[The full story costs 3.3 yuan. Please add my upcoming story next door, "I Rely on Self-Drawn Mahjong Hands to Attain the Dao and Ascend", to your collection. The blurb is below.]
[1]
The northern frontier was engulfed in flames, yellow sand filled the sky, and Xie Yuan thought she would meet the same end as generations before her, wrapped in a horse's hide and buried on the battlefield.
Until her grandmother arranged a marriage for her. Her betrothed was said to be the seventh young master of the Wang family, a man as pure and bright as the breeze and moonlight.
Though she had no interest in marriage, she still wanted to see what made the scions of the great families raised in the prosperous capital, Yujing, so different.
But then her betrothed, whom she had never met, suddenly fell from his horse. Her father disappeared, the situation on the northern frontier grew dire, and rumors that she brought misfortune to her family began to spread.
Xie Yuan thought the marriage would never happen.
The fires of war flared again, and the battlefield showed no mercy. Looking back, Xie Yuan saw a radiant flower growing wild amid a sea of blood and mountains of corpses.
The second young lady of the Wang family had a lovely face and delicate brows. Though she spoke softly, she was unyielding, a desert moon in Xie Yuan's heart.
But Xie Yuan discovered that when this delicate beauty took off her makeup, she looked exactly like her former betrothed's rakish second uncle.
Xie Yuan: "Second Uncle, you deceived your superiors and subordinates. Under military law, you deserve fifty strokes."
Wang Tingzhi straightened the front of his robe and smiled with a raised brow. "General, you're the one who used me and then tossed me aside. You're the one who refuses to take responsibility. You're the one who failed to recognize the person in front of you."
"You misjudged your subordinates, appointed the wrong people, and knowingly broke the law. What punishment do you deserve, General?"
Xie Yuan: "..."
[2]
Wang Tingzhi was born frail and spent his days sickly. His mother disliked him, and his father showed him no affection.
He struggled to survive, enduring cold stares and indifference, and learned to regard the world just as coldly. He also learned how to disguise himself and deceive others.
His mother liked lively, energetic sons, so he became a delicate, sweet young woman.
His father admired talented young people with refined character, so he became an illiterate wastrel instead.
But who knew that the many powerful officials and nobles of Yujing were all recorded in the intelligence reports in his hands?
"Boring."
Wang Tingzhi still thought Yujing was boring, and life was dull.
Until...
The young general returned from the northern frontier, disrupting the capital's orderly routine. As a woman, she:
Faced the emperor, opened the military examinations, and bested the heroes.
Beheaded corrupt traitors, broke off her engagement, and went to the battlefield.
She turned the turbulent court into a pot of bubbling oil. The young general was full of spirit and so dazzling that he hardly dared look at her.
He thought: "Wang Qi isn't worthy of her."
If a scholar can become a marquis of ten thousand households, then his young general was one in a million.
[Reading Guide]
1. The strongest female general in the world vs. a cross-dressing male lead with a hint of matcha tea in his flavor.
2. Alternate history, alternate history, alternate history.
Upcoming story: "I Rely on Self-Drawn Mahjong Hands to Attain the Dao and Ascend"
The cultivation world's sect tournament was coming up, and Yan Qingzhu was one of the favorites.
The Tianyuan Sect leader looked "fondly" at his youngest disciple and asked,
"My child, has your cultivation improved lately?"
Yan Qingzhu glanced at the golden core in her dantian, engraved with the character for "east," and felt a little guilty. But outwardly, she looked completely unruffled.
"I just broke through to the East Wind... I mean, the Golden Core realm!"
The Tianyuan Sect leader was very pleased and continued his meditation. Yan Qingzhu was also very pleased. She had successfully fooled her master yet again.
She opened her jade slip and began recruiting people!
"Tianyuan Sect, outer sect kitchen, Sparrow God Tournament. Need three players. Online and waiting, urgent, urgent, urgent! Don't miss this chance!"
A thousand miles away, the sword cultivator genius Ying Zhaoxue, who was "rescuing someone," asked, "May I ask, Junior Sister, is there a spirit stone reward?"
He was ten spirit stones short of buying a new scabbard for his saber.
The alchemy genius Su Qichi, who was on her ninety-ninth exploding furnace of the month, asked, "Fellow Daoist, is this Sparrow God an ancient divine beast, the Vermilion Bird?"
If she could get some Vermilion Bird feathers, her alchemy furnace would surely stop exploding!
Xie Buyan, a rich idiot always looking for fun whose divinations were wrong nine times out of ten, said, "I'm already at the Tianyuan Sect's gate."
"Pung!" "Kong!" "Ready!" "Hu!"
For the next several days, the clattering in the Tianyuan Sect's kitchen never stopped, and thunder tribulations arrived one after another outside.
"I broke through just by playing mahjong! Anyone else want to join?"
Yan Qingzhu: Bring glory to the sect, starting with mahjong! Really, I'm not lying! Honest and fair to young and old!
**
Everyone said mahjong was a pastime for mortals. They all said that Junior Sister was wasting her life on games and wouldn't live past a hundred.
Ying Zhaoxue disagreed, and neither did the cleaver on his back.
Because he had seen Junior Sister throw mahjong tiles at people more deftly than he could swing his cleaver. He had also seen her golden core, which she could hurl like a die to kill someone from a thousand miles away.
At the tournament, Ying Zhaoxue carried his cleaver and humbly, reverently took out the spirit stones he'd saved for years.
"Junior Sister, I'm betting all my possessions on you!"
Yan Qingzhu: "Senior Brother! Heart hands!"
Theme: Never forget your original aspirations
Thank you to heaven, thank you to earth, thank you for your hard work~