A Dream Painter is a profession deliberately erased from the official histories, yet its practitioners hold the oldest secret of all: a person's dreams are the truest portrait of their soul.
With brush and paper, they sketch the obsessions, fears, and desires in other people's hearts.
A once-devoted man turns unfaithful; he looks like a mountain wanderer I've met before... Reality and dreams intertwine. I can paint your dream for one or two silver coins, and then we're square.
"Everyone says I'm an old-fashioned pedant. Why do you claim I'm only pretending?"
After Jiang Qu is reborn and loses her memories, she becomes a Dream Painter. Since the profession is rare and disdained, her business is especially difficult. She has to be warm and patient with customers, so when faced with Tang Yanzhi's long-winded speeches, all she can do is put on a professional smile, while inside she feels like she's caught between fire and ice.
That official Tang, who gets mocked for being pickled in books, is handsome and high-ranking. He always speaks in stuffy, scholarly phrases, like an annoying know-it-all who doesn't understand romance, and yet just three sentences from him can push her patience to the brink.
When Tang Yanzhi discovers that the only newcomer who can put up with his endless chatter shares the same disguise as an old friend: warm on the surface, but cold and taciturn underneath;
When Jiang Qu realizes the real reason this high-ranking official keeps visiting is to verify her identity...
Then one day, fragments of memories from their past lives suddenly appear in the dreams she paints. It turns out their encounter, with each of them pretending and playing along, was fated.
One day:
Tang Yanzhi: It's rare to meet a young lady who can put up with someone as talkative as me.
Jiang Qu (inner monologue): Thanks for the compliment. Actually, I'm pretending.
[Disguised as a stiff, bookish bore who knows nothing of romance VS genuinely cold, taciturn, and inexperienced in love]
P.S.:
1. The full manuscript is complete. Daily or alternate-day updates begin September 1, 2025. Enjoy!
2. An imaginary ancient setting. No need to nitpick the historical details. If it's not for you, please move along.
Next historical romance: You're Too Dull, I Don't Like You
Chen Qingqian, born into a merchant family, resolutely sets off alone for Song City, a remote mountain town, at age twenty to find ingredients for making ink.
She never expects... to meet a mysterious mountain wanderer there. But perhaps because he rarely meets people, he's rather wooden and taciturn. To put it plainly, he's a little... dull.
At first:
"Your handwriting is clumsy and ugly, and you're too dull. I don't like you." Blunt and merciless.
Fu Yuan falls silent, looking hurt.
When they meet again:
"I let you leave last time because I knew matters of the heart can't be forced, and I told myself not to be stubborn, but..." He steps out of the shadows, moonlight draped over him. Though his expression is indistinct, the cold, eerie air of the deep mountains around him is impossible to ignore. "But you actually came back..."
Chen Qingqian looks up at him. The moonlight reflects in her eyes, which are clouded with confusion, as if she doesn't understand what he means, so she says nothing.
Later:
"Didn't you like charming, interesting men? Do you like me like this now?"
Faced with Fu Yuan closing in step by step, Chen Qingqian says nothing and turns to leave.
[A shrewd, profit-minded merchant VS a mountain wanderer who isn't what he seems]
Theme: Never give up hope.
