A portrait of a handsome man, painted by a court artist, makes Gu Liche, the top candidate in the palace examinations of the Great Ji Dynasty, famous throughout Shengjing.
Shi Jie, who has transmigrated into the body of a concubine-born daughter of a marquis, can't stand listening to her lovestruck elder sister go on every day about the top candidate's graceful bearing. Her gaze accidentally falls on the portrait. The man in it is refined and otherworldly, with a conspicuous red mole between his brows. She is so startled she can barely think straight.
"Where is this man?"
Her elder sister, her face glowing with excitement, immediately grows guarded. "You want to see him...? I... haven't even had the honor."
Shi Jie looks conflicted and swallows the words she was about to say. In the garden, she found a torn, yellowed storybook on a garden rock. It contained the line: "In the depths of winter that year, the eldest daughter of the marquis conceived the top candidate's child and hanged herself from the bell tower. Her tongue protruded seven feet, a horrifying sight."
She thinks it must all be a coincidence, but the man in the storybook also has a red mole between his brows, just like Gu Liche.
It turns out she's transmigrated into a book. Still, the thought that her elder sister is going to be killed by a scumbag leaves Shi Jie troubled for days.
*
The marquis's concubine-born daughter has been found and brought home. They say she was raised in the countryside and is crude and ignorant, but among the marquis's three daughters, she's at least a normal one.
The eldest sister, Shi Xian, has a stutter from birth. When she meets strangers, her face turns red and she can't get a word out.
The second sister, Shi Han, eats like a horse.
The third sister, Shi Yu, can climb onto the roof and catch birds, or catch thieves in the marketplace.
Yet she is always sighing over spring's passing and autumn's sorrow, convinced she doesn't have long to live.
Shi Jie names each of their conditions.
"Eating disorder."
"Social anxiety."
"Hypochondria."
*
The top candidate has long been known as a playboy, so Shi Jie has no choice but to do everything she can to keep her elder sister from meeting him.
But on a full-moon night in the depths of winter, tragedy still unfolds.
Standing beneath her elder sister's body, hanging high above her, Shi Jie stares in shock, furious beyond words.
She turns around. The "culprit" stands beneath the moon, its watery light spilling over him. With a face like jade and hair as black as ink, he is captivating.
"If you've believed the rumors, you can cut me into a thousand pieces."
Blurb archived in a screenshot on May 12, 2022
Theme: Love is the union of two souls.
