I Am a Beautiful Courtesan

[A stunning courtesan who outshines everyone in public and schemes behind the scenes x a marquis's heir who plays the wastrel in public but secretly leads a team of elite assassins]

Blurb:

As a girl, Jiang Wan Feng traveled to Liang with an envoy and visited her cousin, Meng Tingxi, who lived there. On the Lantern Festival, her cousin took her, disguised as a boy, to release sky lanterns.

Meng Tingxi wore a wolf mask, while she wore a lamb mask. They met a young man in a fox mask whose name, identity, and origins were all unknown.

On such a beautiful night, the three young people ended up vying for the same sky lantern. In the end, Jiang Wan Feng made a grand vow for a prosperous age with the two young men:

One wanted to "climb to the heights of the court," another wanted to "rid the world of injustice," and she hoped to "protect the peace of our homeland."

Until...

After Jiang Wan Feng returned to Zhao, the army of Xian invaded. She watched her father and mother take their own lives before her eyes.

Later, someone rescued her. She wandered to Xian, enduring hardship and displacement, and restoring her country became her lifelong wish.

-

In Xian's capital, no one is unfamiliar with Ningxiang Tower, a place of romance and pleasure, or with its stunningly beautiful courtesan, Jiang Wan Feng.

On the night of Jiang Wan Feng's coming-of-age ceremony, Mu Xingzhou, the notorious heir to the marquis's estate, spent a thousand taels at Ningxiang Tower just to win a smile from the beauty.

The beauty smiled, and the night belonged to the young lord.

The next day, Mu Xingzhou paid a fortune to book the courtesan again. Everyone in the capital knew the heir was a wastrel. No man dared provoke him, much less harbor thoughts of Jiang Wan Feng.

Later, the people began to say:

The courtesan wanted to fly free of the birdcage that was Ningxiang Tower, but the heir had imprisoned her in another cage, the marquis's estate.

In a desolate courtyard somewhere on the estate.

The room was dark. The man's eyes were red as his trembling hand gripped the woman's chin. "Why did the spy have to be you?"

Her eyes full of confidence, the woman smiled and said with certainty, "You can't bring yourself to kill me..."

Light a lantern and pray for peace throughout the world, with no more conflict.

Reader's guide:

1. Inspired by the "Please Light the Lantern, Chancellor" episode of the variety show Great Detective, Season 7.

2. One-on-one romance, happy ending.

3. Please add it to your collection >3

Theme: To be added.