Praise of the Crabapple

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Note: The plot takes precedence over the romance, so please purchase with care!

My next book will be an ancient-style romance, A Bewitching Guest.

Blurb:

[The princess cares for all living things and cherishes freedom & the victorious general bears the world in his heart, then gives it all up for love]

"Wine fragrant with arsenic. A princess who refuses to be queen."

1>

Naturally free-spirited A Song enters the palace at sixteen and becomes Princess Li Qingtang. She puts away her carefree ways and treads cautiously as she rises to power for the first time.

But disaster strikes from the start: her mother the empress dies, her own brother is deposed, her brothers vie for the throne, her uncle is difficult to handle, her father the emperor is overwhelmed, and her teacher is wrapped in secrets.

A country girl turned princess, looked down on by everyone and courted by everyone.

Unfortunately, she knows nothing about being a princess, much less a high official, and she never understands what people really mean.

But when her fiance asks what she thinks,

she still says: I want to do something big.

She becomes a pawn in the hands of her own father, one who wields real power.

They say a reign under an empress is better than incompetent rule.

But the emperor has seven sons, each with extraordinary abilities. Not one of them looks likely to rule incompetently.

2>

Her status is raised and her position established. A month after returning to the palace, Li Qingtang sits at the Censorate with a four-character title, taking part in politics and wielding power, as if tasked with consolidating imperial authority.

So she plans to make her mark, engaging in deep political intrigue, advancing step by step, and building her position carefully...

But her plans repeatedly go awry, every road leads to a wall, and everyone around her, her enemies, and even unrelated people are plotting at every turn and lying in every sentence.

Little by little, the carefree wanderer becomes a strategist with unfathomable depths.

Everyone has their own game, and she is no exception.

Everyone can be drawn into the game, including her husband.

3>

Her husband, Du Hanying, is the only son of the noble Du family, and one of the victims caught up in the case that led to Li Qingtang's own brother being deposed.

The day Du Hanying welcomes her back to court, he falls in love at first sight despite being deceived. After returning to the capital, he joyfully accepts the emperor's decree to marry her.

Once they open their hearts to each other, he leads thirty thousand troops and openly becomes her hidden blade.

The hidden blade cuts through iron like mud, but the one wielding it is at a loss. All at once, it seems that everyone else's schemes have reached their final moments and are being brought to a close,

while the two of them have only just begun.

Everyone has something to do or something to say, and truth and lies must be sorted out.

So, from the day of their wedding onward, Li Qingtang settles accounts with every stroke and strikes with bloody precision, while Du Hanying can advance to attack or retreat to defend.

But Du Hanying should never, ever have fallen in love with someone whose heart belongs only to freedom. On the night of her triumph, Du Hanying stands in the snow, waiting, and receives a letter of divorce.

4>

He says: Begonia blossoms have a faint scent, much like you, my lady.

She says: Begonias are delicate. They must be nourished with blood.

So they kill any demon in their way, be it a demon or a Buddha.

In the end, the emperor underestimates how unfathomable his daughter's heart is, and overestimates how meek and obedient the young master of the Du family will be, despite his family's service to the Li dynasty for three generations.

Of course, at the beginning of the story, she is just an obscure country girl, and he is a young master who has just been dismissed from office.

And the palace's deep inner quarters are a place where you'll lose a layer of skin, if not your life...

Theme: Family, nation, and the world.