Deep Green Pines

The ongoing series My Stand-In, Did You Run Away Today? has plenty of chapters now. Please add it to your collection~

Two stand-ins, chasing their love through a crematorium~ The blurb is at the very end~

This story is complete and has been carefully revised. The pirated and official versions may differ, so please support the official version.

[Blurb]

After mastering her martial arts, Qing Zhi descends the mountain to roam the jianghu. By chance, she barges into a lavish banquet and causes a scene, knocking down guards and leaping onto a wall. Like a free bird, she flaps her wings and is about to fly away, but the usually aloof general at the banquet reaches out, intending to catch the naive, playful bird.

Li Rusong was born on the battlefield. The ceaseless wars of the northern lands forged his cold and hard-hearted nature. When he finally falls for someone, he suppresses his instincts and uses a delaying tactic, hoping to win her over slowly.

But after exploring the northern lands, Qing Zhi leaves for three whole years. Li Rusong is so furious he could spit blood. "Win her heart first, take her by force if that fails, and do it slowly? What a stupid plan!"

In an age when finding a person is like searching the ocean for a needle, Qing Zhi wanders everywhere, unaware that someone is chasing her. Li Rusong watches helplessly as she gets caught up in political turmoil, yet he can't find her anywhere. Fortunately, fate takes pity on him and finally brings her back before his eyes.

*

On the night of the Lantern Festival, he looks at the young woman who has crashed into his arms after all these years.

Li Rusong: "I happen to be in need of a wife. May I ask if you are betrothed?"

Qing Zhi: "Thanks for asking, but I have money, land, a business, and an estate to inherit."

Li Rusong refuses to give up: "I happen to be in need of a bodyguard. Would you be interested?"

Qing Zhi's eyes light up. "I could consider it."

How do you keep a bird from flying away?

Break its wings? No.

Build a golden cage to keep it prisoner? No.

Of course, you give her a wider sky.

When green pines meet, their hopes are fulfilled.

[Free-spirited heroine who loves freedom X aloof, calculating general]

[Important]

1. The male lead is twelve years older than the female lead. One-on-one romance, happy ending.

2. Set during the Wanli era of the Ming dynasty. Some characters are based on historical figures, but the story is entirely fictional, and dates of birth and death have been changed. Please don't nitpick historical details.

★, Ongoing series: My Stand-In, Did You Run Away Today?, ★

[Cool, gentle beauty X cold, ascetic prince]

Meng Zhiyu has a pair of captivating, almond-shaped eyes and a stunningly beautiful face, yet her nature is cold to the bone. When Pei Lianzhen first sees those eyes, he takes her back to the capital without a word.

He thinks he's merely taken in a stand-in on a whim. But gradually, he discovers that this little stand-in is different from the rest. She is exceptionally talented and a skilled painter. She secretly uses her affection as a brush to paint him into her pictures, and when he cheerfully asks for her childhood name, she blushes without a word.

Then, during the palace selection, rumors spread throughout the capital that he is about to marry a noblewoman from a certain family and bring her into his princely residence. His little stand-in disappears in a great fire.

Pei Lianzhen abandons everything and heads south in pursuit of her. As he investigates, he gradually discovers the truth:

The person she painted was someone else. She did have a childhood name, and the jade pendant engraved with that name, Manman, now lies in the jade coffin of someone whose face resembles his.

On Mount Chongwu lives a bird with only one wing and one eye. Two birds must join together, wing to wing, to fly. They are called Manman.

"A pair of birds flying wing to wing. How very apt."

Pei Lianzhen praises through clenched teeth, while a thin streak of red slowly runs across his palm.

#She loves me, she was just pretending# #Two stand-ins, chasing their love through a crematorium#

★, Coming soon: Older Sister, ★

[Gentle, healing older sister X obsessive, unstable younger brother]

When Qi Huaizhen was five, her father brought home a boy from the frontier. He was half a head shorter than her, painfully thin, covered in scars, and had eyes fiercer than those of a lone wolf cub on the grasslands.

Her father said, "Zhenzhen, this is Yan Lin. From now on, he'll be your little brother."

Qi Huaizhen obediently took on the responsibility of being his older sister, wholeheartedly caring for him as her younger brother.

By the time she came of age, Yan Lin had become the most renowned young heir in the capital, a refined and elegant young lord of the Duke of Wei's household. To preserve the family's honor, this heir, taken in from elsewhere, has to go in his father's place.

When she hears that he has won a great victory at the frontier, Qi Huaizhen happily puts on her wedding dress and climbs into the bridal sedan.

*

Yan Lin has endured countless hardships since childhood and is cruel and sinister by nature. He entered the Duke of Wei's household under an assumed name to bide his time, waiting for his young charge to grow up so he could seize power and control everything.

But then, a ray of sunshine suddenly falls into his bleak life, and the heart twisted by hatred gradually fills with a figure called Older Sister.

He suppresses his true nature and carefully pretends to be the gentle, refined young man she admires. But just as he is plotting to reclaim his identity and ask for her hand, Qi Huaizhen marries someone else, full of joy, while he is still at the frontier.

When Yan Lin returns to the capital, the promising young heir of the Duke of Wei's household has suddenly become the imperial grandson in the Eastern Palace.

At the same time, Qi Huaizhen, the eldest daughter of the Duke of Wei's household and newly married, vanishes without a trace. The entire capital is in an uproar.

By day, he is the noble, exalted heir to the throne.

By night, he enters a dark underground chamber. His voice hoarse and eyes bloodshot, he kneels at the woman's feet and begs her again and again:

"Older Sister, look at me again."

#A half-year age gap. Mostly because I love watching an obsessive puppy call someone Older Sister#

Theme: Self-reliance and strength, love and peace