Becoming the Cinnabar Mole of the White Moonlight

Brilliantly talented, obsessive white moonlight × sickly, aloof black lotus Mu Rong Heng has always hated being helpless prey, a pawn in someone else’s game. But her family insists on using her as a bargaining chip in a political marriage, marrying her off to the crown prince as his consort. To fight her fate, she carefully chooses Princess Chu Ji of Xihe as an accomplice in her ambitions. Chu Ji is as lovely as her name suggests, having inherited her mother’s breathtaking beauty and graceful bearing. But her mother died young, and the princess has no maternal family to rely on. All she can count on is the old emperor’s boundless longing for his beloved concubine, who died before her time. She is gentle, harmless, and the perfect pawn, carefully selected for her usefulness. Many believe that, with the old emperor’s favor, she can safely live out a comfortable life as a princess. But once she sits across the chessboard as a player, Mu Rong Heng realizes she has never truly seen into those eyes as clear as moonlight. When Mu Rong Heng takes the position of chancellor as a woman, she faces doubting stares from the court and rumors flying everywhere. The rumors say she is the new emperor’s favored lover. They aren’t exactly rumors. Beneath the swaying candlelight in the palace at night, their breaths mingling, the new emperor’s face is right before her. She smiles flawlessly. “A-Heng, if you’re in trouble, you can rely on me.” She says helplessly, “A-Heng, you never used to look at me this way. Did I do something to make you dislike me?” Then she looks as if she understands, and in an instant her expression shifts to one as radiant as the moon, gentle and full of affection. “Do you prefer the way I used to be, Sister? If that’s what you like, I can play that part.” She will fight every unjust fate. “Please, Your Highness, show me mercy.” The green mountains remain beneath the clear sky, while a century can bring even the southern mountain down. Additional notes: All romantic relationships are between women. Male characters appear only as cannon fodder or villains. The protagonist is no saint, no good person. She’s a bad woman, a bad woman, a bad woman. This is emphasized repeatedly. Please don’t judge her morally. My new story, Accidentally Rescued from the Sea by a Dragon Girl, is available to pre-save. Gentle, proper, secretly sinister and obsessive senior sister × nonhuman, socially inept white moonlight dragon girl × scheming, acting-savvy heiress from a prestigious family During a routine patrol at sea, Fang Jiuwei, a disciple of Penglai Island, comes across a spirit boat caught in a disaster and kindly rescues a mortal woman who claims to be the ship’s doctor. The woman is gentle and smiling as she says, “Thank you so much for saving me. I’m deeply grateful. Would it be possible for you to let me stay with you for a while?” Fang Jiuwei sees the kindness through and takes her back to Penglai. But after settling in, the woman shows no sign of leaving. Every day, she treats the islanders’ illnesses to repay her debt. As she watches the island’s patients recover from one difficult ailment after another, Fang Jiuwei never imagines that the woman she rescued from the water is Su Wanzhao, the senior sister of Ling Shu Valley and the most renowned genius in the cultivation world in the past five thousand years. In these Three Continents, where no one has ascended to immortality in millennia, she is the one with the greatest chance of doing so. Yet when the head of Ling Shu Valley is replaced, Su Wanzhao simply turns and leaves, wandering the lands ever since. Her departure has made her the subject of endless speculation. Just as Su Wanzhao could never have guessed that the beautiful girl who rescued her was a dragon, whose race had gone extinct centuries ago, when she happened to reveal a pair of long, lustrous horns like jade beneath the moonlight, somewhere no one else could see. The girl looks at her in surprise, then gently raises the tail behind her. “Want to touch it?” * Two women, each keeping her own secrets, come together, and their relationship grows closer by the day. Until, amid a sea of corpses and blood in the great fire that burns the night bright as day, Fang Jiuwei takes the hand reaching toward her without hesitation. Fang Jiuwei doesn’t know that while the world covets a dragon’s body, Su Wanzhao wants her freedom and soul as well. Candlelight flickers. She wakes from a dream in the dead of night. Su Wanzhao wears the same gentle smile as always, her eyes dark and unreadable as she draws close to Fang Jiuwei. Warm breath brushes her ear, and a voice, almost bewitching, whispers: “Will I be in your dreams too, Jiuwei?” * Shen Xuzhi of the Shen clan of Jiangting: born into a prestigious family, a talent beyond compare. Countless people hope she will follow in her ancestors’ footsteps, comprehend the Dao, and ascend to immortality. She only smiles and says nothing. At the Contest for the Heavens, she was accidentally poisoned and saved by Su Wanzhao. But she also saw the cruelty hidden beneath the Ling Shu Valley senior sister’s flawless mask. From then on, Shen Xuzhi let go of all her admiration for that woman. Many things in this world have no cause or effect, and no explanation. Shen Xuzhi has never been one to force an explanation for everything. Yet from the first time she saw Fang Jiuwei by Su Wanzhao’s side, a jealous fire smoldered deep within her. What was she jealous of? Was she angry that she had waited for Su Wanzhao for so long, only for Su Wanzhao never to stop, while Fang Jiuwei could have her so easily? Or was she angry that, when it came to Fang Jiuwei, she was always one step too late, letting Su Wanzhao get there first? Countless times she wakes from dreams of wealth and glory, only to realize they were all an illusion. Is this the consequence of her greed for fame and her long, lingering wait? “What if I told you that from the very first glance, I hated how fate had crossed our paths and left me one step behind?” Shen Xuzhi once thought she was born with extraordinary talent and that fate looked kindly upon her. Only later did she learn that no one can control the consequences of fate. The capital lies far away, and no word has come from across the vast sea. Theme: Never surrender.