Long in the Wind

1.

If you owned a rouge shop famous throughout the capital, what would you choose to do next?

A. Work hard and build the business bigger and stronger. B. Leave everything to the staff and enjoy life.

Yun Zhi had it all, and her choice was to lose herself in gambling houses and let her business go to ruin.

Everyone lamented her choices. When piles of IOUs landed in front of her, she finally came to her senses and resolved to revive the businesses she owned.

She thought she would have to weather a great many hardships, but unexpectedly, Prince of Nan'an Wei Ceyuan appeared halfway through. With a grand wave of his hand, he entrusted her with complete authority over all the rouge purchases for his residence.

Everyone knew that music and revelry filled the Prince of Nan'an's residence every night, and many women skilled in singing and dancing gathered there. This order was an irresistible temptation for Yun Zhi.

But this authority came with an absurd condition.

"I want you to come to my residence every day."

"?" Yun Zhi had no idea what this prince, who had fallen as low as she had and had since become a notorious womanizer, was thinking.

But for the money, and to pay off her debts as soon as possible, she steeled herself.

"All right!"

2.

The first time Wei Ceyuan saw her, he felt that something was different.

He understood that what had changed was his own heart, but he did not dare admit it.

His heart fluttered like a startled fawn, and affection slowly took root. He wanted to see her more often, and he wanted her to pay more attention to him.

He even grew so possessive that he hoped she would see no one but him.

What he wanted to give her was not just money, but also his heart, which he did not know whether he dared to offer.

So he followed his heart and lured her into his embrace, step by step. Until one day, at last, he could kiss her brow and eyes, share a kiss with her, and give her the title of princess consort.

Then they could be together openly and properly, growing old side by side without ever parting.

3.

Jiang Lieyang had always known that the common people, unaware of the true story, gossiped about how she had seized the position of Empress Dowager.

They said she was ruthless and cruel, that she had slaughtered the late emperor's children and kept only her own, so that one could become emperor and the other a general, one guarding the inner court and the other protecting the realm beyond it.

They said she had plotted and schemed for her own selfish desires, only to end up estranged from her own children.

She smiled. Who could understand her bitterness? Who would want to?

Even her two sons hated her so much.

Amid all the truths and lies, all the turmoil, across a hundred years and a thousand, rather than bear a false reputation in vain, she might as well make it true.

What people judged her for from then on had nothing to do with her.

Theme: Live toward the light.

2.

I am a ginseng spirit who has lived for eighteen hundred years, known throughout the martial world as "a walking tonic pill."

To escape the cultivators who wanted to take a bite out of me every day, I plunged into a vortex in time and space and tumbled into the world of Mysterious Lotus Casebook.

The moment I landed, I ran into Li Lianhua, who had been poisoned for years. He was so broke he could barely scrape together a coin, and the poison would flare up the following year.

I did a quick calculation and figured that staying with him would save me rent, so I shamelessly latched onto him.

To keep him alive, while still being reluctant to chop off my own little roots, I turned back into my original form every night after he fell asleep.

Then I brought him all the water I had soaked in overnight, both my ginseng bathwater and my ginseng foot-washing water, and held it up to his lips.

I thought I was getting away with it without anyone knowing, but who would have guessed?

The dog he kept stared at me every day as if I were a giant walking radish.

Author: Just a random short, sweet story, so the timeline is all over the place. Please don't yell at me.

Theme: Treat the world with kindness.

3.

After being reborn, Li Changning wanted to do only two things: seize the throne, and ask that monk, "Why did you accompany me in death in my previous life?"

She faced the Crown Prince head-on at court, handled disaster relief and investigated cases, and gathered talented people around her, taking one step at a time toward the throne. But every time she saw that aloof, ascetic monk, she remembered the great fire of her previous life.

He did not know her, yet his Buddhist prayer beads shattered and scattered across the floor in front of her.

Theme: I want both power and love!

4.

Setting: Longcheng, a city in the south, among the top ten cities in the country for GDP, and also for crime rate. The city runs on two sets of rules: those in the open, and those beneath the surface.

The Records Bureau: Not some mysterious organization, just a business. It specializes in making people "disappear": faking deaths, creating new identities, and erasing the past. Its clients include businessmen running from debt, witnesses hiding from their enemies, and ordinary people who want to start over. It has been around for thirty years without a single incident, until now.

Lin An: A private detective. Lazy, sharp-tongued, outrageously expensive, and reluctant to take any case he can avoid. He has a severe "need to finish what he starts": once he takes a case, he will see it through, even if it turns into a complete mess. His partner's death five years ago left him stuck in place. Not because he was so deeply devoted, but because he made a choice back then and still does not know whether it was the right one. He cannot move forward because of it. He is no hero, just an ordinary person who cannot come to terms with having no answers.

Shen Ji: A criminal investigator. Meticulous, exacting, rule-conscious, and easily drawn into a contest of wills. Her respect for rules did not come naturally; after her father died, she needed a set of principles to explain why the world was the way it was. She knows rules sometimes protect bad people. She just has not yet found anything better to rely on. She investigates her father's case partly out of love, and partly because she needs to know whose daughter she is.

Theme: Everyone has to make peace with themselves eventually.

5.

[She meant to be a top student but became the school bully instead] [Roguish rich boy vs. poker-faced girl] [Mutual crush for ten years]

Shen Yu had only one goal in life: study hard and give her mother a better life.

Instead, she became the school bully.

It wasn't what she wanted. The delinquents were the ones who insisted on running into her fists.

Lu Jin was the first person who dared to mess with her.

He slung an arm over her shoulder and called her "bro," took her to the rooftop to skip class, and asked to copy her homework.

When he left, he ruffled her hair and said, "Wait for me to come back."

She didn't wait. She left.

Ten years later, at the entrance to an alley in the urban village,

he was dressed in a suit, a cigarette hanging from his lips, and asked her for a light.

She tossed him a one-yuan lighter. "You can keep it."

He smiled. "Shen Yu, this time you can't run away."

She wanted to be a top student, but never managed it.

She wanted to carry everything alone for the rest of her life, but couldn't manage that either.

Wildfire can never be extinguished; when the spring breeze blows, it rises again.

She is a fish sunk to the depths, and he is a scorching flame.

Theme: This is a story about waiting and reunion. A wildfire sweeps across the land in an instant; embers reignite after ten years. She wanted to be a top student but became the school bully instead. She wanted to carry everything alone, but he found her. He spent ten years proving that some people aren't passing through; they are the way home.