Gathering Stars

*A crematorium-style romance. Do not read if you dislike this trope.* [Upcoming novels: "Cherishing My Childhood Sweetheart," "After Failing to Win Over the Tragic Novel's Villainess," and "After Breaking Off My Engagement to the General," as well as my friend's upcoming novel, "The Heir Willingly Becomes a Slave to Win Back His Wife." Their blurbs are below. Please add them to your collection!] Blurb: Chang Xing is a little palace maid who stutters. Since she is not nimble enough at her work, she is assigned to the cold palace. The palace matrons think she is stupid and clumsy, so they often bully her. Then one day, she is punished for no reason. The matron beats her with a stick until she is covered in blood. Just as Chang Xing thinks she is about to die there, someone steps in to shield her from the blows for the first time. That person is the Sage's seventh son, Zhou Jinghe. Because his birth mother is lowborn, the Sage has never favored him. From childhood to adulthood, Zhou Jinghe has never even seen the Sage's face. People in the palace are as cynical as they come. A master who is out of favor is worth less than a servant. Zhou Jinghe endures constant bullying, and it only makes him more determined to climb to the top. During their time in the harem, Chang Xing gives him her whole heart. She saves up her meager monthly wages to buy him the books he wants, mends his torn clothes, and even steals food from the kitchen so he can eat his fill while he is growing. Once, she tries to find out news about the Sage for him, and one of the consorts takes notice of her. Thinking Chang Xing has improper designs, the consort has her tied up in a sack and beaten. That day, Zhou Jinghe sees the bruises on her body. His eyes turn red as he holds her and promises that he will make something of himself. Later, he does indeed rise to prominence. But the day he is made Crown Prince is also the night of his wedding to someone else. Chang Xing once questioned him, unable to accept it. But Zhou Jinghe only finds her laughable. How could a lowly palace maid, low to the bone, dare dream of marrying him? That so-called past they shared is, to him, the most wretched and humiliating part of his life. But when she finally lets go of all her foolish hopes and, holding a guard's hand, begs him to let her leave the palace, he sets fire to the imperial edict arranging her marriage, then holds her tightly in his arms and says hoarsely, "Do you want him to live?" **********Upcoming Novel 1: "After Failing to Win Over the Tragic Novel's Villainess"********* When Zhao Junyuan learns that her target is Chen Yu, she thinks this will be an easy win. After all, in the original novel, Chen Yu hates Shen Wan, the tragic heroine, his entire life. He personally kills her, then digs up her body after her death and burns it to ashes, denying her peace even in death. And Zhao Junyuan is the one who helps him climb out of the mire, step by step. Even when he is at his most wretched, she never abandons him. From a hostage despised by everyone to a ruler above all others. Zhao Junyuan thinks she has succeeded. Until Shen Wan appears again. She watches Chen Yu, who has always been calm and self-controlled, do one outrageous thing after another. When Shen Wan dances in public, merely baring her shoulders slightly is enough to make him fly into a rage. When he sees her getting close to another man, he ignores her dignity and has the man hacked to death. In the end, over a casual remark from Shen Wan, he defies the opposition of countless officials and demands that Zhao Junyuan give up her position as empress. Zhao Junyuan finally realizes she has failed. That day, Chen Yu asks her, "A Yuan, you'll understand me, won't you?" Zhao Junyuan looks at him for a long time, then finally nods. But that very night, she ends her life in the most brutal way. Even her soul is frightened by what it sees in the palace. Chen Yu does not learn of Zhao Junyuan's death until the seventh day after she dies. That day, he is reviewing memorials as usual. A palace attendant brings him tea, and after taking a casual sip, he thinks of Zhao Junyuan. He took her position as empress, but gave her the rank of imperial consort in return. And yet she is still sulking with him. Chen Yu rubs his aching temples and decides to go see her. If she is still angry, he will lower her rank. He thinks he cannot indulge her too much. ************My Friend's Upcoming Novel: "The Heir Willingly Becomes a Slave to Win Back His Wife"*********** On the night of the Qixi Festival, Yun Qingxian confesses her feelings, then accidentally falls into the water. Afterward, she has a long, terrible dream. In the dream, the Yong'an Marquis's household is on the verge of disaster. She begs her father to give away all their wealth to help them, and only then is the household saved. She also gets her wish and marries the Yong'an Marquis's heir, Gu Jibei, the man she has always loved. She thinks her sincerity has finally won him over, and that marrying into the marquis's household means she can live happily with Gu Jibei. But after their wedding, the man is cold, her parents-in-law make things difficult for her, and on her birthday, Gu Jibei even takes his childhood sweetheart as a concubine. She thinks he simply does not love her, and that if she is gentle and considerate, he will eventually be moved. Then she brings him chicken soup that she spent three hours stewing to his study, only to discover by chance that he plans to give her away to someone else. She refuses to believe it, until someone brings her a cup of poisoned wine and tells her to choose. The poison burns through her insides. Before she closes her eyes, he does not come to see her even once. -- When Yun Qingxian wakes up, she thinks it was only a nightmare. Until the Yong'an Marquis's household really does get into trouble. But what does that have to do with her? She has already seen everything play out in her dream. She will not make the same mistakes again. She wants nothing more to do with Gu Jibei. On the second day after the marquis's household is placed under arrest, her father gives her a present. When the wooden chest is opened, Gu Jibei is lying inside, unconscious. "Daughter, don't you like this boy? Your father bought him for you. From now on, you can do whatever you want with him." Yun Qingxian cannot help but hate him after everything that happened in her dream. Through gritted teeth, she says, "Leave him here. Throw him in the stables to shovel manure." She will make the man pay for every bit of suffering she endured in her dream. She will make him work like an ox or a horse. -- The situation in the capital is turbulent, and the Yun family decides to move back to Yangzhou together. Yun Qingxian takes most of the household servants with her, but leaves Gu Jibei behind, deciding to set him free. She leaves quietly, without alerting anyone. Just as her carriage leaves the capital, a fine horse races after it as if possessed. When she gets a proper look, the rider is none other than Gu Jibei, who has gone mad. ***************Upcoming Novel 2: "Cherishing My Childhood Sweetheart"***************** Xu Yourong's birth mother, Madam You, comes from a pleasure house. At the height of her youth and beauty, she is taken in as a concubine of the General's household. Xu Yourong inherits her figure and beauty, and her mother teaches her every trick for winning over men. Later, she meets the Crown Prince, Xue Lanxun, who has come to the General's household to study. Following her mother's instructions, she arranges chance encounters and deliberately falls in front of him, trying every method she can think of. Yet Xue Lanxun remains as composed and aloof as ever. At her wit's end, she resorts to the final trick Madam You taught her. She takes out the packet of medicine she has kept hidden away and slips it into Xue Lanxun's tea. That night, Xue Lanxun grips her wrist and asks furiously, "You're still so young. Who taught you these things?" Xu Yourong has never seen him this angry before. She can only lower her head and mumble, "My mother taught me." Xue Lanxun seems not to have expected that answer. He is silent for a long time, then finally says, "Your mother is wrong." Xu Yourong is stunned. She instinctively looks up at him. "Then... what is right?" Xue Lanxun takes two years to answer that question. During the two years he stays at the General's household, he teaches her poetry, books, and etiquette, as well as many lessons about how to conduct herself in the world. Later, he returns to the capital. After Xu Yourong comes of age, her family arranges a marriage for her. In her letters, she tells him all sorts of things. But Xue Lanxun's reply asks only one question: Do you like him? Xu Yourong says she does. So Xue Lanxun assumes she is doing well. But less than half a year later, the secret guards he sent to investigate report that she has been married for only half a month, and her husband has already taken his white-moonlight sweetheart as a concubine. Since then, he has forgotten his wife, while her mother-in-law looks down on her because of her mother's background and makes trouble for her at every turn... Xue Lanxun's expression darkens, his eyes seeming to freeze over. "Go to Qingzhou," he says. "I will bring her back." **********Upcoming Novel 3: "After Breaking Off My Engagement to the General"********** When Xie Xingyu brings back a farm girl from Qingzhou, Jiang Fengrong does not think much of it. She and Xie Xingyu have known each other since childhood. When she was young, Jiang Fengrong was raised in the palace. In that suffocating place, where people could devour one another, she lived cautiously and tried her best to please everyone. Only in Xie Xingyu's presence could she breathe a little easier. He made her a kite with his own hands, carved her a hairpin from agarwood, and even clumsily picked up a needle and thread for her. Later, when Jiang Fengrong came of age, Xie Xingyu knelt before the emperor for several days to win permission to marry her. As for the farm girl, she once happened to save Xie Xingyu. She said she had never been to the capital and wanted to see its sights, so Xie Xingyu brought her there. Grateful that she had saved Xie Xingyu, Madam Xie took her in as her adopted daughter. At first, Xie Xingyu is always complaining to Jiang Fengrong about how the farm girl knows nothing about poetry or books, has no manners, and cannot even write a straight line. Yet she keeps asking him to teach her, and no matter how many times he does, she still cannot learn. Jiang Fengrong only tells him to be more patient, never noticing the smile tugging at his lips. At the time, Jiang Fengrong cannot imagine that Xie Xingyu will openly defend the farm girl at a banquet for noblewomen, without a thought for her dignity. Nor can she imagine that he will blame her because Madam Xie has arranged a marriage for the farm girl, or that on the farm girl's wedding day he will stop her bridal sedan in public, turning his fiancee Jiang Fengrong into a laughingstock across the capital. She watches helplessly as Xie Xingyu falls more in love with the farm girl with each passing day, and as the young man who once clumsily picked up a needle and thread for her grows farther and farther away. The day Xie Xingyu receives the letter breaking off their engagement, he is leaning by the window reading. He hears a servant report that Jiang Fengrong knelt in the snow for three whole days, fainting several times before she finally managed to obtain the letter of release. He runs his fingers over the letter and suddenly remembers that many years ago, he also knelt before the emperor for several days to win this marriage. **********Upcoming Novel 4: "Climbing the Imperial Ladder"********** Yuan Qiu first meets Xu Huaizhi in the capital. That year, a great drought strikes Qingzhou and the harvest fails. Yuan Qiu follows her mother all the way to the capital to seek out relatives. She thinks at last they will have enough to eat and warm clothes to wear, but a runaway horse belonging to a rich young wastrel on the capital's streets tramples all her hopes to pieces. That day, she carries her lifeless mother through the capital's busiest street. She sees richly dressed young ladies and beggars covered in mud, bright lanterns and dark, hidden corners, the moon hanging high in the sky and mud trampled beneath people's feet. Everything blends together perfectly in this city. Her heart trembles. A wild, burning idea pounds in her chest. In the end, she scoops up a handful of clear water, washes the mud from her face, and reveals her bewitching beauty. The next day, she kneels all night outside the Zhou residence. Taking advantage of the pity in the eyes of the young master of the Zhou family, she enters the household. To win him over, Yuan Qiu adds something to his wine at a banquet. But that night, as she approaches him trembling, she hears the clear voice of the man on the bed: "You're so timid, yet you dare do something like this?" Xu Huaizhi has seen the consorts in the palace scheme against one another countless times. After becoming Crown Prince, he has also seen many noblewomen resort to every possible trick to win the position of Crown Princess, but he has never once been manipulated. Except for that one time, when he drinks a cup of wine he should not have. He hears a beautiful maid trembling as she undresses him, and calling him Young Master Zhou? Xu Huaizhi wraps an arm around her waist and asks in a low voice, "You're so timid, yet you dare do something like this?" **********Upcoming Novel 5: "After Falling Out with the Scheming Emperor"********** From the moment Shen Qinglong pulls Wei Zhao out of a pile of corpses when she is twelve, she swears she will obey him for the rest of her life. Until the age of fourteen, she is A Qi, the most capable secret guard at Shen Qinglong's side. After fourteen, she is Wei Zhao, the bravest and most battle-hardened young general in Xilong. Wei Zhao thinks she has hidden her love for Shen Qinglong so well that, barring any surprises, no one will ever find out. It is only when she is sent away in a prisoner cart as a gift in exchange for the woman he loves that she finally understands. Shen Qinglong has known everything all along. This love is nothing more than a bargaining chip he has used for years to control her and seize military power. Wei Zhao has fought for many years. In Xilong, everyone praises her as the young General Wei. In Nanqi, she is an enemy they would love to devour alive. She receives the imperial decree and stands stunned for a moment. Then she smiles faintly, dressed in plain clothes with her hair loose, and climbs into the prisoner cart Nanqi has arranged for her. * Ink slowly gathers at the tip of the brush, then drips onto the rice paper, leaving an ugly black spot. Shen Qinglong remains silent for a long time before finally asking, "Did she say anything before she left?" The eunuch delivering the decree hesitates. "Miss Wei said... if His Majesty wants her to do something, he only needs to say so." "She has always obeyed His Majesty." Shen Qinglong's heart suddenly aches. Yes, she has always obeyed him. * Later, Shen Qinglong leads an army to destroy Nanqi. When he sees Wei Zhao again, she has already set a wedding date with someone else. The general is gone. All that remains is a thin woman whose old wounds have yet to heal. With a white cloth covering her eyes, she asks, "Has Doctor Wen come back?" Shen Qinglong draws a careful breath, ignoring the waves of dull pain in his heart, and replies, "I came to take you home." Theme: Do not depend on others forever.