My upcoming historical romance, The Regent Behind the Curtain After a Substitute Marriage, is on my author page. The blurb is below.
Blurb: Qian Ying is a rabbit spirit. After saving a man in the icy wilderness, she disrupts the course of fate in the human world and has no choice but to go there herself to win over a great demon with the power to destroy the world.
She says, "I haven't seen many men in the past few centuries. I'm really not good at this. QAQ"
Shen Chuan was still the notorious, ruthless Imperial Preceptor of the human world. Though rumors said he had no interest in women, he took Qian Ying back to the Imperial Preceptor's residence from a brothel's upper terrace.
To her surprise, he seemed to know her, and said he hated her to the bone.
She immediately guessed he had mistaken her for someone else.
Qian Ying: This is perfect!
Wouldn't pretending to be his beloved, or simply behaving like a well-behaved stand-in, be much easier than starting from scratch?!
But he seemed to be raising her like a pet. He kept threatening to slaughter her and stew her for soup, and even made an entire rabbit banquet for her to eat.
Qian Ying: "..."
How noble of you. How impressive.
*
Shen Chuan was dark and twisted inside, a genuine madman.
When he was young, a ray of light shone into his world, only to leave him behind in the abyss.
From that day onward, he searched for her for ten years.
When they met again after all those years, he hated her, yet desperately longed for her.
*
The Book of Fate in the Netherworld, which records the destinies of humans and demons, was mysteriously destroyed. If it wasn't restored in time, the fates of those recorded in it would become uncontrollable, throwing the order of all three realms into chaos.
The problem was that the destroyed volume recorded the fates of people who, because of their deep attachments, lingered in the human world rather than moving on.
Before the Book of Fate could be restored, someone had to visit the places where they had lived and resolve their lingering attachments.
Upcoming novel: The Regent Behind the Curtain After a Substitute Marriage
Wei Mian was an orphan, raised from childhood by her aunt.
Her aunt's family made a living selling embroidered goods at a market stall. When Wei Mian grew up, she often helped with the work to support the household.
One day, while running the stall as usual in her aunt's place, she was seized in the street by a group of strangers.
She later learned that the people who had taken her were the powerful Shen family.
The Shen family wanted her to enter the palace as empress in place of their legitimate daughter, Shen Qianqian.
For her aunt's safety, Wei Mian agreed. But on the very day she entered the palace as a bride, the frail emperor suddenly died, leaving behind a child of only four or five.
Overnight, she became not only a widow but also the Empress Dowager.
What else could she do? She had no choice but to heed the officials' petitions and rule from behind the curtain.
*
Wei Mian had barely settled into her position as Empress Dowager when disaster struck: the rebels had breached one line of defenses after another and reached the palace hall.
Their leader was the infamous Wen Qi, a ruthless madman whose very name inspired terror.
Wen Qi kicked open the hall doors and strode toward the seat of power. He lifted the curtain and pinched her young face. "Your Majesty the Empress Dowager, may your health be sound."
*
Wen Qi held an old grudge against the Shen family, so he had little regard for the young Empress Dowager either.
After taking the hall, he surrounded the imperial city with heavily armed troops and spent every night in the palace's inner quarters.
No matter what rumors people spread, he simply laughed them off.
Until one night, when the young Empress Dowager somehow made her way into his bedchamber and said with a perfectly straight face, "Everyone outside is saying that you and I are having an affair. I think it would be a real loss if it weren't true."
At first, Wen Qi thought it was nothing more than a fleeting affair.
But when the young Empress Dowager gradually seized power from him and tried to cast him aside for someone else, he realized just how completely he had lost.
Wen Qi fought with everything he had to regain power. The first thing he did was hide Wei Mian away and spend every night entwined with her.
He leaned close to her ear and whispered, "A Mian, since everyone says it, I'll make it true."
Everyone thought Wen Qi would become emperor, but he didn't.
Before the Empress Dowager, he still called himself her subject.
Theme: Love gives us the courage to fight against fate.
