Wind Through the Trees Beneath the Crabapple

The story is complete. Please take it home! [Next Story] Historical romance, The First Woman Chief Councilor, is currently updating. Cuties, visit my author page and add it to your collection!

Blurb for The First Woman Chief Councilor:

Xie Min remembered the day she fell from Wuyue Terrace. The sky was overcast, and blood stained her official robes from head to toe.

The court officials knelt behind her. Few pleaded on her behalf, while many more watched for a chance to laugh at her.

A storm was brewing, and the great building was on the verge of collapse.

She rose from the blood, straightened her robes, and climbed back up step by step. "I have done no wrong, and I will not plead guilty."

This high terrace was built for her, and it would stand for her, too.

The emperor was furious, but there was nothing he could do to her.

When everyone else had left, she was the only one still kneeling in the rain.

Lord Shen, the Minister of Personnel, hurried over with a lantern and held an umbrella over her.

Everyone said there were only two powerful ministers in the imperial court: Xie Min, chief councilor of the Grand Secretariat, and Shen Shiqian, Minister of Personnel.

They were classmates, and they were mortal enemies.

But no one knew that Lord Shen had once knelt all night outside someone else's door for the sake of Lord Xie;

When Lord Xie said she wanted fresh lotus seeds, the fastidious Lord Shen went straight into the pond to pick them himself without a second thought;

When Lord Xie was falsely accused and banished to Lingnan, he risked everything and spent three years laying a plan to clear her name;

She built the high terrace, and he would lay its foundation.

[Extra Scene]:

One night, Xie Min was reading a rare book when someone suddenly pinned her against the bookshelf. The candleholder clattered to the floor.

"You." He pressed his thin lips together, as if she had wronged him. "Why aren't you wearing the one I made for you?"

Xie Min sighed. "These are my official robes."

"I can make official robes, too."

"..."

"I heard Lord Wei is looking for a match for you?"

"Yes."

"Which family's daughter?"

"I don't know, but she'll certainly be a good woman."

"Am I not good enough?"

Xie Min laughed and teased him. "Are you a woman?"

The Minister, who had climbed in through the window, gave a cold snort. "If you say I am, then I am."

"All right, Miss Shen."

1. Set in an alternate Ming Dynasty, so please don't overthink the historical details.

2. One-on-one romance, happy ending, two beautiful and tragic leads, with an identity-reveal plotline. The heroine grows up over the course of the story.

Blurb:

Talented actress heroine x male lead's cherished first love

Jiang Mu arrived in the capital from a thousand miles away with a marriage contract and entered the Grand Tutor's residence. She was so sweet, sensible, and pitiful-looking that anyone who saw her couldn't help but feel sorry for her.

She was quite pleased with this arrangement, especially with her "sickly beauty" of a husband, who was away from home every other day, busy with official business.

By day, she was the gentle, demure eldest grandson's wife at the Grand Tutor's residence. By night, she was a "wind messenger" leaping across rooftops in the capital.

She had thought this peaceful arrangement would last, but one day her husband, to whom she had barely said a few words, began looking at her differently. His gaze had become... impure.

!!! What was going on? Weren't they supposed to treat each other with respect and courtesy?

Zhou Jingtang had known since childhood that he had a fiancée, but in twenty years, he had never met her.

Then one day, he saw a woman in tattered clothes amid the snow. His grandfather told him, "This is your fiancée, who has come all the way from Jiangling."

He found her quiet and reserved, and calmly accepted the woman his parents had chosen for him.

Later, he gradually fell for her, only to discover that she was nothing like the person he had imagined. Her clear, bright eyes held secrets he had never known about.

For instance, on their wedding night, she had personally planned a switch-the-prince plot; during a Flower Festival night cruise, she had set a fire and killed someone; and inside the imperial palace, she had fought hundreds of imperial guards, sword pointed straight at the emperor.

After that, he knew nothing more about her.

Until two years later, when he secretly traveled to the land of Western Jin. A chattering young girl had joined him, calling him "My Lord" at every turn.

One-on-one romance, happy ending. A love story between a quick-witted, many-faced woman of the martial world and a handsome, sickly beauty from the capital.

Theme: Have the perseverance to endure hardship and bide your time.