The Martial Champion Is a Woman

Upcoming novels: After the Abstinent Iceberg Sets His Sights on Me and The Husband I Picked Up Is Sweet on the Outside, Blackhearted Within. Please add them to your reading lists~

Blurb:

[Rebellious Female General x Cold, Abstinent Man in Power]

[One-on-one | Both virgins | Happy ending. Love is fighting side by side, love is enduring and boundless longing.]

In the twenty-second year of Yongning, a shocking upheaval took place in the Great Jing: at the suggestion of Prince Jue, Jiang Fengzhi, women were allowed to take the imperial exams for the first time this year.

Yet in the vast Great Jing, women had it hard. In the end, only one woman came to take the exam: Ling Yue, a seventeen-year-old girl raised by her widowed mother.

And the exam she chose to take was the military exam.

The male candidates all laughed at her, saying she was a fool who didn't know her place.

But no one expected that she would pass both the provincial and metropolitan military exams with top marks in every subject.

The male candidates then began to claim that the women's examination grounds had bows with insufficient draw weight, and that the examiners had rigged the results.

The rumors continued right up to the palace examination. But just as they had said, when it came to the long-range archery test, Ling Yue was the only one with a different bow.

All the men used standard one-picul bows. Ling Yue, the only woman, used a powerful two-picul bow.

The men exchanged bewildered looks: ?

From that moment on, the military exam took a very unexpected turn.

On the day the results were posted and read aloud, Ling Yue hurried down the palace steps and ran straight for Yanxi Gate.

After six years apart, she would meet Prince Jue again at Yanxi Gate, the man who had appeared so often in her dreams.

But on that autumn day, he wore a crane-feather cloak and held a hand warmer. His gaze was as empty as snow, and the warmth in his palm was no longer as gentle and ardent as it had been when he warmed her six years ago.

Only then did Ling Yue realize that Jiang Fengzhi, the God of War she had looked up to as a guiding light and struggled to catch up with, had become a sickly, frail man, too weak to ride or draw a bow.

The woman who could lift a giant cauldron suddenly had tears in her eyes. Then she heard his cold voice: "Don't look at me like that."

*

Over the past six years, Prince Jue Jiang Fengzhi had led the Flying Phoenix Army through countless battles, reclaiming more than a dozen border cities and keeping the Great Jing whole. He was the God of War, the people's protector, and the best candidate for Crown Prince. In appearance, virtue, talent, and martial prowess, he was worlds apart from the word "cripple."

Until a strange poison robbed him of all his martial strength. He could never return to the battlefield. All he could do was spend his days holding a hand warmer and staying alive on tonics, dwelling amid bitter snow and freezing cold.

As the candle flickered in the wind and snow, he wanted neither fame nor fortune, and he didn't even care about his own life.

All he wanted was to fulfill his mother's dying wish and bring about a peaceful, prosperous age.

Then he remembered the girl whose hands had been bound, whom he'd rescued in the snow six years ago.

Her family had abandoned her because of her inborn strength. He opened the military exams for her, took her in as a retainer, and made her the sharp sword in his hand, one that could nip trouble in the bud and cleanse the court.

It was only a partnership.

He waited indifferently for his death, without love, without attachment, and without a care. He thought this was how it was meant to be.

But she kept calling him "Your Highness," and "Your Highness." The snowy hall, once empty and lonely day after day, began to see her every night.

She loved bright lights, so he prepared dozens of colorful lanterns and decorated the Snow Plum Garden until it shone like daylight.

Strangely, the moon-shaped lantern in the garden disappeared without a trace.

In the silent, deserted night, she pulled the usually forthright young man into her bedroom and pushed him onto the bed beneath the swaying moonlight. "Your Highness, is there really nothing you need to explain to me?"

Jiang Fengzhi, alone in the world and waiting to die, looked at the woman whose eyes burned with passion. For the first time, an uncontrollable longing rose within him.

But he only raised his hand to cover her eyes and said, his voice strained, "Don't look at me like that."

[Extra Scene]

The new emperor had an empty harem, but summoned the court's only female general to her bedchamber that night.

"Your servant pays her respects, Your Majesty."

Before Ling Yue could finish her formal salute, Jiang Fengzhi gripped her wrist and pulled her into his arms.

"Don't bow to me... and don't look at me like that..."

"I want you... I want you to look at me the way you used to."

Warm liquor-scented breath brushed her ear. Ling Yue's heart was in turmoil. "What kind of look?"

"That loving, passionate, irreverent look."

"Your Majesty, please be careful what you say. I, your servant, have never been irreverent..."

Jiang Fengzhi pulled the hand she'd hurriedly withdrawn to his chest and gently pressed it there. "Then you can be, now."

Blurb for upcoming novel After the Abstinent Iceberg Sets His Sights on Me:

[Silly Beauty x Tsundere Iceberg]

Chu Luan has been troubled lately. Wherever she goes, some lecher keeps secretly following her.

Everyone says Pei Heng, the Pei family's legitimate son, is handsome and refined, with a noble bearing. He avoids women and is impossible to approach. Chu Luan strongly disagrees. The man is clearly a hypocrite: he's always lurking around her, and he's also a tight-lipped fool who can't bring himself to confess his love.

She wanted to preserve her dignity and keep pretending not to notice him. But he walked right up to her and stared at her with his handsome, icy face, shamelessly looking her up and down as if he meant to see through her clothes.

Chu Luan had never met such a brazen rogue. And yet he put on a cold, jade-like air, acting as if he were doing her a favor by throwing himself at her.

She couldn't take it anymore and loudly scoffed, "Lord Pei, you've been following me for so long. Are you that confident in your looks? You should know that beauty stops being beautiful when it knows it's beautiful."

Chu Luan stormed off after telling him, "Please stop following me." She didn't see Pei Heng's face turn from white to green.

Rumors spread like wildfire: Pei Heng, the unattainable flower on the high peak, was madly in love with the unremarkable Miss Chu, who had rejected him.

Chu Luan's father, who'd plotted all those chance encounters: ??? It's over. It's all over.

Terrified, Father Chu planned to take Chu Luan to apologize in person. But the next day, Pei Heng came to the Chu residence to discuss official business of his own accord, and made a point of asking Chu Luan to attend him, as if nothing were amiss.

From then on, whenever Chu Luan left the residence, Pei Heng's carriage would pass by, its curtain lifted by the wind to reveal his peerless face. Whenever Chu Luan stayed in her quarters, Pei Heng would visit the Chu residence under the pretext of official business and summon her to attend him.

Chu Luan: ? He's really not giving up, is he?

Unable to bear it any longer, and unable to confront him again because of his status, she finally figured out his temperament thanks to his constant pestering: he was a complete pervert who liked being glared at by women.

So Chu Luan changed tactics overnight. Gritting her teeth, she greeted him with a smile and threw herself into his arms.

He didn't like people getting close to him, so she took his hand, put her arms around his waist, and touched his face.

She waited smugly for Pei Heng to grow angry and embarrassed, lose interest in her, and flee in panic.

But who could have guessed that Pei Heng would shamelessly pull her into his arms and raise an eyebrow? "In such a hurry? How about I ask for an imperial decree tomorrow so you can marry into the Pei family as soon as possible?"

Chu Luan: ??? Ah!!!

*

Pei Heng had made a name for himself at a young age and risen to the highest levels of government. He was used to flattery, adoration, and respect, but he'd never met a woman so completely backwards, who'd accuse him of being the one at fault. It left him deeply frustrated.

Certain that he could see through her, he tried to find a trace of acting in her furious expression. He found none.

He didn't believe it.

How could all those chance encounters have been anything but deliberate?

So he insinuated himself into every corner of her life, watching as he disrupted her carefree routine and made her clumsy and unwilling. It all seemed too real to be an act.

He grew even more frustrated.

He had no idea how to vent the nameless fury churning in his heart.

Only one thought remained: if she didn't want to see him, then he would make sure she didn't get her way.

[One-on-one + both virgins, even a forcibly picked melon can be sweet]

Theme: Never give up hope