Carved Jade

An early contracted work. Don't read it.

Here's the blurb for the new story, Broken Willow

A gentle, beautiful, refined young lady x a proud, spirited young general

Liu Yingshu is blessed with ethereal beauty, and is famous throughout the capital as a treasured young lady.

The unfortunate thing is that she spent three years in mourning and missed the best age for betrothal. Now that she is over eighteen, she has lost the prominence she once enjoyed in the capital.

As soon as Liu Yingshu's mourning period ends, people speculate that the Liu family will marry her off to a household of lower status, or have her become the second wife of a nobleman's son whose first wife has died. In any case, she won't be marrying up.

No one expects her to turn around and marry her childhood sweetheart, the young General Xie, who went to war alone at fifteen and slew countless enemies. He comes from an aristocratic family.

*

As someone who grew up with Liu Yingshu, Young General Xie has never paid any attention to the rumors about her.

Then one day, as he rides past a teahouse, he hears people inside discussing him and Liu Yingshu, childhood friends. A man waves his fan as he analyzes their backgrounds, personalities, and interests, concluding that the chance of the two getting married is zero.

After hearing this, Young General Xie turns his horse around in disdain and leaves.

That night, Young General Xie secretly climbs over the wall into the courtyard where Liu Yingshu lives. Testing the waters, he says to the person sitting beneath the grape trellis, "I hear people in the capital have been making private bets on whether we'll get married."

Before she can say a word, the spirited man on the wall says earnestly, "I bet we will."

Later, when Xie and Liu get married, everyone who knows them wears an expression that says they saw it coming.

So everyone else had already decided they were meant to be...

A sweet childhood-friends romance

The setting is very loose, and official ranks are a mishmash.

Here's the blurb for this story

In her previous life, Shen Yunyu was brought back from a Taoist temple to the General's Manor by her stepmother. When she refused to marry the man her stepmother had carefully chosen for her, her face was disfigured and both her hands were crippled.

She thought the heir to the Duke's mansion, who was willing to marry her, was a good man. Little did she know she was just a pawn. The heir used her death to wipe out her father and his subordinates in one fell swoop.

They stepped over her and her father's corpses to rise to power, while she ended up wrapped in a straw mat and discarded.

Given another chance at life, she looks coldly at her stepmother, who appears to care for her so much, her sweet and kind stepsister, and her former husband, who has inexplicably fallen deeply in love with her. Nothing but hatred can stir any feelings in her heart.

She plans to settle every score, make arrangements for her father and grandmother, and then return to the Taoist temple to live.

Before she can take revenge, Shen Yunyu saves Prince Qi by chance when he is framed by someone. But she is bewitched by his handsome face and feigned innocence.

As her enemies fall one by one, she packs her things and heads back to the Taoist temple in the middle of the night. Halfway there, a man dressed in the robes of an emperor blocks her path. His face is breathtakingly beautiful in the moonlight, but his words are as cold as ice: "Yangyang, choose one: die, or go back and be my empress."

*

Yan Sui is the posthumous son of the former crown prince. Feared by the people in the palace, he has faced countless assassination attempts and poisonings since childhood.

When he is framed once again, Shen Yunyu saves him. He decides to act harmless in front of her, just so he can see the look on her face when she learns the truth about him.

But in the end, he is the one ensnared by love.

A dark, scheming prince x a gentle, aloof noblewoman

One-on-one romance, both leads have no prior sexual experience, happy ending

Theme: Give sincerity, receive sincerity.