The Years I Pretended to Be a Female General

[The main story is complete; bonus chapters are updated from time to time.]

Yu Qingshang is a woman in STEM. She spent five years in a combined master's and doctoral program in civil engineering. When she wasn't traveling around the country with her advisor to work on projects, she was on construction sites. She firmly rejected every dinner or movie invitation that might distract her from her studies.

Then one day, she transmigrated into the body of an ancient female general who shared her name.

She blinked in bewilderment. “A female general? Me?”

She'd imagined generals as mighty, invincible, and above the rest of the world!

The general she'd transmigrated into was a woman in disguise, a defeated commander trapped in a besieged city, gravely wounded and on the brink of death. Every possible debuff was stacked against her.

She hadn't even figured out how to be a woman before she had to pretend to be a man. A coward had to play the tough guy. When she woke, the enemy army was at the gates. She knew nothing about military strategy, yet she had to stubbornly defend the city.

No golden finger, no System. She opened her eyes and got straight to work.

Forget it. She decided to die and go back to being a construction worker.

Just as she was about to put her neck in the noose, the handsome military inspector swept aside the tent flap. “What a fine pastime, Prefect. What are you doing?”

The civil engineer's mind raced. “...Inspecting the ceiling beams!”

She soon realized that dying wasn't an option, and staying alive meant getting to work.

In the first battle to defend the city, bald Beile warriors came swarming up their ladders. Yu Qingshang fired up the furnace and smelted iron. As the boiling molten metal poured from pots, pans, and bowls onto the enemy, for some reason all she could think of was the nonsense she'd picked up from watching short videos back in the modern world: “Pour it on! Pour it on!”

Was this even reasonable?!

Yu Qingshang had only wanted to lie flat and keep her head down. But she soon discovered that defending one city was only the beginning. Having taken over the original owner's body, she had to share her miserable life, too.

When life starts in hell, it just keeps going downhill.

*

Xie Huaijue was ordered to inspect the troops in Tiejicheng. After the general defending the city awoke from her grievous injuries, he noticed that her personality had changed completely.

They said she favored risky tactics, but every move he saw her make was cautious and defensive.

They said she was better at attacking than defending, but he watched her dig trenches, lay concrete, and install diagonal braces with more expertise than a craftsman.

Curious, he went to see for himself, only to catch her trying to hang herself from a ceiling beam.

The female general joked and played the fool, completely unaware that he had already discovered her secret: she was a woman disguised as a man.

The favored son of heaven was arrogant and prejudiced. Then one day, he learned that another man knew her secret, too.

He lost his mind, turned green with envy, and couldn't sleep. Aggrieved, he pressed the female general he'd once disliked for an answer. “Do you have feelings for me, too? What do you like about me? Surely it can't be just my looks! Hurry up and tell me!”

P.S. I have to emphasize this: I revise the story regularly, and some chapters have even been rewritten in their entirety. The interactions between the male and female leads differ greatly from pirated versions. I am not responsible for unauthorized copies.

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Reader's Guide:

1. A monogamous pairing with no previous partners on either side. The heroine grows from weak to the strongest. I wanted to write a female general who was a little different from the usual sort.

2. Important: The heroine accidentally reveals herself to the hero in the first three chapters, but she doesn't realize she's given herself away! The story is 60% plot and 40% romance.

3. The setting is an alternate world modeled on the Song Dynasty, with plenty of original details. Early on, the heroine uses a lot of modern expressions and makes jokes with a modern sensibility. These gradually diminish as she adapts.

4. To answer this once and for all: I'm not a civil engineering major, but members of my family are civil engineers and have worked on construction sites, and I've suffered the consequences~ (A little too hellish.)

5. Please share feedback politely and respectfully. Don't try to stir things up or attack the author. Everyone is free to come and go as they please when reading online, so please mind your words.

Theme: Knowledge is power