She Blew Her Cover After Weeping at the Wrong Grave

This is my upcoming novel, please add it to your reading list: Historical romance [She Too Stood Proud (Reborn)]: the snow of Beiling, who has shut her heart to love, vs. the stubborn man who insists on prying open her heart and longs for his wife. Please add it to your favorites!

Synopsis:

[A princess who truly values her life and is on the run × a marquis who gets hooked instead and pretends to be a gentleman]

To escape her mad imperial uncle's control, A He fled the palace and became a wanted criminal. Forced to make a living by impersonating a mourner at funerals, she barely scraped by.

If she had known she'd one day end up weeping at Heng Zhi's own father's grave, she would have run out of Kezhou that very night, without stopping for anything.

Unfortunately, it was already too late.

At the time, Heng Zhi was covered in blood from slaughtering the rebels who had seized power and attempted a coup on the day of his father's funeral.

"Instead of staying in the capital as the emperor's favorite princess, is your hobby going from grave to grave to cry for people?" Heng Zhi scoffed, eyeing her coldly.

Still a wanted criminal, A He carefully tried to keep herself alive, but Heng Zhi bound her wrist and tied her to his saddle, taking her back to his private residence.

"If you dare run, I'll have someone write a story about the princess who cries at graves and hand it out door to door."

She was afraid of dying and cared about her reputation, so she nodded again and again.

A He had two lifelong ambitions.

First, to turn her funeral business into a flourishing chain of shops.

Second, for her half-baked emperor uncle to die soon. Ideally, he would use her shop for his funeral arrangements, so she could make a little money off it.

After she and Heng Zhi pretended to marry, she realized both ambitions had come true.

So A He went from pretending to be his wife to actually becoming the Marchioness.

But in the end, her identity was discovered. The Imperial Guards surrounded her and escorted her back to the palace to be married off for a political alliance.

On her wedding day, she was in full splendor. Pressing a gold hairpin to her uncle's throat, she asked, "Want to go down and see my father, your big brother?"

Just as she was about to reach the pinnacle of her life, Heng Zhi, who should have been fighting on the grasslands, led his men into the palace. He broke through the guards with unstoppable force, held out his hand to A He, pulled her onto his horse, and forcibly took her out of the palace.

A He was displeased. "If you'd come one moment later, I would've escaped on my own!"

"You wouldn't dare." Heng Zhi's horse started shaking so hard it made her sick.

A He cried, "Stop shaking! I'm getting horseback sick!"

Then, still dressed in her beautiful wedding gown, she threw up all over Heng Zhi.

A He: Divorce.

When Heng Zhi was around ten, he went to the capital to offer birthday wishes to the late emperor and met a girl fast asleep against a teahouse railing.

Only when he saw her in mourning clothes at his father's grave, her eyes swollen like peaches, did he feel that, after all the twists and turns, they were destined to meet.

So he tricked her into marriage, tricked her into sharing the profits, and used money and fanfare to turn the princess into Kezhou's biggest funeral business owner, with pursuers chasing her all over the streets.

Again and again, he willingly risked everything to save her.

On the day the capital fell, a spear pierced Heng Zhi's body.

He collapsed to his knees, drained of strength. A He held up the blood-soaked Heng Zhi, trembling all over with fear.

He forced a smile. "Don't be afraid. I'll definitely take you to Shu to eat hot pot."

A He choked back a sob. "The shop's burned down. I can't put the funeral expenses on your account. Can you hang on a little longer?"

Heng Zhi coughed up a mouthful of blood, but still tried to comfort her. "I'm not going to die."

A He watched the battle flags in the distance draw closer, then dragged him away. "We have a foolproof plan. Our family has plenty of paper offerings. Even if you die, you'll be the richest ghost around."

"If all else fails, just come to me in a dream."

1. Also known as The Emperor Must Die, Who Owes Whom More, and Your Father Was No Good? Neither Was Mine.

2. One couple, one-on-one romance, happy ending.

Upcoming novel:

(Probably opening in September) Lu Ling was fifteen the year she first met Wei Chi.

Snow covered Mount Li, and Wei Chi stood like a pine tree in the forest, capturing her entire attention.

For years afterward, Lu Ling traveled between Xiping and Chang'an. Beyond the clash of swords, she kept her sincere heart hidden beneath her swift horse, carefully offering it to Wei Chi.

During that early autumn when she was caught in a rebellion and had no way out, Wei Chi was the last person Lu Ling could think of.

Nearly in despair, she wrote down all her final arrangements in a letter and entrusted them to Wei Chi, thousands of miles away. But even as a hail of arrows pierced her heart and she died a miserable death, not a single word from him ever came.

As a daughter of the Lu family, taking over command from her father and brothers and dying on the battlefield defending Xiping would have been a worthy death. Dying in a power struggle and rebellion, pierced by a hail of arrows, was the consequence of her own choices.

Standing between these two kinds of death, she had the rare misfortune of experiencing both.

Everything Lu Ling had was cruelly taken from her by the executioner known as fate. Yet only at the moment of her death did she finally understand that forcing a love that was never meant to be was just making a fool of herself.

She had never had Wei Chi, so naturally, she could never lose him.

The world is full of absurdities, but Lu Ling thought coming back to life three years after dying had to be the most absurd of all.

Once a commanding general, she was now Xue Fuying, a newly appointed palace director serving the empress. As everything started over, she wanted to leave the past behind and focus on uncovering the truth behind the unrest in Xiping.

But fate had other plans. The more she tried to avoid the past, the more tangled connections she found hidden there.

Since everything could be used, even herself, then using Wei Chi was not out of the question.

Rumor had it that the father and son of the Pingzhao Marquis's household were at odds. The year the eldest daughter, Wei Yi, died of illness, the heir, Wei Chi, cut ties with the family for good and volunteered to serve in the army, defending Xiping.

He was gone for three years.

To help the third prince return to court, Wei Chi forced himself to return to Chang'an despite his injuries and attend a banquet at Xingqing Palace.

After three years apart, he suddenly noticed a new palace director by the empress's side, her features cool and aloof.

He watched Xue Fuying, his heart pounding like a drum.

Her eyes were dull and lifeless, but every move she made reminded him of the woman separated from him by life and death, the woman he would never see again.

Perhaps his heart moved his body. When Xue Fuying, dressed in a single thin layer, fell into the pond while trying to save a princess, Wei Chi felt his heart seize. He crossed the boundary into the women's quarters and personally pulled her out.

Soaked from head to toe, Wei Chi stared at Xue Fuying's pale face. For the first time, he mistook her for someone else.

"This Palace Director Xue is from the Xue family of censor officials. The empress favors her, and I hear she's been promised to Pei Ji, the newly appointed deputy director of the Court of State Ceremonial. What a perfect match."

A perfect match.

Why did those words sound so grating?

An old incident brought the Lu family's old case back to the surface, and a storm was brewing at court.

Wei Chi stayed in the shadows, waiting for the perfect moment to present all the evidence he had gathered in Xiping over the years and become a loyal supporter of the future emperor.

But as he stirred up the political waters, he discovered that someone had jumped into his scheme alone.

In the dead of night, Lu Ling caught the unexpected guest who had climbed in through her window. In the dim lamplight, her gaze was sharp, nothing like her former meek and gentle self.

"General Wei, you've come here in the middle of the night again and again. What exactly do you want?" She was certain in her heart, yet still pretended not to know.

Until he said it himself: "I want the last letter Lu Ling wrote to me."

Lu Ling calmly played the role of Xue Fuying, her red lips curving into a radiant smile. "That's quite a delusion. Where would I find a letter from someone who's dead?"

The man half-hidden in the night was visible only through his eyes.

The ice of years of indifference cracked, clearly revealing his grief.

Lu Ling died in the autumn of the thirteenth year of Taicheng, during an extraordinary snowfall that blanketed the land.

When Wei Chi found her, her body was kneeling amid smoke and blood, with no one there to claim it.

The thick stack of letters in his arms felt like red-hot brands, torturing his heart without end.

The year Wei Chi fell in love with Lu Ling, there was snow, too.

His half-brother had plotted against him, intending to take his life during the imperial hunt.

Half his chest and abdomen had been torn open by a tiger, and he was on the verge of death when Lu Ling rode up and shot the tiger dead with one arrow.

One arrow had saved his life.

"No need to thank me. I'm Lu Ling."

The girl's proud bearing was etched into Wei Chi's heart.

After Lu Ling died, Wei Chi's old wounds ached all night long.

Xiping was rife with witchcraft, so Wei Chi searched everywhere for ritual masters. He performed rites for three years, killing day after day and staining his hands with blood, all to bring her back to life.

Fortunately, his wish came true.

1. One couple, one-on-one romance, happy ending. The snow of Beiling, who has shut her heart to love, vs. the stubborn man who insists on prying open her heart and longs for his wife.

2. There are misunderstandings, but everyone is a good person.

3. Also known as I Never Say What I Feel and My Wife Died, So I Cried Like a Fool, Reborn: I Work as a Palace Lady, I Found Out My First Love Loved Me After She Died, You're Such a Blockhead, I'll Only Take Revenge, Not Fall in Love, Special Report: General Wei Loves Being the Other Man, What's So Great About Him?, He's Not as Good as You.

4. The author excels at last-minute, life-or-death writing sprints before midnight. Unless something unexpected happens, updates are daily, six days on and one day off. In case of an unexpected event, I'll take a day off.

Theme: Anyone with a dream can do great things.