The Phoenix Returns from a Thousand Miles Away

[A beautiful, bold princess in exile who seems delicate x a crane-like scholar from an enemy nation, sweet on the outside and dark within]

[The aloof scholar goes mad for love / teacher-student romance / textbook example of a woman seducing a man]

* Originally titled "The Teacher Who Insists on Sneaking Around"

Everyone said that Teacher Qu of the Music Office was like a crane perched on the eaves: cold by nature, strict in his observance of the rules, and untouched by the world of mortals.

Chu Qingluo was merely one of his many students.

Nothing special.

Yet when he taught the zither, he always pressed a white jade ruler to her wrist. "Your finger joints are too stiff. How will you ever master the art of making your fingers dance?"

Once the others had left, she hooked her little finger into his palm. Her eyes turned the color of red crabapple blossoms. "Teacher, will you teach me how to make my fingers dance?"

"Rule ten of the school: students must not... overstep their bounds."

Chu Qingluo hooked his burning fingertip and pressed it against her heart. Her lashes trembled as she gazed into his eyes, deep and cold as a lake. "Then... why don't you teach me first what it means to overstep one's bounds?"

The teacher gripped the wrist she had used to tease him, his Adam's apple bobbing.

"You're so bold. Aren't you afraid I'll expose you as a remnant of the former dynasty?"

"Are you going to expose me?"

Chu Qingluo smiled, her expression like honey laced with poison, and looked at him meaningfully.

"Would you have the heart to?"

By day, he was a proper and upright teacher, and she a mild-mannered, respectful student.

But when class was over, beneath the green jade desk, their brocade sleeves stirred like clouds gathering in secret, quietly covering his plain white cuff as they slowly intertwined and brushed against each other.

*

He gradually began to believe they were truly in love, and went to ask for an imperial decree granting their marriage.

Before Lingning Hall, the imperial edict rang out in all its splendor.

But she knelt gracefully beside the Ninth Prince, her eyes shimmering with tears.

"Your Majesty, please judge fairly. His Highness the Ninth Prince and I have long been in love... Teacher, I hope you'll give us your blessing."

The whole hall erupted in commotion. For the first time, he lost his composure.

Later, Qu Hanjin intercepted her on the main road, his long robe reeking of alcohol.

His jade crown sat askew, and not a trace of his former elegance remained.

"Why go to him?"

He bit her earlobe, each word steeped in blood.

"If you want to rebel... I told you, I can help you too."

*

Later, on the day of the ceremony, Qu Hanjin personally handed the long sword bestowed by the emperor to his most accomplished student.

"The imperial seal you want, the ninefold palace you want to burn, the old lands you want to reclaim... I'll give you everything."

He caught the golden hairpin in her hair between his lips, letting its beads brush over his brow.

"Now it's time for you to claim me, too."

(#I wield the zither as a blade, cutting down everyone in the world who has ever wronged her.)

[Extra Scene]

"Everyone says Teacher Qu is the very picture of purity and grace..." She brushed her bloodstained fingertips over his brow. "Why would you choose to become my accomplice?"

"How do you suppose the court historian will write about you, Teacher?"

Qu Hanjin bit open the ribbon at the woman's neck.

"Write that Qu spent half his life cultivating elegant music, only to meet his fated calamity one day and willingly snap all seven strings for a beauty."

Reader's Guide:

1. A beautiful, bold princess in exile who seems delicate x a crane-like scholar from an enemy nation, sweet on the outside and dark within. A teacher-student romance where the woman seduces the man, but it's a man-woman pairing. The heroine seeks revenge, and the hero stands by to hand her the sword. Their chemistry is off the charts.

2. Happy ending, both leads are virgins. The heroine initially seduces the hero to use him, with no genuine feelings involved. Later, the hero pursues her relentlessly, and there are plenty of secret flirtations both in and out of the classroom.

3. In the story, the Music Office was established to revive the rites of a land of ritual and propriety (a fictional setting). The young noblewomen who enter study there rather than seeking a livelihood; they study for a few months and then leave. The hero is an official in the Ministry of Rites and a strategist who has chosen to live in seclusion. (Historically, musicians held very low status.)

4. This novel has little political intrigue. Romance is the main focus, with revenge as a secondary element, so there is no need to scrutinize the political machinations too closely.

Please check out the upcoming novel "The Princess Consort's Kept Mistress," a wildly dramatic, coercive-love story. If it sounds interesting, add it to your collection!

[Blurb]

Meng Fuyue, the legitimate daughter of the Meng family, was gentle and virtuous, and had been childhood friends with the crown prince.

Sadly, fate was unkind to her. On her wedding day, someone hijacked her bridal sedan.

Everyone said that the man chosen by Princess Xuanjing to be her consort was a dignified gentleman, as pure as snow piled on a jade mountain.

But no one knew that a few days later, red candles would glow beneath warm bed curtains in a pavilion.

The man used a folding fan to lift her red bridal veil, his eyes blazing with dark fire.

"What are the three letters and six rites as a betrothal gift?"

Xie Lingheng's eyes and brows were icy. His black official robes wrapped around his trembling bride. "I've prepared a golden cage and jade locks for Miss Meng."

"A delicate beauty like you belongs locked away in a hidden chamber..."

The princess's household and the Meng family had always been close. Princess Xuanjing was her sworn sister. How could Meng Fuyue disregard propriety and so casually defy the moral order?

She forced herself to remain calm.

"Does the princess know how mad you are, Consort?"

But he only chuckled at her words, lowering his head to kiss the silver chain around her ankle. Twisted madness roiled in his eyes.

"Once I rise to the highest offices, I'll divorce the princess and welcome you as my lawful wife in a phoenix sedan carried by eight bearers."

*

Xie Lingheng had once been an obscure scholar from a poor family, but he used his status as a princess's consort to rise to great heights. He was no good man.

By day, he was glib and accommodating, the perfect son-in-law to the princess. At night, he went to an estate outside the city to visit the "kept woman" he had hidden away...

He had committed every kind of evil and harbored countless wicked thoughts. This one was the foulest of all.

Late at night, with dew thick in the air, he forced her to change into coarse servant's clothes and sneak into his study in the princess's residence to make love with him.

The servants on night watch blushed at the sounds from outside, never realizing that the woman in the room was not the lady of the house.

After such an obsessive entanglement, the kept woman eventually became pregnant.

After weighing it over, he personally brought her a bowl of medicine to end the pregnancy.

He watched her tremble, crying until she could no longer make a sound.

His expression gentle, he intertwined his fingers with hers and bent down to kiss her pale cheek.

"Be good and drink it. You're neither wife nor concubine. Having a child would ruin your reputation."

She was no more than a bird trapped in a cage. A little coaxing would make everything all right.

With a beauty like her, he would keep her by his side and make her the most pleasing companion in his bed.

*

To escape him, Meng Fuyue racked her brains and finally got away.

At last, she boarded a merchant ship and hid in its hold, fleeing to a neighboring county. That night, she dreamed of her future: planting flowers and herbs, opening a clinic, and growing old with a good man.

She had thought she could escape for good, but familiar footsteps sounded outside the cargo hold.

The cold curtain was lifted, revealing the handsome, clear-cut face of a man.

To her, he was more terrifying than a demon.

The chains rattled. In the carriage, she closed her eyes in despair and asked with a trembling voice,

"My lord, what... would it take for you to let me go?"

"I can't do that, Yue'er."

Xie Lingheng held her tightly in his arms.

His voice was gentle, but his words left no room for doubt.

"I won't let you go."

As her hopes were dashed again and again, her heart should have died along with them.

Yet she never imagined she could be given a new life.

*

Later, people said that in early spring, the regent of the day sat on the stone steps of the Meng family's pharmacy, his eyes red and his soul seemingly gone.

He held a vivid red wedding gown in his hands and sat there for three whole days and nights.

But the bride never appeared.

(P.S. The male lead is a virgin and remains devoted to one person. His relationship with the princess is purely opportunistic, with nothing physical between them. A ten-alarm fire-and-brimstone redemption arc! The plot gets heavy, so steer clear if that's not your thing!!!)

Theme: All things in this world endure for love.