The Down-and-Out Heiress's Road to Fortune

[The synopsis for the upcoming modern romance Chasing the Evening has been updated. Thanks for your support!]

[The modern romance next door, Sweet Attack, which I’m writing alongside this one, is complete. Please check it out!]

[Synopsis]

Ling Xunfeng opened her eyes and discovered she had transmigrated to an ancient farming village. Something rarer than winning the lottery had actually happened to her!

Fine, she had transmigrated, but from the start all she had was a shabby thatched hut, a daily struggle to get enough to eat, and a miserable marriage to an old man to pay off debts...

After working herself to the bone as a corporate wage slave in the modern world, she had finally saved enough for a down payment and bought a home. In the end, she had to say goodbye to it all, and none of it had anything to do with her anymore.

Her family was so poor they lived on watery soup every day. Anyone who didn't know better would think she was dieting. Please, getting fat in ancient times was harder than reaching the heavens.

She was a natural food lover, with her cooking skills maxed out.

First, eat your fill. Then, get rich.

Give her a lever, and she could move the entire food scene.

She farmed, hawked her wares, set up stalls, and opened shops.

Milk tea, grass jelly, and herbal tortoiseshell jelly; bean sprouts, century eggs, and stinky tofu; roast duck and fried chicken; youtiao and sesame balls; burgers, sandwiches, roujiamo, and stuffed pastries; fried noodles, wontons, cheung fun, liangpi, rice noodles, snail rice noodles, malatang, instant noodles...

The great cuisines of north and south, all kinds of snacks: if she could think of it, she could make it happen.

At last, she had solved the problem of going hungry.

Wait, she was also the real daughter of the General's household, who had gone missing as a child? And the man who constantly pestered her and tricked her into doing his chores was the one she was commanded by imperial decree to marry?

The whole capital was waiting to watch her and the fake daughter fight over a man.

Please, what's the point of tearing each other apart? Building a career is the way to go!

But what was she supposed to do when she ran out of capital to open a restaurant?

General Lin: "I've already had your dowry prepared."

Li Beishu: "I wish to take you as my wife."

Ling Xunfeng gritted her teeth and squeezed her eyes shut. A person has to follow the money! Fine, I'll marry him!

[Synopsis for an upcoming novel]

At the start-of-term ceremony of their first year of high school, on the school field.

Ye Jiale stood onstage as the outstanding freshman representative, bright and confident as he delivered his speech.

The clear, youthful sound of his voice drifted past her ears with the summer breeze.

He only raised his eyes lazily for a moment, but in a crowded corner, Ke Chenxi's heart still fluttered.

She had seen him before.

She had also thought she would never see him again.

In their second year of middle school, for an entire semester, she used riding her bicycle home after school as an excuse to pass by and watch him play basketball. He had been a spirited, sunlit boy.

The girl's cheeks were bright red.

She didn't know whether the blazing sun had made her blush, or whether her racing heart had.

In their first year of high school, they became classmates.

He was the teacher's and his classmates' star student, while she was one among the many, sensitive and insecure.

He was the boy she wanted to pursue, yet could never get close to.

If she hadn't endured one upheaval after another, if she hadn't fallen into one pit of trouble after another, if she hadn't encountered all those strange and wicked people and monsters...

Perhaps she would still be the timid, fragile Ke Chenxi.

She thought she had already managed to change.

Until she met him again.

Ke Chenxi saw Ye Jiale again at the labor arbitration committee in Beijiang District.

He wore a sharp suit, nothing like the boy in the white school uniform she remembered.

But she could still recognize him at a glance from his profile alone.

She had thought she would never have anything to do with him again in this life.

She never imagined that they would cross paths again while she was still alive, but she lost.

She was the lawyer representing the worker; he was the lawyer representing the company.

She refused to give an inch in court, but he caught her completely off guard.

It wasn't her face that turned red. It was her eyes that had gone blind.

They were two parallel lines that had veered off course. Even if they crossed paths briefly, they would still return to their proper tracks.

What she didn't know was that from then on, even as she took one step back after another, he would keep inching closer, as if it had all been planned long ago, with no such thing as a chance encounter.

Ke Chenxi and Ye Jiale moved into Chaoyang Huafu one after the other. By a twist of fate, they became roommates.

At a barbecue, while their other roommates teased and heckled her, he lazily spoke up from the side:

"She doesn't even remember me. What makes you think she'll remember you?"

She wanted to get closer, but didn't dare.

That New Year's Eve, she thought it was just a moment of impulsiveness, a rush of hormones. But the next night, buoyed by the buzz of alcohol, she confessed her feelings during that corny, cliched game of Truth or Dare:

"I like boys who've played basketball since they were little."

If she hadn't endured one upheaval after another, if they hadn't left so many things unsaid, if she weren't the sensitive, insecure girl she was...

But there are no ifs.

There were still so many uncertainties between them, including that bewildering kiss.

She didn't know what that kiss meant. Was it revenge, or was he just playing around?

But running away was what she was best at.

At their class reunion, Ye Jiale learned Ke Chenxi's secret before she learned his.

On New Year's Eve, in the dim light, he trapped her in his arms once more, his burning gaze lingering on her, unable to pull away.

"Can we stop running away from this?"

"I love you, Chenxi."

It was the first time he had called her by her given name without her surname, just as she had long wished in her dreams.

It was also the first time he had said he loved her, not just that he liked her.

This time, her eyes were red.

"The bauhinia flowers at No. 7 Middle School are blooming again."

"Ke Chenxi, I've missed you too."

It turned out her secret crush had long since grown into the most dazzling flower, blooming in all its glory.

Theme: Women should strive to be strong and self-reliant.