The Chief Minister's Guide to Raising Flowers

[Check out my next upcoming novel, Her Three-Inch Golden Lotus Shoes. Muah~]

[Age gap / raising her / aloof beauty falling in love]

A spoiled, rebellious girl VS a prim, chaste chief minister

Yan Dongning was born stunningly beautiful, but was frail and sickly from childhood. Her parents doted on her and sought doctors and medicine for her at every turn.

When she was thirteen, her father was demoted for some reason. He was being sent three thousand li away to Lingnan, and fearing she might die of illness on the journey, he had no choice but to entrust her to a friend in the capital.

Her father's young friend was the chief minister of the dynasty, a man as beautiful as jade, with power reaching to the heavens. A single furrow of his brow could make the whole court tremble.

But Dongning was never afraid of him.

Whenever something displeased her, she would burst into tears, wipe her little flower-painted face, and say, "I'm leaving. I'm going back to Lingnan."

Zhang Lingzhi had no choice but to coax her gently. "My sweet Xue'er, Uncle was wrong."

The people in the Zhang household stared in amazement. The chief minister, who always had his own way, could actually lower his head.

There was just one thing Zhang Lingzhi would never give in to.

"Why can't you like me?!" Dongning cried angrily. Standing on his daybed, she stomped all over the quilt.

Zhang Lingzhi gave her a cold look. "If you keep making trouble, I'll send you back to Lingnan."

Dongning hugged her giant stuffed toy and cried until she soaked several pillows.

*

Yan Dongning was raised very well in the Zhang household. By the time she was sixteen, she was breathtakingly beautiful, and the men eager to court her lined up outside the Zhang residence.

She spent her days wandering among the green leaves, enjoying herself immensely.

She'd been lucky. She'd almost hanged herself from one old tree for the rest of her life.

That day, she came home late again, and Zhang Lingzhi, who had been waiting in the courtyard for a long time, called out to her. The girl turned around reluctantly. The kiss mark on her neck was bright red and impossible to miss.

Zhang Lingzhi's eyes burned red with anger. He slammed the table. "Shameless!"

She pouted and retorted, "What are you to me? What gives you the right to interfere?"

Watching the chief minister's face twist with rage, she felt completely triumphant.

In the lamplit study, books, ink, brushes, and paper lay scattered across the floor. The girl was held against the desk, her pale-green gauze robe hanging at her waist.

The chief minister kissed away the fragrant sweat at her temple, his low, mellow voice coaxing her. "Tell me, what am I to you, Xue'er?"

She bit her red lips, and a coquettish murmur slipped between her teeth. "You're... my husband..."

[Male Lead's Point of View]

Zhang Lingzhi had always thought Yan Dongning was the line he would never cross. But now, for the sake of a fragrance at her neck, he no longer cared about being a decent man.

An old house catches fire / prim man breaks his vows / an older man who talks dirty can be devastatingly sexy

1. Both leads are each other's first and only partner, 1v1, happy ending.

2. The romantic relationship and intimate interactions begin after the heroine's coming-of-age ceremony.

3. Fictional setting inspired by the Ming dynasty.

Here's another upcoming novel, Her Three-Inch Golden Lotus Shoes. Drafting in progress~

Hong Kong tycoon heir vs. a traditionally bound-footed woman

Before transmigrating, Jiang Minghao died in an illegal street race at dawn.

The Bugatti's speedometer hit 400 kilometers per hour. He crashed straight into the guardrail on a mountain road. When he woke up, he had become the eldest legitimate son of a duke's household, and was told he had to marry his cousin.

On his wedding night, he met his wife.

In the dim candlelight, the young woman wore a bright-red wedding robe. Her shoulders were slender, her waist delicate, and she sat properly by the bed. Her little feet dangled, each no more than three inches long.

Jiang Minghao had never smelled such an aura on a seventeen-year-old girl: rotten and withered, like a corpse that had been shut in a coffin for years.

He thought he would never love a woman like this in his life.

*

Pei Xuanzhu had lived for seventeen years, and years of strict lessons in feminine virtue had thoroughly seeped into her. She had been molded into the perfect young lady by the standards of Confucian propriety, and the capital's wealthy families competed to marry her.

But her husband did not seem to like her.

Ever since her cousin married her, he had seemed like a different person. A carefree, unruly boyish spirit often surged in his expression, and he was always saying strange things to her, like "Women can hold up half the sky" and "We are all equal"...

Some of what he said made sense to her, and some of it did not. But no matter what he said, Pei Xuanzhu would arch her slender brows and let dimples blossom faintly beside her lips. "My husband is right. I'll do whatever you say." Yet the expression on his face only grew more disgusted.

Pei Xuanzhu had no idea what she had done wrong. She had carefully observed the Three Obediences and Four Virtues, and the principle that a wife must obey her husband.

Until one day, he lifted her three-inch golden lotus feet, unwound the binding cloth little by little, and threw it into the brazier. "From now on, don't bind them anymore."

Pei Xuanzhu was terrified. Her deer-like eyes trembled with tears. "Husband... are you going to divorce me?"

His eyes swirled with deep, dark emotion. It did not look like disgust. It looked more like pity.

*

Pei Xuanzhu's feet were freed.

The wilderness west of the city was vast. He held her hand and said, "Run, Xuanzhu. Start running."

Run? What a strange word. She had barely ever stepped beyond the inner courtyard in her life. What did it mean to run?

He gripped her hand and led her forward at a sprint. She stumbled along, the toes that had been bent out of shape grinding painfully, but the wind roared past her ears and the clouds wheeled across the sky. She wanted so badly to shout aloud.

So this was how free life could feel.

*

In the thirtieth year of the Jing'an era, Mongol cavalry rode south, and the country fell, leaving the people bereft.

Pei Xuanzhu joined the army and became a military medic.

At night, she lay beside the Yellow River. The water murmured, and clouds still drifted across the sky, but his warm, broad hand was no longer there.

"Run, Xuanzhu. Start running."

His firm voice rang in her ears once more.

He had taught her that the world was vast, and that a woman could go very, very far.

Reader's Guide:

1. It is a happy ending!! A happy ending!! I swear!

2. 1v1, both leads are devoted only to each other.

Theme: Fate will look kindly upon lovely people.