps only in their next lives will they be suited to becoming confidantes.

Early that spring, Leng Zheng made an exceptionally bold decision. She found a substitute to stay in the capital and pose as the commandery princess, while she went alone to Jiangzhou.

She traveled by day, while demons prowled through the darkness. From beginning to end, neither side spared the other.

Leng Zheng gripped her dagger and plunged it into the chest of the person behind her. The smell of blood drifted far away on the strong wind by the river.

She carried a blood-soaked bundle to the cenotaph of her mother's clothes and crown, gently wiping the dust from the gravestone. "Eldest Princess, you were born into the imperial family, and you died in it, too. Before you closed your eyes, did you ever regret letting me be born behind these high walls?"

"You once said that to shoot a person, you must first shoot the horse. Capture the horse, then kill the person."

She left the high walls, then returned inside them. Half-drunk and half-awake, she drained a cup of wine and gazed through bleary eyes at the person before her. "They say I look seventy percent like her. Are you more pleased, or more afraid?"

No one answered. A soul cannot speak.

[Both leads are sexually inexperienced]

1. Revenge and the heroine's growth are the main focus, with the romance as a secondary plot.

2. This is not a revenge fantasy where everything happens without reason.

3. The heroine has an extreme personality.

Please add my next upcoming novel to your wish list: "Peach Blossoms on a Painted Face"

[A sweet-faced but secretly ruthless hostage princess × a noble young man devoted to her]

As soon as the decree of investiture arrives, Qiao Yuan knows it can't mean anything good: she's being sent to Donghuai as a hostage.

People say hostages are no better than prisoners, but Qiao Yuan sunbathes one day and strings beads the next, living a carefree life.

All she has to do is beckon, and someone will bring her whatever she wants.

Who says a princess held hostage is bound to have a miserable life?

Qiao Yuan lowers her eyes and smiles.

There will certainly be suffering, and it cannot be avoided. But that doesn't mean it can't be passed on to someone else.

As long as she finds a kind soul willing to suffer in her place, she won't have to endure so much herself.

And she found that kind soul a long time ago. At this moment, he's kneeling in the great hall, asking to marry her, the princess of an enemy state.

Having had enough of the sun, Qiao Yuan gets up and goes back inside to pack. It's getting late, and it's time for her to go home.

When Shen Ke was seventeen, he met a young woman unlike anyone else. She was born to wealth and privilege, yet had a pure, kind, and gentle heart. She said all things had their own way of being, and couldn't even bear to kill a bug that had bitten her.

How could anyone be so pure and kind? Shen Ke had seen plenty of arrogant or self-important noblewomen in the capital, but never a princess like her.

But fate played a cruel trick. By a twist of circumstance, Qiao Yuan was sent to Donghuai as a hostage. Shen Ke watched from the crowd as the once-privileged princess fell from grace, feeling both excitement and pity.

From then on, he became obsessed with Qiao Yuan. If she would only smile a little more and say a few more words, he'd even go and pluck the moon from the sky for her.

But Shen Ke forgot that the moon could not be plucked. He only took a few more steps forward, and his moon was burned to death in a great fire.

Yes, she was burned to death.

He never found the moon again.

Moon, moon, are you willing to see me again?

A madman with disheveled hair kneels on the banks of the Liang River, propping himself up as he gazes across the water.

That's the moon's home.

Half asleep and half awake, he vaguely sees that the moon really has come, holding him and softly singing:

The moon is crescent, the moon is round, the moon hangs quietly at the edge of the sky.

The child is small, the child is sweet, the child behaves and doesn't make a fuss.

Flowers bloom in spring, cicadas sing in summer, leaves are gathered in autumn, and winter brings cold snow.

Year after year, month after month, the Liang River is hard to cross, and people are hard to bring home.

● Happy ending

● A ruthless heroine

Theme: Grow through adversity, without fear or hesitation.