The Bright Moon in My Arms (Reborn)

My new novel, Spring Returns, is now available. Coming soon: Spring at the Imperial Terrace, The Minister’s Criminal Wife, and Life in the Duke’s Household. [A fickle ruler × a stunning beauty with a scheming mind. Content warnings included, so be sure to read them.] In the sixth year of Taikang, the emperor’s agents were ordered to search far and wide for beautiful women to bring into the palace. Zheng Guanyin was breathtakingly beautiful, but after entering the palace, the empress sent her to the Western Garden temple to sweep the grounds. There was no hope of being released and married off, but the current emperor favored occult practitioners, so she still had a chance to turn her fortunes around. She used a few tricks to befriend an older, dignified Daoist priest, asking him to find out the emperor’s preferences and promising a generous reward in the future. Just when all seemed lost, a high-ranking court official later proposed to her with lavish gifts, offering her the position of principal wife. The empress summoned her and told her to accept. With her departure from the palace imminent, Zheng Guanyin was overjoyed. She went especially to the priest’s place of quiet retreat to say goodbye. But inside the great hall, charred, finely painted portraits of beautiful women lay scattered across the floor. Each bore the emperor’s seal. The paintings were old, but the woman in them looked exactly like her, in every expression and feature. Zheng Guanyin stared in horror and tried to flee, only to see the handsome, distinguished Daoist priest enter from outside. Those around him addressed him as “Your Majesty.” [The male lead’s perspective] Many people in the palace knew that the emperor had once been devoted to a woman. After she was gone, he distanced himself from the harem, but no one had ever seen what she looked like. He had wanted to grind her bones to dust, but when they met again, he somehow found himself draping his robe over her frail shoulders. Even though he knew how cold and calculating she was beneath her exquisite beauty, when she wept like a pear blossom in the rain and petulantly told him to go away, he couldn’t bring himself to move. He was greedy for that tiny shred of tenderness. But before the beauty could walk straight into his trap, he received the shocking news that she was leaving the palace to marry. On the imperial bed, the beauty looked exactly as she had in the painting. Her hands were bound with the emperor’s jade sash, and a Daoist robe barely covered her alluring figure. The emperor cast off his tender disguise, bent down, and pinched her chin. His tone was casual, but his eyes were full of menace. “Yinyin, where is my thank-you gift?” He’d fallen for her once, and once wasn’t enough. He’d fallen for her a second time. What if she had, in fact, once liked me, even just a little? * She thought she hated him to the bone, but in truth, she couldn’t stop thinking about him. Content warnings: An outrageous story with intense themes and a large age gap of thirteen years. In their previous lives, the male lead seized his minister’s wife and was later poisoned to death by the heroine. She kept male lovers, including a stand-in for the male lead. After being reborn with his memories, the male lead takes her by force. That’s the story. Coming soon: The Minister’s Criminal Wife When Jiang Lanwu was fifteen, the new emperor ascended the throne and granted a group of palace servants their freedom to return home. She bribed the director of the palace women’s quarters and was able to leave the palace and marry her cousin. Her husband was a man of noble character. After their marriage, they lived in harmony and treated each other with great respect. But then a scandal involving cheating in the imperial examinations landed him in prison. Awu ran everywhere seeking help, but to no avail. She could only watch as her husband was exiled a thousand miles away, while her uncles threw her out of the house. Just as she was at her wits’ end, a nobleman who happened to pass by took her and her mother-in-law in. In return, however, she had to serve another nobleman. Her benefactor said that if she served the nobleman well, her husband might still have a chance at survival. The emperor had countless women. Once her husband returned after an amnesty, she could still be Madam Jiang. In a palace residence, late at night, the beauty emerged from her bath wearing only a thin gauze robe and presented the emperor with her husband’s blood-written plea. The emperor didn’t hurry to read it. Instead, he surveyed the beautiful sight before him. “I’ve long heard that your beauty is rare in all the world. Seeing you today, I find the rumors were true.” She couldn’t remember when she had ever attracted the attention of the most powerful man in the land, but the emperor had never forgotten her. Spring at the Imperial Terrace When the new emperor took the throne, his very first decree denounced the former empress, accusing her of adultery and stripping her of her title as his adoptive mother. Princess Lanling, Ji Wan, paid no heed to the torrential night rain. With her hair loose, she knelt before Zichen Hall and asked to be made a commoner, surrendering her fiefdom and offering to bear the blame in her mother’s place. She still clung to a sliver of hope, but the brother who had once doted on her now sat high above her. No longer gentle as before, he threw her into prison and charged her as an accomplice. From then on, the whereabouts of the once-radiant Princess Lanling were unknown. Yet a beauty kept hidden by the emperor appeared at his side. That night, Zichen Hall was brightly lit. The emperor rose from his bed and tenderly caressed the sleeping beauty, sighing, “If Qianqian had been this obedient sooner, the former empress wouldn’t have had to suffer so much.” The beauty was branded with the seal “Made for the Emperor” and treated as his own private possession, hidden away in the palace for his amusement. But she had never once been truly submissive. She planned to escape the palace with the help of her former fiancé. That night, their carriage had only just left Chang’an when a loud crash sounded outside. Gu Wan, dressed like a peasant woman, lifted the curtain. Beside the carriage, her beloved had been shot through the chest. His body crashed to the ground. The emperor, dressed for riding, galloped out from the woods. Looking down at her with a smile, he said, “I’ve always enjoyed hunting foxes at night. I hope I didn’t frighten you, Qianqian.” “Qianqian, you’re always so willful and naive.” He gently wiped the tears from Ji Wan’s cheek. “Everywhere beneath the sun and moon belongs to the emperor. The empress is carrying my child. With only a wild fox for company, where do you think you can run?” * When the late emperor was alive, he often held the young Princess Lanling in his arms and said to the crown prince, “I am gravely ill. If I do not live long, you must care for your sisters and find them good husbands.” The crown prince was deeply filial. Each time, he could only weep on the floor, unable to promise anything. A few years later, the crown prince ascended the throne. He enumerated the empress’s crimes, demoted Princess Lanling to a commoner, removed her from the imperial family register, imprisoned her in the emperor’s palace, and took her for himself. Every man who had once wished to marry the princess was executed by the emperor. He had once been praised by all as a virtuous young man, but when it came to her, he refused to yield even an inch, earning a name for himself as a sinner. “If sitting on this throne still doesn’t let me do as I please, what’s the point?” I Married the Tyrant Again After Returning Age gap / love at first sight / past and present lives / love goes both ways Rumor had it that the tyrant killed his father and brothers, leaving rivers of blood wherever his iron hooves passed. In his twenty years on the throne, no woman but the late empress dared approach him. But Yin Yunxiu was exceptionally bold. She specifically asked Princess Xinyang to take her along to the Shanglin Park. The emperor stood atop a high terrace, gazing into the distance. The mountains and rivers lay before him, yet he felt more desolate than ever. Only when he saw her did he lose himself for a moment, then call out joyfully, “Susu!” When I first met Susu, I was three years older than her. By the time I married her again, I was more than twenty years older. She was always like a young deer wearing a flower crown, lively and youthful. But I was already nearly forty, no longer worthy of being called her Erlang. *Even after fifteen years, I would still recognize you among the countless people of the world, and cross every obstacle to reach your side as I did back then.* “I would be the crown upon Your Majesty’s head, the breeze at your side. Even if we traveled ten thousand miles, I would follow like your shadow.” How do you know that closing your eyes right now won’t mean opening them in another world? Theme: Never give your heart away lightly.