I Have a Desolate Garden

Guan Xia is a lazybones.

She has no lofty ambitions and loves taking it easy.

She wakes up in ancient times, in the body of a refined young lady who was married off long ago. She returns to her family home, which has been confiscated and condemned to exile. Seeing the once-grand courtyard reduced to a shabby, empty hall, overgrown with withered grass and dead trees, the original owner is overcome with grief and dies of heartbreak.

In truth, she starved to death.

And so the garden welcomes a new owner.

Most people who came into resources like these would start by selling flowers and fruit to earn their first pot of gold, then repair the house, buy shops, and grow their business until they reached the pinnacle of life.

But Guan Xia doesn't want to hustle. She just plans to take life slowly.

There are fruits to pick from the trees, bamboo shoots to dig up in the grove, and fish and shrimp to catch in the pond... If she wants to earn a little silver, she'll make some pastries and set up a small stall outside her door. Once she's made enough, she'll close up for the day. She won't wear herself out.

Life is carefree, and the days pass easily.

*

Lu Jingnian is a corrupt official.

He holds absolute power and is utterly heartless.

His teachers, friends, family, and even his fiancée's family... He's had them all executed or exiled.

Perhaps it's karma, but Lu Jingnian has lost his ability to sleep and his sense of taste. He feels like a walking corpse.

One day, on his way back from court, he sees smoke rising from the abandoned garden.

The once-famous Xie Garden has become an ownerless ruin, and he's the one responsible.

No one in the capital dares to take it over because it lies along the route Imperial Censor Lu takes to and from court every day. It's a monument to his revenge and the grudges he has settled.

He lifts the carriage curtain and sees a small stall under the eaves, with freshly baked stuffed pastries laid out on it.

A woman sits beside the stall, holding a fan as she looks down and teases a cat. When she sees someone approach, she looks up and smiles. "I made these peach-blossom cakes myself. Would you like to try one, sir?"

The coachman is so startled he nearly falls off his horse.

I-Isn't that the former fiancée who abandoned Master, only to have her family home confiscated by him afterward?

Theme: Self-reliance