Born to Rebel

The historical inspirations for this novel are Princess Pingyang and Wei Qing. Ultimately, this is simply an idea the author came up with, so the names have been changed in this fictional setting: let real people belong to history, and let this story be a story.

This novel will be completed on August 23, with V starting from Chapter 24.

Here's a Coming Soon title, "Help! She Took the Male Lead as Her Concubine." For the full blurb, see the bottom of this page or the comments. Please add it to your favorites, dear readers. It's hard to launch a new novel with no promotion, no connections, and no following.

The law says that if a slave marries their master, both are guilty of a capital crime. The emperor says that relatives by marriage and close kin are the emperor's taboo.

What does it matter if this love puts us against the world?

"With the Eldest Princess at my side, I can act spoiled and arrogant."

"He can act spoiled and arrogant. I indulge him, so who dares lay a hand on him?"

She was married out of the palace at twelve for a royal alliance, and was never supposed to return. But when she was nineteen, she came back to the capital, recommending singers and promoting palace attendants. The world called her a menace. They didn't know she was playing a game of wits with the emperor, laying out her plans at court and reclaiming power from the imperial relatives one step at a time.

She paid for her return with a cup of cold wine, and would never bear children again.

In the games of the court and the harem, she worked as the emperor's assassin, keeping the imperial relatives in check and balancing the empress's power. But in the midst of all her plans, the emperor made one miscalculation.

Her mounted slave might be in the palace, but he was far too bold. His thoughts were neither pure nor proper. He was determined to become her royal brother-in-law.

"Someone else dies today, and you die tomorrow. Come near me again, and I'll kill you."

The throat beneath her hand bobbed slightly. "You won't, Master."

He called her Master because without that title, his thoughts would run wild.

He knew all her joys and sorrows. There was only one thing he didn't know: she loved him too.

With this love between them, they set out for each other. But the world's lofty towers were built by the powerful, and law and propriety pressed down on them both. No matter. They would defy the world and tear down propriety.

The Princess said, "I'll use propriety as my bedwarmer."

The Great General said, "I'm still in the warm sun. I can't get away."

With his soul lingering in his withered bones, he would join his heart to hers forever. They would stay together in this world, bound by passionate love.

But neither knew that there was an even taller tower, built by the emperor. The balance of power and suppression that had once been directed at him would now be turned against her.

This novel features a large ensemble cast.

Although some characters are inspired by historical figures, the plot and characterization have been shaped by the author's imagination, so this is not meant to be a serious work of historical research. It is a fictional setting. The story mainly explores and imagines how two people of vastly different status, whose love is forbidden by law and feared by the emperor, come to understand, love, and stay by each other under a feudal imperial system.

The author believes the leads' union across social classes would have deeply challenged the values of feudal society at the time. I think the leads are truly in love. The couple I ship is the sweetest!

Blurb for "Help! She Took the Male Lead as Her Concubine":

To obtain a powerful martial art, Wu Lanhe bravely charges up Tiger Head Mountain. The moment he arrives, the demoness captures him as her concubine (pet).

He suspects she's an old hag who wants to collect his yang energy to replenish her yin. "Granny, I've been frail since I was little. I can't take this kind of treatment!"

Meeting her turns his life upside down.

Little Black, why aren't you wearing a bellyband?

Little Black, why don't you have any cubs?

Little Black, why can't you nurse?

In her eyes, the new pet species is called people from below the mountain, and the only gender she knows is female. After seeing his body, she pities him for suffering from a terrible illness.

Hearing this dreadful news, he trembles. "What illness do I have?"

"You don't wear a bellyband, and there's an extra thing growing on you." She draws the short knife from his waist and moves to cut off the troublesome bit.

He kowtows to her. "Brother, no, sister, it's your illness that needs attention!"

She really is ill. Three needles have sealed three acupoints in her body. She feels no pain, remembers nothing of her past, and can hardly feel emotion. All she can do is treat him like a pet: hold his hand, stroke his head, pinch his ears, scratch his chin, and hug him as she sleeps soundly...

His lustful heart goes thump, thump, thump. What can he do? Of course he gives her his family's secret martial arts manual, then keeps telling her, "Pet, there can only be one pet like me!"

The White Bone Demon is wanted throughout the land. But if not for the White Bone Demon, who would take the blame for them?

Look, they say Tiger Head Mountain is where demons dwell, yet they build the greatest golden Buddha there. They mix fake gold with real and pray to the Tathagata for power and wealth.

A pool of flesh and bones in the river. Concubines and daughters are abandoned on Tiger Head Mountain. The Buddha says all forms are the Tathagata. She asks, does the Tathagata include them?

That woman swallows a pill that changes her sex. "Being a woman is an illness. I'm curing it."

That woman steals her skin. "I hurt you because he likes seeing women fight over him."

That woman destroys her martial arts and binds her feet. "As your mother, I'm teaching you how to survive."

They all want to burn the disobedient female demon to death. Who could have imagined that her warhorse would follow the Princess and trample the royal city beneath its hooves?

You're destroying this world!

That's right, because it's only your world. The Tathagata fears no world in which everyone is the Tathagata.

Premise: Only love can truly redeem us.