Flowers Bloom Slowly on the Spring Terrace

Ancient-Era Romance Previews: "She Is the First Wife of the Untouchable One" and "Claiming Spring's Beauty." The blurbs are at the very bottom.

Wen Shao is a low-ranking maid in Prince Rui's residence. She usually hides her beauty so she can save enough money to buy her freedom and leave as soon as possible.

But one moment of carelessness is all it takes for Commandery Princess Changfu to suspect her of seducing her husband. The princess has her whipped until she is barely alive.

Just as Wen Shao is thrown by the roadside and left to die, she encounters Gu Wuhuo, the heir to Prince Rui's title.

In despair, Wen Shao reaches out to him for help.

Gu Wuhuo is the princess's elder brother. Blessed with a handsome face, he is pure and refined as jade, noble as a pine or cypress. Raised in a Buddhist temple from childhood, he is a man who seems heartless, yet is full of feeling.

He does save Wen Shao, taking her back and tending to her injuries,

and making her his concubine.

Wen Shao is inevitably called a seductress, a woman who has bewitched even the heir, and people say no wonder Commandery Princess Changfu wanted her dead.

But Wen Shao doesn't care. Having escaped death, all she wants is to stay by Gu Wuhuo's side and repay him for saving her life.

Even though his gaze is always cold whenever he looks at her,

even though Wen Shao gradually realizes that Gu Wuhuo helped her not only because he couldn't bear to see a life cut short,

but, more likely, because he didn't want to keep pursuing his sister and incur the sin of another death,

and that he took Wen Shao as his concubine only to put an end to any chance of her becoming entangled with his brother-in-law again, easing his sister's worries.

Until one day, pregnant Wen Shao hears Commandery Princess Changfu crying beneath the flowers as she demands of Gu Wuhuo, "Brother, all you had to do was pretend to care so that that lowly maid would give up. Why did you have to touch someone so base and shallow?"

"My fate has always been hard, so I won't marry again. Since she and I have this connection, at least the Prince's residence will have an heir one day, and our parents and family can rest easy."

The last withered petals flutter down nearby. It turns out a bird has merely flown past the branches.

Wen Shao can no longer keep deceiving herself. At last, she realizes in time that she has developed feelings she never should have had.

Soon, the Prince Rui household is brought down in a single night amid court intrigues and the ravages of war. Commandery Princess Changfu and the others flee in panic, leaving only one person behind.

By the time Gu Wuhuo returns from the front with his troops,

all he finds is a field of ruins, and among them, a half-burned rattle drum.

People witness Gu Wuhuo, always radiant and refined, noble and elegant, kneeling amid the wreckage. His hands trembling, he carefully gathers the rattle drum to his chest. Clear tears spill from his eyes, dampening its filthy surface.

"She Is the First Wife of the Untouchable One"

Xu Tang is the noblewoman every woman in the capital envies. Ever since she married Zhou Yucheng, her husband has risen steadily through the ranks.

Xu Tang enjoys the wealth and splendor Zhou Yucheng brings her while managing the Zhou household. Though he is never particularly warm toward her, they could at least have lived together in harmony until old age. She never expected a minor cold to somehow end her life.

Perhaps because she couldn't accept dying just like that, Xu Tang's spirit lingered in the Zhou residence.

She sees that Zhou Yucheng hasn't remarried for years after her death, nor taken a concubine or a maid to his bed. He simply devotes himself to patiently raising and educating their children alone.

Just as Xu Tang is feeling deeply comforted, she sees something she never would have imagined in her life:

Zhou Yucheng has fallen in love again in his old age.

He brings a lovely young wife into the household. After a long entanglement of advances and retreats, mutual longing and heartache, Zhou Yucheng, who has always been as aloof as a flower on a high peak, finally gives in.

Xu Tang watches helplessly as her children are sent far away. Then the new wife dredges up an unfounded incident from more than ten years ago to prove Xu Tang's guilt, successfully having Xu Tang's memorial tablet removed from the Zhou family shrine and her grave relocated elsewhere.

Even as a spirit, Xu Tang is so furious she spits up blood. She thinks a ghost who spits blood will vanish, but instead, she is suddenly thrown back into her childhood.

Back then, she was the Xu family's adored little daughter, soft and sweet, while Zhou Yucheng was a poor boy living under her family's roof, lonely and subjected to bullying and mockery.

In the past, Xu Tang was the only one who would talk to him. But now she won't even give him a kind look.

Whoever wants to pluck that flower on a high peak can do so. She won't be the one to try again.

Zhou Yucheng's meals become leftovers, and his books are covered in ink spots when he studies. He silently puts up with it all.

But then he discovers that the pastries once left on his desk have been given to someone else, and Xu Tang, who used to chatter around him all day, no longer even looks at him.

For the first time, Zhou Yucheng panics.

After tossing and turning all night, he quietly stops Xu Tang as she heads out to play with someone else. His voice trembling, he asks, "Third Sister, why... don't you talk to me anymore?"

*The blurb does not represent the entire plot or the characters.

"Claiming Spring's Beauty"

In her previous life, Cui Youlan was married to Xu Shuhan for three years. She diligently ran the household, managed his family affairs, and raised their children,

but Xu Shuhan never once looked at her with affection.

Their meeting began with a carefully laid scheme.

At the time, Empress Cui had been unable to bear an heir for years, so the Cui family planned to send Cui Youlan into the palace as a consort to support her elder sister, Empress Cui.

Who could have guessed that at a palace banquet, Cui Youlan would pass out after drinking just one extra cup of wine? When she woke, she found an unfamiliar man lying beside her. He was strikingly handsome, with a graceful and dazzling bearing.

Before Cui Youlan could react, a crowd had already burst into the room. Her reputation was ruined beyond repair.

Only later did Cui Youlan learn that the man beside her that day was none other than Xu Shuhan, the rising star of the court, born to an eminent family and known for his noble refinement, propriety, and restraint.

Unable to enter the palace as a consort, she could only marry Xu Shuhan in haste, enduring the gossip.

Cui Youlan thought she had done more than enough, but Xu Shuhan always held a grudge.

It was only when Xu Shuhan brought the woman he had once been engaged to into their home that Cui Youlan realized her husband was a block of ice that could never be warmed.

Before Cui Youlan could even get angry, someone shoved her into a pond. When she opened her eyes again, Xu Shuhan was lying beside her, just as he had three years ago.

Three years had passed like a dream. This time, Cui Youlan fled, leaving Xu Shuhan to believe, upon waking, that he had experienced a beautiful, sensual dream.

Yet three months later, Xu Shuhan came looking for Cui Youlan and even proposed marriage to her.

Xu Shuhan cornered Cui Youlan against the wall, his narrow phoenix eyes dark with gloom. "It's been three months. What are you planning to do about the child in your belly?"

Cui Youlan spread her hands and smiled. "How could I trouble the esteemed Eldest Young Master Xu with something so scandalous? I've already found a few suitable candidates. I'm sure I can make everyone happy."

Theme: Live for yourself