[Dream of the Red Chamber + Qing Dynasty] Xiangling Is Reborn as Consort Ling

Xiangling, whose birth name is Zhen Yinglian, was the daughter of a local gentry family. She was kidnapped as a child, later became Xue Pan's concubine, and was tortured to death by his principal wife. She is the only person listed in the supplementary volume of the Twelve Beauties of Jinling.

Beautiful and refined, she was devoted to love and loved studying poetry, yet spent her life adrift in misery. Her fate is truly heartbreaking.

Reborn one day, she strives to protect her little family. She grows up with the Zhen siblings, Bao Yu and Bao Chai, and catches the attention of Hongli, the future Qianlong Emperor. Following the course of fate, she enters the palace.

Elevated to the Eight Banners and granted the surname Weijia, she is made Consort Ling and then Imperial Consort Ling, rising rapidly through the ranks. At last, she senses that something is not quite right, and begins to take a serious look at the emperor...

Notes:

1. The timeline is a complete mess. This is the author's freewheeling creation, so please don't take it too seriously. If it's not to your taste, please don't read it. Thank you, dear readers.

2. The main characters from Dream of the Red Chamber will barely appear. The plot summary should make it clear that the heroine won't have much to do with the Jia family. Please understand.

3. Emperor Qianlong is still a shameless womanizer, unfaithful in both body and heart. Our heroine will compare him to Xue Pan in her thoughts, so please don't read if that bothers you.

[Updates] Whenever inspiration strikes.

My next novel, Raising Kids with an Old-Fashioned Man, is now available for pre-order:

"Save the mother or the baby?"

"The mother!"

A man's voice, hoarse with worry.

The young wife is dying in a difficult labor. Hearing her husband, Jiang Mo, make his unwavering choice outside the window, she is deeply moved. But after giving birth to twins, a boy and a girl, she dies, and is reborn as Xing Qingchan in the modern era, where she lives a completely different, smooth-sailing life.

Reborn in her own previous life, just as her date of death in childbirth draws near, Xing Qingchan can't help feeling furious. Her first priority, of course, is to survive and deliver her babies safely.

She can't stand Jiang Mo, a thoroughly old-fashioned man. He clearly loves his wife, yet abandons her to go to the capital and enjoys the company of his concubine. He knows perfectly well that his mother is overbearing and muddleheaded, yet lets her make all the arrangements for his wife's delivery. He spends his whole life a widower, and serves him right.

But with disaster looming, Xing Qingchan has no choice but to rely on him.

She lays out her demands with a finger to the sky, asking Jiang Mo to stay by her side in the delivery room. She never expected him to agree. A stuffy Confucian scholar actually agrees to a request everyone else considers absurd?

Holding her newborn twins, Xing Qingchan says reluctantly, "I'll remember this kindness."

Once her life is no longer in danger, Xing Qingchan has to think about the future. Her plans don't include Jiang Mo, and she's undecided about the children, too. But after hitting one dead end after another, she realizes that there is almost no way to make it on her own.

A liberal arts graduate, she can't change the world around her. Instead, she gradually earns a reputation as an excellent mother and settles into her role as an official's wife, putting down roots in this era and living as herself within its limited confines.

But what should she do about Jiang Mo, who is increasingly to her taste and has learned to be considerate and faithful to his wife? Wouldn't it be better to keep their distance and remain nothing more than the children's parents? Why can't she help falling for him?

*

Jiang Mo becomes a model civil official. He reflects that he has done right by his sovereign and the people, but has failed the wife who died in childbirth and their children. He raised them poorly, and when he died, no Jiang family descendant was there to see him off.

Suddenly reborn just before his wife's delivery, Jiang Mo resolves to start over and devote more attention to his wife and children, building an exemplary family with a virtuous husband, a worthy wife, dutiful sons, and gracious daughters.

However, his young wife is very different from the woman he remembers, full of opinions of her own. Jiang Mo is surprised, then gradually won over. He indulges and dotes on her, even defying his mother for her sake, until he truly sees and respects her, understanding her at last: "If you were an official, you would far surpass me."

She is not only the children's mother and guide in life, but also his own guiding light. For the first time, Jiang Mo rashly gives her his whole heart, body and soul, wishing only that they share a bed in life and a grave in death, and remain by each other's side, understanding one another, for all their days...

Theme: Given another chance at life, one should strive to live well and honor one's parents, avoid the faithless man from one's past life, and do one's best to help the kind people one met before.