Jiahe

[Current status: The marriage alliance is complete]

[Next up: The Little Courtesan, a dog-blooded story of taking someone by force. Blurb at the bottom. Please add it to your library~]

[Blurb]

Wen Jiahe is a concubine's daughter. She's dull, mediocre, timid, and weak.

Song Qinglan is heaven's favored son, adored by countless young ladies. She's just one insignificant little loach among them.

Jiahe never dared hope he'd even look at her, so when Song Qinglan said he wanted to marry her, she thought she must be dreaming.

But the marriage never came to pass. Wei and Liang went to war and negotiated peace. Her aged father sat at her bedside and wept, asking her to go to Great Wei as a bride in a political marriage.

She was truly useless. She didn't dare refuse, and simply agreed.

Life after the marriage alliance was miserable. The emperor was cold and passionless, wholly consumed by state affairs, and never visited the harem. The first time Jiahe saw him, his entourage was grand and he was hurrying along. He glimpsed her kneeling by the road and impatiently asked who she was.

The emperor didn't even remember she existed.

So for a long time, Jiahe couldn't understand why this emotionless man cared so much about Song Qinglan.

He cared so much that when Song Qinglan finally appeared before her, he roughly pinned her against the imperial desk and forced her to look up at Song Qinglan, waiting outside the window to be summoned. In a sinister, gentle voice, he said:

"Wen Jiahe, make it louder. Let him hear."

"Wen Jiahe, for the rest of your life, until the day you die, you can only be with me."

-

The thing Song Qinglan regretted most in his life was watching helplessly as the bridal sedan carrying her was borne away from before his eyes.

Later, he clawed his way out of a mountain of corpses and blood to see her, only to stand beneath the covered walkway and listen to her making love with that man as if they would die in each other's arms.

From then on, honor, virtue, morality, and justice meant nothing.

All he wanted was Ji Xuanyin's head, to offer as a sacrifice at their wedding.

-

Ji Xuanyin ascended the throne in his youth. It took him twenty years to go from being surrounded by wolves to having all his ministers bow before him.

By the end, all he had left in his heart was power.

That princess sent to him as a bride was ordinary and weak. He could have snapped her neck with one hand, and after seeing her once, Ji Xuanyin forgot all about her.

What he could never forget was the moment he heard her admit she loved Song Qinglan, and the sudden fury and helplessness that surged in his heart.

With no other way out, he could only kill Song Qinglan, keep her bound at his side, and beg her again and again not to leave.

-

The first thing Jiahe learned as she grew up was to accept her fate.

For the first half of her life, she was swept along by fate, muddling through, never once in control of her own choices.

At last, she wanted to make her own decisions.

[Please read the following notes:]

1. The story is a slow burn. The heroine is the [only] protagonist, and [only] her storyline runs throughout the entire novel. The first fifty chapters focus on her romance with the second male lead. The male lead (the emperor) appears [after chapter fifty] [emphasis!!!]

2. [Not a multiple-love-interest story]. The heroine and the emperor get a happy ending. He is ten years older than her, and there are [non-consensual] scenes.

3. The heroine is not a strong female lead. She grows over the course of the story and is [imperfect], with both strengths and flaws. She deserves every good thing.

4. The emperor is a virgin, and there's a reason for it, not just an arbitrary choice. However, he is a widower who once had an empress, and he has a prince in public (not his biological son). If that bothers you, please don't read.

3C/HE/1v1

2025.3.19

Coming soon: The Little Courtesan

[Blurb]

The top scholar, Pei Wuji, is aloof and proud, looking down on everyone.

The first time he met Peng Ying, the woman had one snowy shoulder exposed as she leaned against the railing, flirting with his blushing colleague. Her laughter rang like bells as she swayed like a flower in the wind. He thought she was just like every other courtesan in the world: filthy and lowly. Even looking at her made his eyes feel dirty.

Later, he thought that taking her as his mistress would be an acceptable way to grant the woman a better life.

Then a great fire nearly sent his soul to the afterlife.

When he woke to find the house empty, he threw his head back and laughed, swearing an oath over blood: He wanted her, and her heart. He would have her for all eternity, to the ends of the earth and even beyond death!

-

Peng Ying was sold to a brothel at the age of six. For the next dozen years, she made her living by selling smiles, working diligently and conscientiously.

Her only wish was to leave this place and become an honest woman.

She saved the money to buy her freedom with great difficulty for many years. In the end, she never imagined the one who would destroy this small, humble wish of hers would be Lord Pei, the aloof and noble man she had always looked up to.

Theme: Speak up and hold your head high. Even the humblest people can build a world of their own.