Manman

Preorders for my columns "Older Sister" and "A Childhood Friend from Heaven" are open. Please add them to your collection! Blurbs at the bottom!

[Blurb]

Meng Zhiyu had a pair of captivating peach-blossom eyes and a breathtakingly beautiful face, yet her temperament was bone-deep cool and distant. The first time Pei Lianzhen saw those eyes, he brought her back to the capital without a word.

He had assumed she was merely a substitute he had impulsively taken in. Gradually, though, he discovered that this little substitute was unlike anyone else. She was exceptionally talented, with a gifted hand for painting. She would secretly use her feelings as a brush and paint him into her pictures, and when he asked her in a fit of high spirits what her childhood name was, she would silently blush from head to toe.

Then came the imperial selection, and rumors spread throughout the capital that he was about to marry a noblewoman from a certain family and bring her into his prince's residence. His little substitute, however, disappeared completely in a great fire.

Pei Lianzhen abandoned everything and rushed south to find her, but as he investigated, he gradually discovered the truth.

The person she had painted was someone else. She did have a childhood name, and the jade pendant engraved with it, Manman, now lay in the jade coffin of someone whose face resembled his own.

On Mount Chongwu there is a bird with only one wing and one eye. Two birds must fly side by side, each completing the other, before they can take flight. It is called Manman.

"A pair of lovebirds. How very fitting."

Pei Lianzhen praised through gritted teeth, while a thin red mark slowly seeped across his palm.

A cool and gentle beauty x a cold, austere prince

Notes:

1. Both leads have a substitute; a groveling pursuit after the wife leaves; both leads are each other's first; happy ending.

2. The leads have flaws in their personalities and are not perfect.

3. Set in a fictional historical world, so no need to scrutinize the details. The line about Manman comes from The Classic of Mountains and Seas.

2022.8.2

★, Preorder: "Older Sister". Please add it to your collection!, ★

[A gentle, healing older sister x a volatile, lovesick younger brother]

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

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

Qi Huaizhen obediently took on the responsibility of being an older sister and devoted herself to caring for the boy as her little brother.

By the time she came of age, Yan Lin had become the most celebrated young heir in the capital, the warm and refined heir to the Duke of Wei's estate. To uphold the family's honor, this heir, taken in along the way, had no choice but to stand in for his father and go to war.

When Qi Huaizhen heard that he had won a great victory on the border, she changed into her wedding clothes with a peaceful heart and climbed into her bridal sedan.

*

Yan Lin had endured countless hardships since childhood, and his nature was sinister and ruthless. He had entered the Duke of Wei's estate under an assumed name to bide his time. Once he had grown strong, he would seize power single-handedly and turn the world upside down.

But then a ray of sunshine suddenly fell into his lightless life, and the heart twisted by hatred gradually filled with the image of someone called Older Sister.

He suppressed his true nature and carefully played the warm, refined gentleman she admired. Yet just as he was plotting to reclaim his identity and ask for her hand, Qi Huaizhen happily married someone else while he was still at the border.

When Yan Lin finally returned to the capital, the promising young heir to the Duke of Wei's estate had suddenly become the imperial grandson in the Eastern Palace.

At the same time, Qi Huaizhen, the duke's eldest daughter and a recent bride, vanished without a trace, throwing the entire capital into an uproar.

By day, he was the noble and exalted heir to the throne.

By night, he entered a shadowy chamber, his voice hoarse and his eyes bloodshot, and knelt at the woman's knees, begging her again and again:

"Older Sister, look at me again."

#Half a year apart in age. Mostly, I just like seeing a crazy puppy call someone Older Sister.#

★, Preorder: "A Childhood Friend from Heaven". Please add it to your collection!, ★

[A sweet and charming young girl x a spirited young general who grew up next door]

Jiang Yuan, the County Princess of Rou'an, was born into nobility. Her mother was a princess, her uncle was the emperor, and she had been cherished and pampered since childhood. She was as lovely as a little jade doll, but she had one troublesome matter: since the Princess's residence stood next to the Duke of Wei's estate, she had had a childhood friend, Fu Chengye, growing up alongside her from the day she was born.

Fu Chengye was good-looking enough, but he was the sort who would turn the house upside down if he wasn't disciplined for three days. He especially loved calling the slightly chubby young Jiang Yuan "Little Chubby Yuan" over and over.

At a flower-viewing banquet, a young lady companion whispered to her, "Yuan Yuan, what kind of man do you like?"

Jiang Yuan thought of that hateful face, then remembered the handsome young top scholar she had recently seen at the Qionglin Banquet. Blushing, she said, "Of course I want a refined, gentle scholar like my father. He absolutely cannot be a hot-tempered, crude military man who does nothing but practice with spears and swords all day!"

Her companion suspected she was hinting at someone. On the other side of a rockery, Fu Chengye, the military man who had silently recognized himself in her description, went off to enlist at the border the very next day.

The two were apart for three whole years.

Later, the court fell into chaos, and Jiang Yuan died on the road to a neighboring kingdom, where she was being sent to marry for political reasons. Just before she closed her eyes, she saw a young man gallop toward her, so frantic that he fell from his horse and landed beside her.

As a lonely spirit, she watched him gather her remains, watched him change completely and avenge her with his own hands, and finally watched him take poison and die before he could ascend the throne.

Reborn into her youth, Jiang Yuan climbed the bamboo ladder in the back courtyard of the Princess's residence. When she saw the young man practicing his horse stance on the wall, punished by his father, her eyes instantly reddened.

Fu Chengye was only eight years old. He turned to look at her tear-reddened eyes, immediately shook off his exhaustion with his usual high spirits, and teased her, "Little Chubby Yuan, did your mother scold you again?"

If a childhood friend can't beat someone who appears from nowhere, then the one who appears from nowhere can't beat a childhood friend who appears from nowhere.

A childhood friend from heaven is the best!

Theme: See your true heart.