Hailanzhu (Time Travel to the Qing Dynasty)

Lanzhu transmigrates to the bitter, storm-lashed grasslands of Horqin.

She becomes Hari Jula, the illegitimate daughter that Horqin's powerful families keep hidden away.

Even her name carries a curse and an ill omen.

Her father and brothers arrange a political marriage for her, wedding her to the leader of a barbarian tribe on the grasslands.

Within a couple of years, she is happily widowed.

Then comes a bolt from the blue: according to the custom of levirate marriage among those of the golden bloodline, her stepson will inherit everything from the old Khan, including her, his stepmother.

On the eve of her wedding to her stepson, she can take no more and runs away.

But she is captured and taken to a military camp of the Jianzhou Jurchens.

Amid the chaos of war, she meets again the former lover who had sworn years ago to take her away from that hellhole.

That faithless man is clutching her old clothes, burning incense to mourn her,

night after night, his tears soaking his lapels.

Consumed by hatred and resentment, she plunges the token of their love, a gold knife he gave her, into his heart,

and severs all ties of love once and for all.

She narrowly escapes and returns to her family in Horqin,

only for her shameless father and brothers to send her to the bed of Jianzhou's ruler.

The Khan of the Jianzhou Jurchens is Huang Taiji. He is her uncle by marriage and her younger sister's husband.

He is also the former lover she has resented for years.

He names her Hailanzhu, meaning “beloved,” and forces himself on her day after day in the Palace of Kunning...

2024.7.28

Theme: Be beautiful on your own