Moonlight Over a Thousand Rivers

[Sorry, something came up in real life, so updates will be sporadic from here on. But I definitely won't abandon the story. I want to see it through, and I'll update as much as I can.]

My next book will be A Highborn Marriage. Please add it to your reading list. The blurb is below. Your support means a lot, muah~

Qianshan Yue's father arranged a marriage for her when she was young. Luo Mingchuan, young master of the Bantian Sect, was as handsome as a mountain of jade and the most outstanding man of his generation. They were a perfect match.

But she had never taken the arrangement to heart.

Later, she traveled across the sea to Penglai to study cultivation. There was a junior fellow disciple on the island, handsome and unassuming, with an extraordinary air about him. She fell for him at first sight.

She had never met Luo Mingchuan all these years, and now that she had someone else in her heart, she thought she should find a chance to call off the engagement.

But one night, her junior fellow disciple invited her to meet, saying he had something important to tell her.

Qianshan Yue was giddy with happiness. Little did she know that instead of the confession she had hoped for, a long-planned ambush awaited her.

Countless arrows pierced her chest. She leaped off a cliff, and only after securing a slender chance of survival did she realize how foolish she had been.

Luo Mingchuan? Her junior fellow disciple? They had always been the same person. From beginning to end, she had been like a fool, openly revealing her feelings and thinking she was carefully planning every step, never realizing she was the one being played.

He had never wanted her heart. He wanted her life.

As if things could not get any worse, she awoke to learn that her sect had suffered a catastrophe. She rushed back in a panic, only to find Dongshan strewn with corpses and drenched in blood, a horrifying sight.

To protect her sect's spiritual vein, she shattered her core and gave up all her cultivation. As she fell, covered in blood, she saw Luo Mingchuan hurrying toward her. She raised her icy gaze and said softly, "The Nine-Colored Brocade you want is my life. You can have it. In exchange, our engagement ends here."

-

Luo Mingchuan had always been proud and had never regretted a decision.

But there was one thing in this life he would regret until the end of his days.

He never imagined that the assassination at Xiangsizhai and the catastrophe that befell the Tianyi Sect would ultimately make him lose the person he loved most.

For two hundred years, Luo Mingchuan woke from nightmares every night.

Until the day he saw her again. He clutched at her clothes, his eyes bloodshot. "A Yue, look at me one more time!"

He once thought what he felt for her was regret and guilt. Only later did he realize it had always been love!

[Reader's Guide]

An alternate universe, very much an alternate universe. Both leads are inexperienced. Happy ending.

[Blurb for A Highborn Marriage]

At a poetry banquet, Ji Xingzhi casually pointed someone out, setting in motion his marriage to Lin Shuyue, a woman of vastly different social standing.

Although Lin Shuyue came from a humble family, her parents had doted on her since childhood, and she had always been free-spirited. After marrying into a powerful family, she had to live by its rules, walking on eggshells.

After the wedding, she was cautious in everything and careful at every step, keeping her head down and living quietly.

Only when Miss Chen came to the capital did she learn that Ji Xingzhi had rushed into marrying her because he already had someone in his heart. He had married her merely to fend off his family's urging to wed.

Lin Shuyue felt nothing at all. She was even a little happy, and served Ji Xingzhi's meals and daily needs more attentively than before.

Only now and then, alone at night, would she secretly count her private savings. She thought happily that once she had saved a little more, she could divorce him and find herself a handsome, gentle young man who would cherish her.

-

Ji Xingzhi was peerlessly handsome, unlike anyone else in the world, and the court official most favored by the new emperor. When he married a woman from a humble family, everyone was stunned.

After the wedding, he spent most of his time at the government offices. He remembered his wife as gentle, sensible, well-behaved, and never clingy. She managed the household and showed filial respect to his parents, making her a capable and proper wife.

That day, remembering it was her birthday, he made an exception and left work early. As he entered the garden, he heard carefree laughter from inside the room: "How could I possibly fall for that cold, stiff block of wood? I like graceful, jade-like young men..."

The usually decisive and far-sighted Young Lord Ji tossed and turned all night.

So she had never liked him at all...

Both leads are each other's first, one-on-one romance, with a small ensemble cast

Theme: I may cross a thousand mountains, but my heart will never waver