Courtesan

[Bonus extra chapters are out! My new book, The Junior Official's Daughter, is now available. I hope you'll support it!] Originally titled A Fragrant Courtyard and Yuniang's Guide to Survival To Yuniang, the girls called heartless, shameless, and self-destructive by the world are actually lovelier than flowers. Why listen to what others say? The women's quarters are a garden of their own. Blurb: The business in a brothel is nothing but flesh, and the affection there is nothing but exploitation. Aside from the madams who make a fortune, the flower girls are lucky if they live to thirty. No one thinks highly of this trade, but Yuniang, who has just transmigrated, has no choice but to enter it. If she wants to survive, and to live with dignity, Yuniang has to earn a pile of money before she's sold. It's her only way to live! In the county-town pleasure quarters, wealthy patrons and merchants trade deceitful words and hide their calculations behind smiles. One side celebrates and hosts a banquet, dressing up and bringing out the gold ingots, never realizing that knives and spears have been prepared in secret: first they strip a family of its savings, then take its lives, all for the sake of money. Independent, struggling transmigrator woman x privileged man who sees the world coldly "I've seen your most despicable tricks, and you've seen how selfish I can be. Take off our masks, and we're cut from the same cloth. Neither of us has any right to judge the other." Everyday life in an ancient town. No dukes, marquises, emperors, or generals, just people coming and going in a little county town. This is an extremely niche topic. If you like it, please add it to your reading list and encourage me~ New stories: -- The Duke's Household Maid: A great mansion is on the verge of collapse, and the Duke's household faces an uncertain future. The eldest branch schemes for money, the second branch plots murder, and the masters of the third and fourth branches are even more debauched. To save her own life and protect her entire family, little Rong Jin has to get out fast, fast, fast. -- The Maid Won't Behave: A household-intrigue story about a young maid who strives to climb the ladder, become a concubine, and secure a good future. -- The Junior Official's Daughter: Her father holds a low-ranking post, and her mother is gravely ill. Song Yi faces a crisis from the start. As the daughter of a minor official, she has to earn money to support her family and help her mother manage social obligations. But... looking at her too-short clothes, yellowed jewelry, empty rice jar, and damp bed, Song Yi takes a deep breath. This is hard. -- The Widow Won't Remarry (Town Life): Yao Hua has just become a widow when her husband's family throws her out. Her birth family takes the money and turns its back on her too. Kindhearted people advise her to remarry, but Yao Hua shakes her head, happily packs her bags, and opens a shop in the county town to support herself. Oh my, why is someone asking to marry me again three years later? Moral: The independent struggle of a female lead making her own way to survive.