Jiang Li was a courtesan.
In her previous life, she had no choice but to enter the red-light district to support her whole family, entertaining one guest after another and selling smiles in a brothel. She gave up her entire youth, yet in the end, when she was abandoned in a ruined temple, sick and in pain, her family despised and rejected her. She died with no one to bury her.
At the moment she closed her eyes, she looked back on her barren, desolate life, filled with regret and remorse.
She never imagined she would open her eyes again and return to the night she first entered the brothel. Burning with fever, she staggered out of her room and, guided by her memories, made her way to that door.
Given another life, she refused to live in degradation. She would take control of her own fate, even if the price was making a deal with the devil.
*
He Xun, the Grand Secretary of the Cabinet, wielded immense power and was ruthless in his methods. Many wanted to curry favor with him, but no one dared send him a woman.
Then one day, a courtesan pushed open his door. Her face was flushed, her eyes full of desire. He Xun assumed it was another clumsy ploy, but the courtesan knelt before him, her expression resolute.
“I want to make a wager with you, sir.”
“What are we wagering?”
“Your heart.”
He Xun had always known he was no good man. In his eyes, human lives were as lowly as ants. He saved her on a whim, never knowing that, day after day, she would become a green lamp burning in the depths of his heart.
He was willing to put on the shackles for her, asking only that the lamp never go out and its light burn on forever.
Ruthless, venomous Grand Secretary of the Cabinet x resilient courtesan determined to survive
(Blurb written on December 11, 2024)
Theme: Stay resilient and unbowed, even in adversity.
