A Princess's Guide to Taming Dogs

[My jianghu novel, Has Miss Bai Had Her Fortune Told Today?, is now available. Please add it to your collection!]

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A cold, eccentric princess who always repays a grudge × a dark-hearted young master with a hopeless romantic streak

Winter, the tenth year of Jianchang. Dayong was defeated.

Princess Huaining, Zhu Ciqiu, was sent to Nanxia for a political marriage, where she was to wed her old lover, Wu Yusheng, the very man whose heart she had once pierced with her own hand.

At sixteen, the spirited young general promised to marry her.

At seventeen, Wu Yusheng's identity as Nanxia's young master was exposed. She plunged a sword into his dantian and sent him tumbling into an abyss.

At the end of her twentieth year, Dayong was defeated in battle, and she was forced to marry into Nanxia.

Among Nanxia's many barbarian tribes, she was bullied and humiliated, yet never let it show on her face.

Only when she faced Wu Yusheng did her heart waver.

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Later, after learning the whole truth, she sought every opportunity to use herself as a pawn and stir up trouble, ensuring that the Nanxia villain's schemes came to nothing. Finally, amid Nanxia's chaos and warfare, she faked her death and escaped, secured command of an army, and returned home in glory.

She purged the traitors who had sold out the country and established new rules for a new era.

Yet the officials condemned her, cursing her as a traitor.

In the Golden Throne Hall, she pointed her sword at the officials.

She laughed softly. "I don't care what the world says or what the history books record. I have a clear conscience about everything I've done."

*

Zhu Ciqiu knew Wu Yusheng had followed her all this way. Now he was brazenly coming and going in the Princess's Residence as if no one were there.

Nanxia's troubles were impossible to resolve, but its lord stayed here as her personal bodyguard, shielding her from countless blades and spears, all to keep her safe amid the turbulent times.

She asked, "Why?"

He answered, "To atone."

The nation's turmoil left her no room to think about romance.

But he remained behind her, day after day.

Once again, she deceived him for her own ends, tricking him into returning to Nanxia.

"Wu Yusheng, you can see for yourself. I love myself more than I love you."

He knelt at her feet, his love growing ever more intense, burning like hot coals.

"Your Highness, the truth is, you love your people most of all."

*

Reading guide:

A cold, resolute princess who habitually wears a stony expression and is ruthless to herself and even more ruthless to others × a madly possessive, dark young master whose romantic obsession and lust for life are equally powerful

1. One-on-one romance, both virgins.

2. Don't dwell on the characters' moral values.

3. Fictional dynasty, no historical research needed.

4. This is my first long novel. The outline and plot aren't great, and it has plenty of shortcomings!

Coming soon: Has Miss Bai Had Her Fortune Told Today? Blurb below:

Launching May 20

A brave, wealthy young woman new to the jianghu × a worldly, broke swordsman

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Bai Yizhi had been telling fortunes ever since she learned to speak.

One day, after getting drunk, she tossed a coin and divined that she was destined to enter the jianghu.

There, she would find a benefactor who could help her find her mother.

So, under cover of darkness, she stole a carriage hitched to a swift horse, packed eight chests of gold leaves from her private treasury, and headed straight for the place indicated by her divination: Shu.

Just after arriving in Shu, she very unfortunately stumbled upon her benefactor in the middle of a massacre.

Bai Yizhi knew when to bend. Holding up a tortoiseshell, she cried, "Spare me, husband!"

The benefactor's sword hand seemed to tremble. "I don't kill people with brain disorders."

At first, the benefactor thought very little of her.

That changed when she paid off his debt for the tables, chairs, and crockery he'd damaged at an inn with gold leaves. Suddenly, he put on a fawning smile.

The benefactor said, "Do you need a bodyguard, my lady? I'm the best swordsman in the No-Gap Tower. My lightness skill and swordsmanship are second to none! Besides protecting you, I can travel with you and visit all sixteen sects. I can even take you to the martial arts tournament at Peacock Terrace! For just one bag of gold leaves a month, you get a perfect bodyguard at a bargain price!"

Bai Yizhi was very tempted.

For a bag of gold leaves a month, Li Buyan would accompany her as she searched for her mother.

A bargain.

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On the surface, Li Buyan was a penniless swordsman from the No-Gap Tower. Behind the scenes, he carried out unspeakable assassination jobs.

One day, just after finishing a contract killing, a girl decked out in gold and silver suddenly grabbed his bloodstained clothes and called him, "Husband!"

He knew he was handsome, but there was no need to shout that while he was killing someone.

Li Buyan thought the girl was a fool. He ditched her again and again, but somehow she always managed to find him.

That was until he accepted a bounty to assassinate an elder of the Wan Chan Sect and had to infiltrate the martial arts tournament to create chaos.

Looking at the wealthy young lady who'd paid his inn bill, he suddenly had a brilliant idea.

He smiled ingratiatingly. "I don't believe I've learned your name, my lady."

The girl replied, "Bai Yizhi. My courtesy name is Zhao'an."

Thus, under cover of Bai Zhao'an, he completed one bounty after another. Even when she set up a stall to tell people's fortunes for free, he stayed beside her to collect tea money.

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One day, Bai Yizhi, who had long since stopped telling fortunes, did so again to save a friend's father. Since clues about her missing mother kept intertwining with Li Buyan's whereabouts, she secretly told his fortune as well.

She discovered that Li Buyan had two fates.

One of them had shattered ten years earlier.

Across the broken fate, she saw the words: "Dragon bones broken, jade register burned."

Later, when she was forced to return home and marry a marquis in the capital, Li Buyan appeared as if from nowhere, leading two hundred soldiers to hijack her wedding sedan.

Knowing the truth, she cried as she listened to Li Buyan explain: "I spent three hundred taels hiring two hundred caravan guards to pretend to be the Black-Armored Army so I could hijack the wedding! Xiao Wuce refused to play a dead man, so I had to pose as Prince Jingchun, who died ten years ago."

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Reading guide:

The beloved daughter of Liang's richest family, who fears nothing except getting an inaccurate fortune, and whose every strand of hair is worth a fortune × a broke swordsman with just ten copper coins to his name, a former imperial noble who has scraped by in the streets.

One-on-one romance, both virgins.

The plot serves the romance; the main story follows the jianghu and everyday life.

The setting partly draws on the Tang and Song dynasties, with some original elements. Don't read too much into it.

There are twists, but not many.

A tiny, tiny touch of the supernatural.

Theme: Love peace.