A Concubine's Escape

This novel will go behind a paywall on the 29th. Thank you to all my old and new friends for your support. Dan Sui is a wealthy merchant's concubine. She does the work of a concubine, but is given the title of maid. The merchant is frail and won't live more than a couple of years. When he dies, she'll either be toyed with by his wastrel son or dismissed and sold off. With her looks and no one to protect her, she'll inevitably end up in a life of prostitution, a plaything to be abused. So while the merchant is still breathing, she scrambles around like a headless fly, looking for a new benefactor. One day, a new guard arrives at the estate. They say he's a wandering swordsman. High martial arts skills = he can elope with her. No fixed abode = no need to fear gossip. Earns a decent amount = can buy her a household registration. He's the one. Dan Sui starts plotting how to win him over. ** Han Yi is a swordsman with no home but the world. He's cut ties with all his friends and relatives, is cold by nature, and lives as he pleases. He spends as much as he earns, whether he earns a lot or a little. When he passes through Pingjiang City, his money has run out. He casually accepts a well-paid job as a guard for a cloth merchant. But he doesn't expect the man of the house to take an interest in his martial skills, while the concubines in the inner courtyard take an interest in his body. One after another, they hint that they want to roam the martial world with him... He's fed up with it, especially since there's a beautiful young lady who keeps showing up to watch the show at every opportunity. She's surrounded by hungry wolves herself, yet seems oblivious. A rabbit laughing at a wolf for falling into a fox's den. What a fool. My next novel will be The Number Two Wife's Troublemaking in the Scholar's Household. Please bookmark it. Meng Qing is an ordinary transmigrator, born into the Great Yong Dynasty as the second daughter of a paper funerary goods shop in Suzhou, Jiangnan. She spends eighteen carefree years choosing a promising marriage for herself. But in the second year of her marriage, after giving birth, she has a dream. In three years, her brother-in-law Du Min will place third in the palace examination, bringing great prestige to the Du family. But she, the one who invested in him, will be ruined by the scandal, becoming the scholar's "vile second sister-in-law," despised by everyone. In a dynasty that values agriculture and suppresses commerce, Meng Qing is a merchant's daughter. To improve her family's social standing and give her children and grandchildren a chance to study and enter government service, she places her bet and marries Du Li, the second elder brother of Du Min, a poor scholar who often tops the exams at Chongwen Academy. She brings a generous dowry with her. Perhaps it's a merchant's instinct for profit. If she puts in ten, she makes sure everyone knows about seven of them. She doesn't think that's unreasonable, but later it becomes something people use against her. First, she's called mean. She spends two taels of silver on her brother-in-law and makes sure the whole village hears about it, humiliating the scholar. Second, she's called ambitious. She uses the scholar's name to drum up business for her family, embarrassing him in front of his classmates... Third, she's called a homewrecker. Since she married into the family, Du Li no longer listens to his mother. He takes his wife's side and favors her family. The fourth accusation is worse. In the dream, she unreasonably insists on giving her own child to her brother-in-law as his heir! Nonsense. She may be calculating, but not so calculating that she'd make her child call an uncle "Father." Meng Qing wakes up furious. Hearing her husband ask his younger brother to choose a good name for their child, she feels delighted. The future scholar who places third is talented. Her investment paid off! Then she thinks of the dream and nearly faints with rage. Heaven has been kind enough to show her what's coming. Now she can find out who's scheming behind her back and smearing her name. She never went around the village bragging about spending money, and she only brought business to her family by working with Du Min. The scholar got a handsome share of the profits! ** Du Li's family is poor. To support his exceptionally studious younger brother, he has yet to settle down even though he's over twenty. He knows his own marriage will be used as a bargaining chip to fund his younger brother's studies. To keep both himself and his future wife from becoming the family's workhorses, Du Li secretly sabotages two promising marriage arrangements. So when Meng Qing deliberately sets a trap and throws herself in his path, he knows exactly what she's after. Du Li knows Meng Qing, the second daughter of the Meng family's paper funerary goods shop. She's quick-witted, pleasant-looking, and exceptionally good at business. She's known as the thorny flower of Huaian Street, but she doesn't know who he is. So Du Li understands that Meng Qing doesn't smile at him because she finds him handsome. Just like him, she's after the fame and power his younger brother will win in the future. But he doesn't mind. When a thorny flower falls into his hands, the thorns prick him and he's the one who feels the pain. He's happy with that. He's willing to be pricked and to suffer the pain with all his heart. Theme: Take one step forward, and new opportunities will come.