The Phoenix's Call

Update Notice:

I want to apologize to everyone. I really love this story, but things that happened in my personal life last year made it difficult to keep writing. As this is my first book, it still has shortcomings in many areas, so I've decided to pause updates. If fate allows, I'll rewrite it in the future. Thank you for crossing paths with me.

Story Blurb:

Song Mingyi is the unluckiest noblewoman in the capital.

Separated from her family as a child, she drifted onto a flower boat. Only a courtesan and her son protected her, and the three of them relied on one another.

After returning to the capital, she kept her past hidden and had no interest in love. But an accident forced her into marriage.

Before long, her husband in name was falsely accused. The official delivering the imperial decree swaggered about, waiting to laugh at the noblewoman who would be exiled along with him.

She clenched the bloodstained letter hidden in her sleeve.

A divorce agreement written in blood in prison, to keep her from being implicated.

Holding the divorce agreement, Song Mingyi thought awkwardly: Since I owe him, I might as well accompany him for a little while.

That brief escort turned into a journey of a thousand miles.

#Married first, love later, but with a communication gap; divorced, but not quite#

On the road to exile, she and her husband in name clear his case and save the canal workers.

Just as her husband is exonerated, she encounters someone from her past again:

The "older brother" who once looked after her on the flower boat.

Her former "older brother" has become a eunuch. His youthful ambitions have all come to nothing, and when they meet again, he cannot acknowledge her. Heartbroken, Song Mingyi repeatedly reaches out to help him.

Until one day, she returns from the palace.

Her usually gentle husband in name tears up the divorce agreement right in front of her.

*

The Male Lead's Perspective:

Lin Fengqi was set up by someone and ruined the reputation of a friend's younger sister, leaving him no choice but to marry her in haste.

On their wedding night, she cried out "Older brother" in her sleep.

He thought she had been forced into marriage and must miss her family. So he treated her with care and consideration in every way.

Until one day, after being manipulated by a powerful new court eunuch, he saw two figures embracing.

The woman in the eunuch's arms wore a familiar hairstyle, adorned with a plum-blossom hairpin.

The very one he had put in his wife's hair himself.

The eunuch held her close and murmured like an older brother: "A Chun, you want to help Lord Lin reform the canal system only because of your brother's background, don't you?"

Everything shattered.

Reading Guide:

1. One-on-one, both leads' firsts, happy ending. Romance-focused, with plot on the side. The heroine and male lead begin with a healing, mutually supportive dynamic, then the later part turns into a love-triangle showdown and a groveling arc all rolled into one.

2. The second male lead is a fake eunuch. The heroine's feelings for him are familial, but that doesn't stop the male lead from being heartbroken and losing his mind.

Theme: Through wind and frost together, their original aspirations remain unchanged.