The Chu Palace Waist

[The neighboring novel, Marrying the Emperor's Uncle, is now available. Feel free to visit the author's page and add it to your collection!]

Lin Xuan first met Fang Tinggui when she was thirteen.

Back then, he wasn't called "Fang Tinggui." He was called "Dog."

A vulgar name for a lowly boy.

He had a stubborn streak, though. Even when he was starving and seeing stars, beaten until his head was bleeding, he refused to crawl beneath someone's crotch for a moldy steamed bun lying in the mud.

Lin Xuan saved him.

She brought him back to the marquis's residence, gave him food and clothes, and even changed his name to "Fang Ting"-

may all the hardships of his life end here.

The young man was handsome, yet cold and taciturn, keeping everyone at arm's length. Despite all the help Lin Xuan gave him, he never thanked her.

But every morning, a freshly picked flower would appear on the windowsill of Lin Xuan's room.

From spring to winter, without fail.

When she was in pain and helpless, he was the only one who stood by her and granted all her wishes.

No matter how small, trivial, or even childish the wish, he would answer without hesitation: "Whatever Miss wishes for, Fang Ting will grant."

Later, Marquis Lin found out.

That very night, the boy was beaten until he was gravely wounded and driven out of the Lin family.

Worried Lin Xuan would be implicated, the boy went to see her despite his pain and promised that he would return in glory and marry her.

But as she watched her elder brother practicing archery in the distance, Lin Xuan could only hold back her tears, slap him, and tell him to stop imagining things.

*

They met again three years later.

A wrongful military-pay case landed the entire Lin family in prison.

The man in charge of the case was the same stable boy she had once mocked for imagining she loved him: Fang Ting.

He was also the emperor's most favored courtier, the invincible God of War of the Great Qi dynasty, Prince Chu, Fang Tinggui.

Lin Xuan was registered as a prostitute.

At the Duke's residence's flower banquet, she was surrounded by wolves. Forced to hold poisoned wine in the hollow of her collarbone, she was made to feed it to the young man seated at the head of the room, adored by everyone.

If he didn't die, she would.

With nowhere else to turn, Lin Xuan steeled herself and traced a finger across Fang Tinggui's palm. She didn't ask him to drink the wine, only to help her out of her predicament.

But the boy who used to indulge her in everything merely lifted her chin with a cold expression and sneered, "Beg me."

He wouldn't save her anymore.

Lin Xuan knew it, and no longer counted on him.

Their past feelings were like sparks flying from a burning fire: no matter how bright or fierce, once they flew away, they went out. However regrettable, all that remained was cold ash.

But just as she decided to fight alone, assassins suddenly attacked, plunging the entire banquet hall into a clash of blades.

A long saber cornered Lin Xuan. Just as she was about to meet her end, a long sword struck down the assassin first.

In the darkness, the young man stood like a mountain, steadfastly protecting her, just as he had on countless lonely, despairing nights before.

As blood spurted, he gently covered her eyes.

His thin lips, touched by the hidden chill of a spring night, slowly pressed to her collarbone, delicate as a butterfly's wing. He tried with all his might to restrain himself, yet could not resist. Knowing it was filled with poisoned wine, he drank every last drop.

Just as he had promised her long ago: "Whatever Miss wishes for, Fang Ting will grant."

(First edition: February 6, 2021; second edition: September 9, 2022; third edition: July 14, 2023)

- Both leads are sexually inexperienced, and they have feelings for each other. This really is a sweet story.

- The female lead's family was destroyed, and the male lead had nothing to do with it.

- The female lead's name, Xuan, is pronounced xuan. It comes from the line "A slender, graceful beauty with the waist of a Chu palace dancer."

Synopsis for Marrying the Emperor's Uncle:

(1)

Ying Que first met Xiao Yiqing in the winter when she was seven.

The Shen family home burned down, and both her parents perished in the fire. All that remained was Ying Que, clutching her little brother and trembling amid flashing blades.

That man raised his sword to shield her from the bloodshed, cleaving through her misfortune. His pure white figure seemed like a drift of snow descending amid a sea of corpses and flames.

Ying Que stared at him in a daze, her sleeves full of snow, yet she felt no cold.

To hold on to that drift of snow, Ying Que used her father's connections to pave his way, offered the immense fortune left by her wealthy mother to his mother, and even threw herself in front of an arrow to protect his father. At last, she put him on the throne.

But when enemy soldiers captured her and made her swallow a deadly poison, he used her mother's money and her father's city to trade for the only antidote that could save her.

It was because his true moonlight was Ying Que's cousin, who needed the medicine to save the child she had conceived with him.

To Ying Que, he had only one thing to say: "What makes you think you can compare to her?"

Even the emperor and empress, who had treated her as their own daughter, urged her to be magnanimous, saying the imperial heir came first.

In that moment, Ying Que finally woke up.

Reborn, she looked at the emperor and empress waiting for her to serve them, her cousin doing everything she could to curry favor, and Xiao Yiqing impatiently waiting for her to bring him soup. She merely sneered and said, "I want to break off the engagement."

(2)

Xiao Ji's charm had always been like poetry and wine.

Some were dazzled by his brilliance: at seven, he could play chess against the kingdom's foremost scholar, a rare genius the royal family had not seen in generations. Others were impressed by his masterful command of the army: in just three years, he had expanded the kingdom's territory by a third.

But for Ying Que, what etched him into her bones at first sight was the first night after she broke off the engagement and left the palace.

She was lost about what the future held.

The man, however, was as nonchalant as ever. Gazing down at the towering imperial city below the mountain, he idly toyed with a firefly on his fingertip. Its glow reflected in his deep-set eyes, making him look cold and languid.

Without asking if she dared or wanted to, he simply said, "You don't love him anymore, right? Then I'll take you back and fight our way in."

He was domineering, plain and simple, and brazen without a hint of shame.

He made overthrowing the emperor sound as easy as crushing a firefly in his hand. Killing those who had bullied her in the past seemed as inevitable as eating or sleeping.

[Bonus scene]

One day, Xiao Yiqing remembered his past life and finally realized who he truly loved.

But when he cast aside the emperor's dignity and personally came to propose marriage, he saw that the Shen family home was already piled high with betrothal gifts, each one more valuable than the gifts he had brought.

And his ninth imperial uncle, who wielded power over the entire court and had taken his life twice, was gently coaxing the girl he had loved for three lifetimes, his expression tender in a way no one had ever seen before.

With a casual, "Come pay your respects," the proudest snow in the world could only kneel like mud before the empress he once looked down on, and call out with deep reluctance, "Greetings, Ninth Imperial Aunt."

- Both leads are sexually inexperienced, one-on-one sweet romance, with a ten-year age gap

- Both leads are reborn; the second male lead has a secret crush that ultimately wins him the girl; everyone else gets their comeuppance

Theme: May you cross a thousand waves and still be able to stay by the side of the one you love.