(My dears, I’m getting ready to start a new job, so I don’t have time to write for now. Updates will be irregular. I’ll do my best to finish this story, sob, sob.)
Xiao Hehua is the impoverished daughter of an aristocratic family. Her father favors his concubine and neglects his wife, who died in childbirth. She has suffered since childhood and is now being forced to marry another man as his second wife.
In her previous life, she took an arrow for the emperor and became Consort Xiao, the most favored woman in the imperial harem.
On a spring day, Consort Xiao is radiant as peach blossoms at a palace banquet, smiling and laughing, unaware that the emperor’s trusted minister below the steps is watching her with an increasingly intense gaze.
When the emperor dies and the new emperor takes the throne, the maternal relatives of the Lu clan seize control of the court, and she goes from favored consort to a relic of the previous dynasty.
In midsummer, she takes shelter from the rain in a side hall and happens upon Lu Yi, the prime minister, who has been drugged.
In a gauzy, light dress, her graceful figure tempts those eyes that had once been so calm and restrained.
“Your concubine is like duckweed adrift. I hope Prime Minister Lu will be kind to me.”
The Prime Minister Lu whom others describe as gentle as jade and peerlessly handsome has eyes brimming with desire.
The next day, the Empress Dowager gives her a cup of poisoned wine, and her soul returns to the heavens.
Reborn at sixteen, she is radiant and enchanting. She tries to seduce her half-sister’s fiancé, only to become embroiled in a murder case.
In the Dali Temple prison, Lu Yi, still only a junior official at the temple, watches her with an inscrutable expression. His eyes resemble those of a beast watching its prey, waiting for the right moment to strike.
He watches her maneuver among the great families, watches her scheme to seize the Xiao family’s property, watches her use him. Even as jealousy rages within him, he wears the guise of a gentle gentleman and coaxes her in, step by step.
At first light, he leads his troops to stop Xiao Hehua from fleeing the city.
The lingering warmth of last night’s stolen pleasure still clings to her neck when she plunges her sword into Lu Yi’s chest.
Lu Yi takes a few steps forward, driving the blade deeper, then wraps his arms around her gently, longingly.
“Consort Xiao, you really are... so cruel.”
He knows she is hypocritical, frivolous, and greedy for wealth and status, but he loves her all the same.
A black-lotus-like daughter of a fallen aristocratic house x a seemingly gentle but secretly calculating junior official of the Dali Temple
[Reading Guide]
1. An alternate world inspired by the Tang Dynasty, with plenty of invented details.
2. One-on-one romance, both leads are reborn.
3. Includes mild domestic scheming, possessive love, and a groveling pursuit. I’m a sucker for these tropes, and I love writing them.
Theme: Break free from adversity and live independently.
