Advance Previews:
"In 1980, I Opened a Bathhouse in Northeast China" is a rebirth-era novel. All dialogue is in the Northeastern dialect.
"Before the Romantic Kiss" is a contemporary romance about two-way secret crushes in the entertainment industry.
Find more advance previews in the author's column!
Below is the blurb for this novel:
For the past few months, emperors across different eras have kept seeing themselves livestreamed in all sorts of ways on the celestial screen.
Feeling the polished bump on his head and staring in confusion at this episode's roundup by a rookie content creator, they watched as a line of dazzling text slowly appeared:
[The Ten Most "Unfortunate" Women in History]
The emperors all thought the same thing: Why are they starting to take stock of women? Could it be that I don't get enough views on this divine screen anymore?
They set aside their memorials, grabbed some sunflower seeds, pulled up their dragon thrones, and looked up at the screen in midair.
Empress Zhang: It's getting cold. Time to make my maiden family go bankrupt.
Yin Lihua: Judging by this, she's had it worse than me.
Guo Shengtong: Why laugh at someone when you're only fifty paces away from them?
Moxi: I may be dead, but when it comes to being a beauty, you're all still my little sisters.
After watching the roundup, Ying Zheng said, "The harem is full of tricks. Women scare me. I won't even talk about making someone empress. I just want to be the lonely one..."
Yongzheng: +1
Liu Bang leaned close to Lu Zhi's ear and whispered, "What does 'human pig' mean?"
Liu Che hugged Wei Qing and little Huo Qubing, sobbing, "I don't know about feudalism, but superstition really does kill people! Sob..."
Li Shimin whispered to Li Chunfeng, "Even so, what do I do if I kind of like Wu Zhao?"
The roundup from the start covers ten famous women from history.
The roundup from the start includes, but isn't limited to:
The ultimate little-brother enabler, Empress Zhang: the ace fighter of the sibling-support squad!
A deep love for a lost sword, Xu Pingjun: I may have lost my life, but I found love!
Demoted from wife to concubine: Yin Lihua vs. Guo Shengtong, a contest over who had it worse.
The original beauty: the doomed romance between a princess of a fallen kingdom and a spy who was also a chef.
Widowed parenting: the wronged wife strikes back as Empress Dowager Lu.
Reader's Guide:
Love and peace.
Parallel worlds.
Very parallel.
Advance Preview: "In 1980, I Opened a Bathhouse in Northeast China"
In her previous life, Zheng Zhennan had a miserable time.
Her family had been the first household to get rich at Jiang Song Machinery Plant, but unfortunately she had a ton of awful relatives: her eldest aunt was all talk, her second aunt made a scene, her third aunt stirred up trouble, and her uncle was a sleazy, self-important intellectual who never lifted a finger. Her grandma played favorites, shoveling everything she could into her eldest son's home.
Her dad got nothing out of it. Once he finally saw how rotten those people were, he gave up, spending every day gambling and drinking himself into a stupor.
Her mom was also a brother-enabler, and trying to support two families left her sick from head to toe.
Before Zheng Zhennan had even finished junior high, she was kicked out to work. At last, she got married, and just as it looked like her life was about to take off, her bizarre relatives clung to her like parasites and refused to leave.
In the end, they drove Zheng Zhennan and her husband to divorce, and her only child became as close to his stepmother as a poker was to a fire.
-
Reborn one day, Zheng Zhennan found herself back in the winter of 1985, on the day of her grandfather's funeral.
All around her were faces begging to be slapped. Her three aunts were grabbing Grandma and demanding to know where the old man's pay slips had gone. Her uncle sat up straight, watching his own mother fight on his behalf and grab the inheritance, while her foolishly filial parents...
were hanging their heads and trailing after Grandma, meekly handing over money whenever she asked...
One look at her mom's stance told Zheng Zhennan exactly what she was about to do. She scrambled out of bed and snatched up the stack of ten-yuan bills. "Throwing money around at a funeral? Was it my dad who died?"
Everyone froze.
-
After the funeral, everyone realized that the girl from Zheng Laogada's family seemed like a completely different person.
When her grandma came to their house pleading poverty on her uncle's behalf, Zheng Zhennan picked up a shovel. "You've got money to go dancing and carousing, but your own life is a mess and you're still trying to seduce someone else's wife? Why not spend your coffin money on your eldest son?"
Her grandma: ...
Her eldest aunt thought her schooling was a waste of money and went to nag her dad.
Zheng Zhennan slapped her in the face with a Chinese textbook. "The book says, 'Knowledge changes your destiny, and studying lets you serve your country.' If you won't let me study, you're stopping me from serving my country. Watch out, I'll report you at your workplace."
Aunt Zheng turned ashen and fled in a panic.
-
Lucky enough to be reborn, Zheng Zhennan only wanted to run her family's bathhouse and live a quiet life. Who could have guessed that a bathhouse could go public and ring the opening bell?
She got a firm grip on her bizarre relatives' weak spots, and from then on every one of them was "filial" to her beyond measure.
As for the husband she had loved in her previous life but never got to keep, making up for one regret was enough. After all, she wasn't going to have another useless son.
Years later, Zheng Zhennan finally became a wealthy woman. She had both money and freedom.
But... what was with this clingy, loyal puppy of a man beside her who just wouldn't let her go?
Reader's Guide:
Most of the dialogue is in the Northeastern dialect. If that's not your thing, enter with caution.
Theme: Who says women are inferior to men?
It would be great if Yang Yu could not be with Emperor Ming in parallel time and space, so old. The first husband is also a prince. Is he bothering with his old pictures? In the end, he was pushed out and his body was intact.
However, the married woman surnamed Lu and her children were not alive, and Lu Fei was removed from the Ancestral Temple a hundred years later. Is it worth losing everything for such vanity and for such a man's empire? This is not the time to subjugate the country!
Queen Changsun, don't worry, although your child slave is pure and kind, he is still a solid sesame dumpling. He can carry everyone in the field, and he has the best knife in the world for him to kill indiscriminately.
I just want to ask you why you didn't say that after Deng Sui's death, the family was liquidated and the emperor was not a good person and brought harm to the people. If Deng Sui knew this, would he still help the Han Dynasty?
I have read a lot of historical subjects, and the funniest thing is that I believe that Li Shimin loves his eldest grandson and his children, and will not depose the prince as long as the prince is stable.
I don't understand where Queen Ma of the Ming Dynasty got her sense of superiority?
It's ridiculous to see Princess Anle killing her own father. You must know that her biological father advocated the creation of a crown princess and helped her withstand the pressure of ministers. How could he usurp the throne by killing his own father who was willing to support him as the crown princess? And there are New Tang Books and Old Tang Books And these are all written by the winner Li Longji As Li Longji, who is competing with Princess Anle for the throne, what kind words can he say for the position? I didn't find the description of Princess Anle Shangguan Wan'er after Li Longji came to the throne. Mainly highlight one whose IQ is not online?
They both died too early, especially Huo Qubing
Even if Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty agreed with Empress Dowager Dou that he only respected Confucianism, what would happen? That was not the Qing Dynasty. He killed one Obei and everything else was obedient. The Manchu Dynasty supported Huang Lao, so it was not like they had not done anything to forcefully change the emperor. He should be lucky that Empress Dowager Dou still supported him in becoming emperor.
The tradition of the old Liu family is so exciting to win over your daughter-in-law...