*Entering VIP on June 20. Chapters from Chapter 30 onward will be locked, so if you've already read them, please don't purchase them again. Thank you all for your support. Love you!
Jiang Lian had exceptional natural talent from a young age. In just twenty years, she had mastered the art of talismans.
Everyone said that before she turned thirty, Jiang Lian would reach the Mahayana realm and ascend to immortality.
But then she died.
The lightning-attracting talisman in her hand inexplicably burst into flames. Thunder crashed down from the heavens, striking her with all ninety-nine bolts until she was dead.
Tsk, the heavens are jealous of the gifted!
When Jiang Lian opened her eyes again, she was a young master dressed in bridal robes and disguised as a man. The so-called System in her head was gloating, and its first words were:
[Your concubine is pregnant and wants you to come over. Your legal wife is waiting for you to spend your wedding night. Which one will you choose?]
Jiang Lian glanced at the pale neck trembling beneath her new bride's red veil, while her concubine's sweet, coquettish voice rang in her ear.
[I'm sleeping in a tree tonight.]
What gentle wife? What demure concubine? Jiang Lian only wanted to cultivate immortality!
On the night of their wedding, Jiang Lian, the young master of the Mighty General's residence, would rather sleep in a tree than touch his wife, Wen Qiuran.
The next day, Wen Qiuran became the laughingstock of the entire household.
There was a pregnant concubine in front of her and a mother-in-law who showed her neither kindness nor affection behind her.
Wen Qiuran quietly resolved that if she wanted to survive in the general's residence, she had to be careful to win her husband's favor.
But her husband wouldn't drink the soup she sent over or even look at the sachet she had embroidered.
Wen Qiuran's starry eyes filled with tears. Was she really so unworthy?
[The heroine is throwing herself at you, and you aren't tempted? You're definitely into women!]
The System chattered incessantly. Jiang Lian suppressed the stirrings in her heart and repeated silently: Women will only slow down my cultivation.
Later, when Wen Qiuran, who had changed her own fate and left the secluded inner quarters long ago, smiled as she prepared to bid Jiang Lian farewell, Jiang Lian was suddenly overcome with loss. Was her little wife really leaving?
Wasn't this exactly what she wanted?
All these years, she couldn't stand seeing Wen Qiuran looking so pitiful and aggrieved. She had arranged for Wen Qiuran to disguise herself as a man and sit the imperial examinations at the academy. She had taught Wen Qiuran not to let her gaze remain fixed on the small, enclosed world of the household.
Wen Qiuran deserved to see a wider sky, and to let her eyes rest on someone besides Jiang Lian.
So why was Jiang Lian so sad?
Before she turned sixteen, Wen Qiuran believed that a wife should obey her husband, first obeying her father at home and then her husband after marriage.
After she turned sixteen, Wen Qiuran met the "husband" who wouldn't touch even a finger of hers. From then on, she saw the verdant pines behind the academy, the cracked brick walls inside the examination hall, and the sunlight that fell upon the frontier.
Her husband, her Jiang Lian, her one-of-a-kind beloved, the moon she had held in her heart since they first met when she was sixteen.
With the bright moon overhead, she only wished to become the most dazzling star.
So, after Jiang Lian left the mortal world, her Daoist conviction became: I want both Wen Qiuran and immortality.
+++ And after Wen Qiuran entered the secular world, her heart was filled with this vow: I give this world, and myself, to Jiang Lian.
PS: 1. At its heart, this is a story about two people encouraging and improving one another, a career-focused story about breaking free of traditional thinking.
2. One-on-one romance, but the relationship develops slowly, with a growing-together dynamic.
3. Wen Qiuran loves Jiang Lian from beginning to end. She has a slight yandere streak, while Jiang Lian is rather slow to understand romance.
4. An alternate historical setting with a bit of everything.
…Please add my new novel, Executive Officer, to your reading list!…
0032, chief executive officer of Agareth City.
Rumor has it that she is ruthless and cold, the bloodiest rose in all of Agareth City. Countless people have died at her hands, and countless others spit on her as "Agareth City's lapdog."
Yet those lucky enough to have seen her carry out a "purge" mission were all captivated by the beauty mark beneath her alluring eye and the drops of blood falling from her fingertips.
In the steady downpour, 0032 was the most dangerous killing machine.
Ke Ling, a black-market doctor in the Lower City.
Steady-handed and ruthless, she'll replace anything from a person's skull to their internal organs and even their fingernails, as long as they pay. If the price is right, anything can be arranged.
Under her scalpel, people are no different from pork.
In the Lower City, if you want to change your appearance and start a new life, all you need is enough money and a visit to Ke Ling on a torrentially rainy day.
*
Upper Agareth and the Lower City are two different worlds. One is a dazzling, magnificent place overflowing with revelry and freedom; the other is a desolate, hopeless ruin steeped in decay and stench.
Some people search for a place to lay their souls to rest in Agareth, while others hope to amass a fortune in the Lower City.
And on a rainy night, with black sludge dripping from the sky, the lofty 0032 appeared in the Lower City, wrapped in the stench of blood. Beneath her bewitching beauty mark was a hideous scar.
As a long knife rested against her neck, Ke Ling heard only 0032's hoarse voice.
"Do you want to die, or do me a little favor?"
It was phrased as a question, but sounded oddly certain. That bloodstained knife seemed to know for sure that she would "help" with the little favor.
So Ke Ling gave a faint, sardonic smile. "What can I do? I cherish my life. How could I possibly refuse such a tiny favor?"
When Ke Ling picked up her scalpel and cut away the bright red beauty mark at the corner of 0032's eye, she couldn't help feeling a little regretful.
What a beautiful face, and she was willing to throw it away just like that. But if she was going to replace her entire body, wouldn't that mean Ke Ling would get to sculpt 0032's new appearance herself?
Oh, 0032 really was her muse.
*
When the names 0032 and Ke Ling both appeared on wanted posters, the people of Agareth saw a rainbow flash across the horizon.
It was the beginning of an end-of-the-world escape meant for the two of them alone.
Perhaps 0032's soul had already been destined to remain forever in that rainy night, the moment she chose to carry the woman who had kissed her beauty mark on her back and leap onto the dome.
Revenge, slaughter, death: inside her beating steel heart, there was nothing but a smiling Ke Ling.
Ke Ling on her back was 0032's dawn.
*
"Agareth's lapdog?"
Ke Ling gently stroked the newly sculpted, even more alluring beauty mark beneath 0032's eye. Its blood-red hue was especially vivid. In a low voice, she said, "You are your own person, or you can become an unstoppable blade..."
"I will be the one who wields you."
0032, the infamous woman who had thrown Agareth City into chaos, reddened her eyes as she asked the question she had kept buried in her heart for so long:
"Did you only want me because I'm beautiful?"
"No. You are the one my heart has been set on for a long time."
A bloodthirsty beauty who throws punches at the slightest provocation x a scheming businesswoman with a weakness for beautiful faces
Note: Cyberpunk setting. Both women are formidable characters. Their values do not represent the author's.
Theme: The world is beautiful. May you and I treat each other with tenderness.
Really? It's best to have fun all the time, just talk and don't practice fake tricks, friends 🤩
How did she get her concubine pregnant?
Srds, don't you have any awareness of your own body? The feeling is very obvious when wearing a bra, not to mention the bandage is constricting. Whether it's longer down there or not, you can tell when you walk with your legs together 😩
This, I made a wish not to lock the text. I recently reviewed the bookshelf and found that many of them are locked and cannot be reprinted [resolved]
The author is great. I always feel that no matter how much Jiang doesn't understand love, she can't be too straightforward. If she is a person who can survive a calamity and become an immortal, she is still a little old. I don't understand it, but from the way she gets along with her junior brothers and sisters in the article, if someone among the junior brothers and sisters is in love, she should also know something about it. Jiang in the article seems to be too ignorant 😳
Damn it, the punishment is really annoying 😏
Hey, just like this one-stop gameplay, I have seen enough reality, and I still have to be oppressed in the novel 🤩
I didn't expect that Wan'er's matter would be like this. Alas, the original owner and Wan'er were so sad.
Okay, okay, cut through the mess with a sharp knife and solve it easily 🤩
Suddenly I found that the table of contents of each chapter read "Hello, the current chapter content summary value is wrong." Is this intentional or a frame error? Hahahahahaha.