The Pearl in His Palm (Reborn)

This novel will be available to purchase starting April 10, with a 10,000-word update. My upcoming novel, Spring's Embrace, is a ruthless warlord in troubled times × a delicate beauty standing in for another. Please add it to your collection. Thank you.

Pei Zhao drinks wine and admires the moon with a friend. Beneath the cold moon, his face is as beautiful as an immortal's, his aura utterly otherworldly.

"The Minister of Revenue's daughter, Wen Ning, has skin as fair as ice and bones as delicate as jade. Her beauty is unmatched in the capital, but sadly, she is too frail for anyone to catch a glimpse of her."

Hearing his friend lament that the beauty had missed the Flower Festival, Pei Zhao is unconvinced.

Everyone knows that the regent is sinister and ruthless, bloodthirsty and cruel, and loathes women.

That is, until Pei Zhao's trusted aide searches the entire city for the woman in a portrait, sending shockwaves through the court.

For several nights in a row, a delicate beauty has visited his dreams, entwining herself around him with soft cries and alluring moans, throwing Pei Zhao's heart of stone into utter disarray.

*

Wen Ning is reborn in the tenth year of the Zhaoyuan era, just as the Empress Dowager's beloved nephew comes to ask for her hand.

In her previous life, after her father rejected the proposal, he was falsely accused and thrown into prison. Her mother and brother died, and in her hour of need, her treacherous relatives treated her like a plaything and gave her to a nobleman to advance their own careers.

Unexpectedly, in this life, the regent Pei Zhao comes in person to her home:

"I, Pei Zhao, am enamored of Ning. I hope we can be a loving couple, harmonious as zither and lute, and grow old together."

Wen Ning knows he is only using the marriage to cover up a scandal within the palace. As long as he can keep the Wen family safe...

"I will marry him."

*

After the wedding

Everyone discovers that the regent, usually buried in official duties, spends all day at home admiring flowers and playing with birds, paying no attention to state affairs.

Pei Zhao invites Wen Ning to admire the beautiful lotuses in the pond. When she doesn't come, he returns to their room with a cold expression, grabs the wrist of the woman sewing a sachet, and pulls her into his arms. His voice is low and chilling, sending shivers through her:

"Ning should cry a little, so she'll remember what I am to her."

*

Years later, Pei Zhao has a son and a daughter, and he and his wife live in harmony. One night, after a tender moment together, he dreams of the day Wen Ning died. He had personally slaughtered the entire households of those who had hurt and humiliated her. Thank goodness, thank goodness!

Blurb for the upcoming novel Spring's Embrace:

In the final years of the Qiyuan era, the terrifying "Butcher," Liang army commander Shen Zhaonan, leads his troops through Mo City. People say he wears a mask because of his hideous face, and that he is suspicious and bloodthirsty. The governor can only offer up his beloved daughter to secure a brief respite.

This "pearl" is beautiful and fair-skinned, with a graceful figure, charming and alluring. After just a few days of entanglement, she leaves his stony heart in disarray.

On the day the army sets out, Shen Zhaonan takes the beauty with him. Unexpectedly, they are ambushed, and in the chaos she escapes without a trace. When he returns to Mo City and holds a knife to the governor's throat, he learns that she is the widow of the governor's late son, Qin Qisi.

Since childhood, Qin Qisi has been taught by her mother to marry a man who will be "faithful to her until they grow old together." But her wicked stepmother tricks her into becoming a good-luck bride for the governor's son.

Half a year later, her husband dies of illness, and her mother-in-law shuts her away in a cold, desolate courtyard to wait out her days. When she hears that the governor's daughter refuses to serve the ugly general, she agrees to be her stand-in, because the young lady promises to free her from her cage.

Unexpectedly, the man insists she stay by his side. She has escaped the wolf's den only to enter the tiger's lair, until a clash of blades rescues her from its jaws.

She eventually settles in a small town, where she hears rumors of him everywhere:

"General Shen defeated a much larger force and took the enemy commander's head."

"General Shen conquered more than half the realm."

"General Shen captured the divine capital, Luo'an, and will soon ascend the throne."

Qin Qisi only knows that her beloved, who is away campaigning with the army, will soon return so they can farm and weave together.

But one day, fine carriages and splendid horses fill the road outside her home. The man standing there still has that handsome, radiant face and shy smile. "Qisi, I've come to take you and our son back to the palace."

Everyone in the realm knows that the emperor was turned away at the door by a humble woman.

Theme: Love is mutual: you have to give in order to receive.