A True Account of the Unconventional Couple in the Capital

In the fourteenth year of Jinghe, the capital, Shangjing, was home to two great oddities.

The first was that a young lady of a distinguished family, blessed with both beauty and talent, remained unmarried. The second was that a top scholar who had passed all three stages of the imperial examinations refused to enter the Hanlin Academy.

The people behind these two strange tales were, on one hand, the model for all the noble young ladies, a woman who was exceedingly proper and bound by convention, and on the other, a man who had grown up in and out of the Court of State Ceremonial, his head full of schemes, and who was utterly unconventional.

An imperial edict bound these two "unmatched oddities" together, and from then on, this couple began their legendary life.

The world knew only the peerless couple they became, but not that at first they loathed each other to the point of death, and wished they could write a divorce agreement on their wedding night.

Zhong Zhiwei spoke with a frosty expression, sneering, "Ignorant, slick-tongued, and shameless. He Zhen, get this straight: this is your fault, not mine. You're an official of the court, yet you act like this. If I were you, I would be too ashamed to show my face."

He Zhen raised an eyebrow at that and, utterly unbothered, clasped his hands and laughed. "Thank you for the compliment. Zhong-niangzi, if you can call me only those two things and feel no shame, why should I? But since you put it that way, I'll submit a memorial tomorrow and have you, Zhong Zhiwei, who understands propriety best, appointed as Vice Minister of Rites."

*

Three hundred years had passed since the fall of Zhongwu City and the end of its kingdom. Zhong Zhiwei was a wisp of a spirit who had come from an age of chaos, a princess of a fallen kingdom lost to history a century ago. She could not live only for herself.

Being bound to He Zhen was entirely outside her plans. Going along with him, even helping him defy convention, was even further beyond anything she could have imagined.

In the unverifiable unofficial histories of the Great Yong, it was recorded that in her old age, when Zhong Zhiwei was asked how she and her husband had managed to remain so devoted and harmonious, she answered, "In him, I glimpsed the tumult of history."

History is history because established facts cannot be changed. Yet long after meeting He Zhen, Zhong Zhiwei suddenly began to wonder if perhaps history could be changed after all.

What seems utterly insane in the present may be no more than an everyday occurrence to people a thousand years from now.

In their lives, they had witnessed flowers in full bloom, flung high by the tides of their times, and had also experienced the desperate cries of those lightly crushed into the dust.

Through the rise and fall of past and present, across a thousand years of human affairs, the morning drums of Shangjing still sounded on. Like a crane returning to its painted pillar after traversing the human world, one could only say that the histories would never come to an end.

A cool, proud, proper, and stiff heroine x a charming, uninhibited, and extraordinarily clever hero

The heroine transmigrates from the modern era to an ancient one, in a fictional setting modeled on the Tang dynasty. In short, this is a historical-chasing woman and a history-making man falling in love after an arranged marriage. Anti-piracy measures are enabled at fifty percent.

----- Below is the blurb for the next book, The Mountain Spirit's Flower Coins. I'll post more once I finish writing the full draft. -----

Before Shiluo entered Jiuyi to become a mountain spirit, she had been human for eight years.

She did not believe human nature was good, did not pray for the Buddha to lower his gaze, and had no fondness for so-called gentlemen. In short, she did not love the mortal world and had no desire to enter it.

Shiluo never imagined that on one chance trip down the mountain, she would meet such a pitifully foolish demon.

He was an official of the court, yet lived in utter poverty. Imprisoned for ten years on Zhongnan Mountain because of his identity, he had never even existed in his family's genealogy. He clung to his principles, but in doing so had to spend his entire life unable to bear bright light and going blind after nightfall.

Apart from his graceful, noble bearing, he had almost nothing.

And unlike her, who stubbornly claimed to be a demon, he truly considered himself human, and truly still loved the mortal world.

Shiluo did not understand Shanglu, just as she did not understand the mortal world.

That was, until she discovered that the Jiuyi formation had fallen into disrepair, and a slumbering great demon awoke and entered the world. She and Shanglu joined hands to enter the mortal world and track down the escaped demons.

A little pen spirit desperately searches for his missing elder brother. A man who had intended to heal others with the brush in his hand instead becomes hopelessly entangled in a married couple's relationship. Will anyone believe him when he says his paintings will remain true forever?

The Lady of Luoning, who inherited her late husband's title, cannot forget the green-clad fox she knew before her marriage. Were they teacher and student, or lovers? Does she seek love for a beautiful appearance, or for something beyond appearances?

Endless tangled affairs between humans and demons unfold, one after another. After going through it all, Shiluo finally returns to that winter day when she was still human.

Life has its limits, and the world is ever-changing. Fortunately, this time, before our heads are covered in frost and snow, I have you to see the mortal world with me.

* A fictional Tang-dynasty tale of the strange and supernatural, with hundreds of ghosts and spirits. Each volume tells a story between a human and a demon. Romance and plot run side by side, and the pacing will be slower at first.

Theme: History is a pile of ashes, but deep within the ashes, warmth still remains.