A Beauty Fair as the Moon

This is a garbage novel. Anyone who buys it is asking for trouble!!!

Check out my new novel: Springtime Orioles

My next novel is Springtime Orioles. If you're interested, visit my author page and add it to your favorites~

The third master of the Shen Duke's household, Shen Wenzhen, is cool and dignified, elegant and refined, and devoted to politics. He's renowned for having no interest in women. The Old Madam of the Shen family is beside herself with worry. She's sent more than ten women to him, one after another, but every one of them has been sent back.

All she can do is summon people every few days to lecture him, but she only sees Shen Wenzhen staring pensively at a pastry. The Old Madam has a sudden realization. She mentions the maid who made the pastry, and, for once, Shen Wenzhen sets it down and gives his brief assent.

The Old Madam is delighted. Without another word, she assigns Yueqin, the most skilled pastry-making senior maid in her service, to wait on him.

The whole household is envious. Everyone says Yueqin is lucky to have won Third Master Shen's favor.

The little kitchen maid is indignant on Feiyu's behalf. Yueqin can't even knead dough! She takes the pastries Feiyu made to curry favor with the Old Madam, and lies to those above while bullying those below all day long. Why should someone like her get such an undeserved advantage?

Feiyu smiles to herself. What's so great about being a concubine? Once she's saved enough money to buy her freedom next year, she'll reunite with her family, start a little business, marry a good man, and live a steady, peaceful life.

Lost in such thoughts, she fails to notice the stewardess from the Old Madam's household enter the kitchen. Frowning, the woman calls out, "Feiyu."

Uneasy, Feiyu goes to the front courtyard. The moment she sees who is there, her heart jolts, and her smile freezes on her face.

No one knows she once lived another life.

Even fewer know how, in her previous life, she stripped off her clothes to seduce Third Master Shen in a desperate attempt to protect herself.

She thought waking up at six years old meant she had been reborn. If she stayed hidden in the kitchen, she would escape further misfortune, and the past would become a forgotten cloud of smoke, unknown to anyone.

And she and Third Master Shen would have nothing more to do with each other.

But now, through the shifting shadows of the trees, the man lifts his eyes and glances her way.

Feiyu remembers all those nights, his voice thick with desire, calling her Yingying again and again. She can't help shuddering all over…

She is his Yingying, and also his plaything. In this century-old family of wealth and splendor, a beautiful concubine is imprisoned in a jade cage of exquisite craftsmanship, bedecked in luxurious silk, jewels, and pearls, with no hope of escape.

At first, when Shen Wenzhen sees the maid kneeling before him, he suddenly can't understand why Feiyu, who had stumbled into his room in his previous life, is nowhere to be found, and why the woman sent to him in this life is Yueqin.

What went wrong?

But when he sees Feiyu, his doubts vanish.

He keeps her at his side, watching her put on an act and struggle day after day, like prey within reach, amusing himself by teasing her from time to time.

But one day, Third Master Shen realizes that everything has slipped beyond his control.

Feiyu stands graceful and willowy before a sturdy, honest man, smiling as she wipes the sweat from his brow. In a tenderness Shen Wenzhen has never heard from her, she asks the man if he's tired.

As though all those nights she slept beneath Shen Wenzhen, serving him with utmost care, had never held a trace of genuine affection.

Shen watches the scene before him, and suddenly feels hollow inside.

His Yingying seems to be flying away.

The only one he cares about is that little girl with almond-shaped eyes who is always so spirited and fierce.

The Xu family's beauty, only thirteen, is already famous throughout the capital for her looks.

She never expected her engagement to be broken off, only to become betrothed to a newly risen power at court.

Rumor has it the new Privy Councilor is ruthless, sinister, deceitful, lecherous, and debauched. Anyone who crosses him is turned into a human flesh lantern and put in a jar beneath his bed.

On the day her marriage is decreed, Dongshu has a dream. In a dilapidated tiled house, she's forced to sit on a jar holding a human flesh lantern and eat an entire banquet of tofu dishes.

Only then does she remember: he is the poor scholar she used to bully, blackmail, and mock. What's more, she even smashed his family's tofu stall.

On their wedding night,

Xu Dongshu sobs pitifully beneath her red veil: "I don't eat tofu... Wuwu..."

Lu Feinan: ?

> Xu Dongshu trembles: I suspect you married me to get revenge...

> Lu Feinan, secretly lovesick: If I'm going to marry someone, I might as well choose a beauty.

Bonus Scenes

·

She pays a famous capital painter a fortune to come to her home and paint her, but the one who arrives turns out to be her husband, whom she got stuck with.

The promised ink painting turns into a painstakingly detailed portrait of her, amid their half-hearted protests and reluctant surrender.

He buries his face in the crook of her neck and murmurs hoarsely, "Even the ink at the Treasured Jade Pavilion isn't as fragrant as you."

·

The forbidden book Dongshu has hidden among the ledgers accidentally falls to the floor.

Lu Feinan picks it up, the corners of his lips curling slightly, and asks, "Do you only like reading it?"

Content warnings:

1. In two chapters, the heroine goes a little too far when bullying the hero.

2. The author's notes for chapters 4, 24, and 25 contain three friend recommendations. Feel free to skip them if you'd rather not read them~

3. The novel has a 70% anti-piracy threshold. Writing is hard work, so please support the official release QAQ

P.S.

1. Both leads are virgins. Lighthearted sweet romance.

2. The heroine is spoiled and willful, but wise in her own way.

3. The hero is aloof and solitary, skilled at hiding his true feelings.

Theme: She adds a glimmer of light to the paper-cold lamp he keeps in his heart, becoming the source of his determination to press on through hardship.