The Mute Slave

[I've had some new ideas and have been fleshing out a few details lately. I'm planning to rewrite this story soon. The core framework will stay the same, but I'm still deciding whether to start over or revise the existing version...

10.31]

Before Jing Xian took control of Taifu Palace, she once found a beautiful little mute in the Wasteland.

The little mute was covered in grime, and beneath her ragged clothes was a tattoo of a black crane with wings spread as if ready to take flight.

She kept the little mute by her side.

From then on, the Wasteland lost a little menace, and the Hidden Wind Hall gained a harmless attendant.

-

Jing Xian was exceptionally gifted and peerlessly beautiful, a dazzling role model whom everyone in the Four Realms envied.

Her engagement to the young lord of Tianjing Marsh was a favorite subject of gossip.

Until one day, that young lord came to visit Taifu Palace.

The quiet, obedient mute attendant suddenly vanished...

-

A month later, Tianjing Marsh was destroyed, and the young lord's entire clan was massacred.

Everyone at Taifu Palace was shaken to the core.

Jing Xian donned her armor and set out for Tianjing Marsh to put down the rebellion.

Amid the ruins, a beautiful youth stood with red-rimmed eyes and black energy swirling around him.

He met the shock in Jing Xian's eyes, then pointed at the elegant, noble young lord of Tianjing Marsh behind her and asked in a trembling voice, "Between my brother and me, could Palace Master choose again?"

[Cover art gifted by BS's Goya-sensei]

"Please note"

1. This is my first attempt at this style. It has some original settings and melodrama (probably).

2. The mute attendant is the male lead. He's pretending to be mute. Weak in the beginning, strong later.

3. The female lead is beautiful, cool, and softhearted, the most protective person in the Four Realms. She's very powerful, but this isn't a matriarchal world.

4. The story has a rather large scope. It's not conventional cultivation, it's a slow burn, and the story unfolds from two perspectives.

5. I hear fantasy is unpopular, so I've brought a quilt. That's all o_o+…

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Here's a recommendation for a friend's story next door. If you're interested, go check it out!

"Flattery" by Shuang Ying

[One-line pitch: After being drowned in a pond, I became my ex-husband's daughter.]

Qiao was born into a lowly family, but was bewitchingly beautiful. Raised from childhood to be flirtatious and forward, she had a foxlike allure.

After being sent into the palace, she followed her father's advice and vowed to become a femme fatale like the infamous beauty of the previous dynasty, overturning a kingdom with nothing but her face.

But before she could even touch King Chu's sleeve, he ordered her to be drowned in a pond.

When she woke, she had become King Chu's only child, the little imperial princess raised from infancy in a remote mountain temple.

Sitting in the carriage on her way back to the palace, Qiao lowered her eyes and smiled faintly...

A grand showcase of crazy, obsessive performances by the entire cast:

Female lead: A graceful goddess on the outside, a scheming, sickly beauty within

Male lead: A compassionate saint to all appearances, but a coldhearted, hypocritical madman afraid of the dark

Male lead: Pretends to have amnesia, sweet and wicked, a genuinely obsessive beauty

Male lead: A cold, frail hostage prince from a neighboring kingdom, so fierce, yet always crying red-eyed

Female lead: A beautiful lotus with a serpent's heart

"Everyone I Meet Seems Ill"

Theme: Becoming a better version of yourself