Ode to Shangling

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[New novel "Beneath Her Blade" will launch before the New Year. Synopsis below.]

From the heroine's perspective: "What if the mute boy I seduced thinks I really like him... Wait, I stabbed him too?"

From the hero's perspective: "I got another life. Isn't it enough that I stay far away from her?"

| Both leads reborn | Pretend seductress x aloof beauty | Love rivals |

In the thirteenth year of Chengping, the young Pei Xiu passed the imperial examinations and rose to an official post in one of the Six Ministries. He was a man of spotless reputation, with a brilliant future ahead of him.

Then his father, a cabinet minister, died after being convicted in an imperial examination fraud case. Out of regard for their teacher-student relationship, the emperor spared the Pei family from further investigation. Yet everyone said that the youngest son, Pei Xiu, had passed the exams only because Pei Yuji, the powerful imperial tutor and his father's superior, had abused his position.

The spirited, talented, and unruly young Pei Xiu saw through the ways of the world. It was all about currying favor with the powerful and abandoning the fallen. When a tree fell, its monkeys scattered. And sometimes, when the cunning hare died, the hound was cooked. He had no choice but to hide his talents, keep his head down, and wait for a chance to clear his father's name.

He evaded the political enemies his father had made in office and deftly navigated the open and hidden attacks of the maternal relatives' Zheng faction. Then, out of nowhere, a woman in red struck him with a blade.

He was the one who bled and lay dead, yet her eyes were full of alarm, glistening with tears. That was the last thing he saw.

What absurdity. She had deliberately deceived him, then killed him with a single stroke. Why should she feel guilty?

Pei Xiu gave a mocking smile and closed his eyes.

*

The scene on the palace road, the moment his soul left his body, remained vivid in his mind. He would not let history repeat itself in this life.

He returned to the seventh year of Chengping. His body had yet to finish growing, but his heart was already old, cold, and composed.

Pei Xiu vowed never to cross paths again with the woman he had met only three times in his previous life, whose name he never even learned.

He left the capital, gave up being the young master of the chief minister's family, and refused to give his father any cause for others to criticize him. After a thousand miles of arduous travel south, he secluded himself in the mountains of Tonglu, by the Fuchun River, content to live as a carefree recluse.

He could plow fields and till soil with ease, and in his spare time taught the village children music, chess, poetry, and books.

The villagers respectfully called him "Teacher Pei," while the local young women fantasized about his refined, beautiful face.

But she came anyway.

He ignored her, tripped her up, insulted her, and even tried to move away, yet somehow he could never shake her.

*

Yu Yaoyao deliberately approached Pei Xiu, who sat before his zither, when her cousin Wen Zhiqiao of the Marquis of Loyalty and Diligence's household and a visitor from the Eastern Palace were present.

In a blazing red dress, she tested him, tempted him, and kissed him.

Pei Xiu did not avoid her. He even shot Wen Zhiqiao, who was peeking from outside the door, a cutting look.

For a moment he seemed like a man who had everything to gain, as if the free-spirited young Pei Xiu of his previous life had returned.

Afterward, the woman innocently explained that it had nothing to do with romance.

She had merely wanted to avoid a marriage that would force her to marry up, and had been willing to ruin a woman's most precious possession, her reputation. She hoped that her teacher, "Teacher Pei," could help her get through this ordeal.

Yu Yaoyao thought no one was better suited to the situation than Pei Xiu. He had lived under an assumed name for so long, but his father was still the chief minister, second only to The Outcast, and even the Eastern Palace had to show him some respect.

Pei Xiu felt as if he had fallen into an ice cellar. That woman had hurt him once again.

Later, he broke his vow and returned to the capital alone. For his family's sake, and for the ideals of the incorruptible officials, he truly became the handsome scholar in the springtime dreams of the young women of Tonglu. He asked himself honestly: his reasons for returning to the capital were not entirely pure.

Since she couldn't remember her previous life, there was no need for resentment. Why couldn't they live differently in this life, with a different relationship?

Unfortunately, one day, Yu Yaoyao, the Crown Princess, remembered. She had once held a blade, with blood flowing endlessly from it.

She looked at the music attendant Pei, the court musician who sat below the steps playing the zither for her. He was cold and distant, able to go a whole day without saying a word, yet he concealed his feelings beneath the surface.

As if she'd seen a ghost or a god, her heart tore like silk. She fled in a panic.

* The hero has always been single and is waiting for a love that feels like a home invasion.

* The Crown Prince is not the second male lead. The second male lead is the cousin.

* This really is a sweet story.

* The heroine has temporarily lost her memories after being reborn.

[Reading Guide]

1. Key point: the heroine has had previous sexual partners; the hero has not. I hope this will be a relaxed and easygoing story.

2. Fictional setting. Don't overthink it.

3. Inspired by Huang Gongwang's "Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains," but this common story can't compare to the master's artistic vision. Don't overthink it.

4. Happy ending.

Synopsis:

| Guarded, cold-hearted woman x devoted, lovestruck man | Concubine-born daughter x slave

"I was cold-hearted by nature. Then I met a poor soul who always wore black. Whenever we met, the rain and snow fell thickly, or we faced a mountain of swords and a forest of blades. I couldn't help feeling compassion for him."

*

Miao Xuanzhao recovered her identity and returned from the countryside to Chang'an, where she became a concubine-born daughter in a duke's household. Her father did not love her, and her stepmother did not care for her. Later, she was forced to enter the palace in place of her elder sister. The emperor was wary of the influence of the great clans, while her relatives kept their distance to avoid being implicated by her status as a member of the imperial family. She endured until the red candles burned down, yet the emperor never once turned his attention to her.

At last, when her husband died, she finally got a quiet job that required no face-to-face contact: guarding his tomb for the rest of her life in the Wei Bei mausoleum district. She repaired murals and displayed bronze and stone artifacts in cabinets, intending to spend ten thousand years like this, never opening her heart or placing her hopes in anyone. She knew what she wanted.

But the old dynasty's fate was nearing its end. The rebel Dugu clan laid siege to the capital. No one in the imperial family or the harem could be spared.

"I've had enough." At last, she was tired.

With a book knife and a white veil over her face, she could die cleanly. It was better than being chopped into a pulp and dumped on Mount Beimang.

The rebel in black, a Shura who had drenched the entire Vermilion Bird Avenue in blood, had never once sheathed his sword. He stood alone beneath her rose-red gauze window, waiting to finish killing everyone and report back.

Then his voice came, cool and clear. "Is death really so easy? Do you always choose the easy way, miss?"

*

After the second ruler of Northern Ji ascended the throne, the first stack of impeachment memorials to fill the Treasure Tower arrived in a flurry. The emperor had personally set out from the capital and traveled across half the realm to Lin'an, all to bring back his empress.

Seeing Miao Xuanzhao again, gazing into the distance by the lake, her hair arranged like clouds and her cheeks pale as snow, Dugu Xian suddenly remembered that year. He had followed the stream upstream through the woods as dusk fell, while the rain of his adoptive father's lashes beat down on him.

By chance, Consort Miao stood alone outside the Shanglin Gardens. When fog covered the fields, she bent down and brushed his brow, damp with sweat after he had endured a beating across his body. She was like a lotus bowing its head.

Back then, she belonged to someone else.

But to him, it had been as if the gods themselves had given their blessing.

*

For ten years, the north and south were ravaged by war. The skies were dark with storm, and grieving birds sought shelter in the woods.

Two bitter fruits, both once cast aside, were still willing to hold hands, raise a sheltering hut and an umbrella for the realm, and dress and lay out the dead.

I remember gathering plum blossoms beneath the western isles, then sending them north of the river.

A single-layer jacket, apricot-red; twin temples, the black of a young crow.

From "Song of the Western Isles"

[Reading Guide]

1. Miao Xuanzhao, habitually independent and slow to recognize her feelings, x Dugu Xian (Lu Xian), who hides his strengths but cannot keep his heart from moving. A story of two people pulling at each other, falling into passion, and finding common ground in their souls.

2. The dynasty draws on historical influences, but has many fictional details. Don't worry about the historical accuracy.

3. Includes political intrigue and business ventures. Both leads are strong, in the sense of being resilient.

4. No one is perfect. They all grow.

5. Happy ending, both leads sexually inexperienced, 1v1.

6. Lu is slightly younger than Miao.

Theme: Take responsibility for your family, your country, and the world.