Prajna Soup

[Complete. My upcoming novel, Seventeen Kills, is described at the bottom. Add it to your favorites if you're interested!]

[Resilient, lone-wolf heroine vs. sharp-tongued, cold-hearted hero]

Before he headed south to discuss a marriage alliance, he lured her onto a lotus boat at night. "If I'd come sooner, would you have..."

"No. Second Master, have you forgotten that I nearly died at your hands?"

"Then this time, you can kill me."

She thrust the knife forward without hesitation. Blood dripped from between their fingers, tainting the lotus-scented air with the smell of blood.

The lotus blossoms gave way to pomegranate red. The man held her captive, sorrow in his eyes, though his words were icy. "They're a perfect match in looks and family background. How could a maid like you ever dream of him?"

A maid? She didn't want to be one. Nor did she want to live in humiliating servitude, hoping to earn a respectable, secure life through her own efforts. But fate played a cruel joke, shattering all her plans before she could put them into action.

In the fine rain beneath the banana trees, she was about to give herself to him. The red candles had nearly burned out, and she thought her lonely soul had finally found someone to rely on. Instead, the man she loved cruelly pushed her toward a den of wolves and tigers.

So the supposedly upright gentleman was nothing but a devil. "My heart belongs to you alone," he had said. Enough. Enough. This servant is leaving. We part here, and from now on the rivers and lakes are wide. We shall never meet again.

Description of the next novel, Seventeen Kills

Mutual salvation | Corruption | Inspired by Ming history

[Principled minister's orphan, hardened by hardship, vs. frail prince navigating the world of power and profit]

"Zhou Chu Yun, I'm Zhu Zaiyuan. Shall we get to know each other again?"

"I know you. Your father killed mine."

Chu Yun saw her father again a few months before his death. In the twentieth year of the Jiajing reign, her father, Zhou Tianzuo, was sentenced to prison after being flogged, then starved to death. Zhou Tianzuo was the real-life inspiration for Zhou Yunyi, who was flogged to death at Wumen Gate in The Great Ming Dynasty 1566. This story blends fact and fiction to depict the many people caught up in the turbulent, treacherous currents of that era.

It all began with the snow of the twentieth year of the Jiajing reign.

With corrupt officials in power and scholar-officials dying in protest, Zhou Chu Yun's father, Zhou Tianzuo, died in prison, and she was taken into the imperial harem, where she struggled to survive. Swept into one crisis after another, she narrowly escaped death during a palace coup. Still, she held fast to her principles and saved herself and the little prince whom everyone despised.

His mother was born into poverty, and his imperial father had never favored him. Zhu Zaiyuan lived miserably in the palace's depths. They slandered me, and I never spoke in my own defense. They scorned me, so why should I care? They hated me, and all I could do was endure in silence... But now they were bullying that little girl! The one girl who had brought the only glimmer of light to his still, ancient well.

He would endure no longer.

He built a network of allies and befriended court officials, putting on a mask to bargain with tigers in a world of wealth and power. He thought more power would bring him one step closer to his beloved. But how dare you treat the cold authority of the throne so lightly?

Fortunes shift, and nothing lasts. When the curtain falls, will they meet again?

Theme: Village wine is intoxicating. Who needs green-ant wine?