The Book of the Beautiful City

This novel has been heavily revised several times and differs greatly from pirated versions. The genuine version is available only on Jinjiang Literature City.

I'm preparing a new novel, Two Hearts as One, and would love it if you added it to your reading list!

Assassin × Ambitious schemer / two powerful, compelling leads / the rise of an empress / political intrigue

There are two things Gu Qingcheng hates most in this life:

First, being treated as a substitute. Second, having her fate decided for her.

And yet, she gets both.

And, as she gets both, she runs into her former fiancé, Jiang Buyue.

To the world, Jiang Buyue is a hostage prince from an enemy state, gentle as jade, a sickly man who coughs three times with every step.

To Gu Qingcheng, Jiang Buyue is a calculating, ruthless schemer who plans ten moves ahead with every step.

.

To survive, she has no choice but to put on an assassin's mask and make a deal with the devil.

He treats her as a pawn in the contest between their two states,

so she sees him as a ladder on her path to revenge.

In the deadlock of an imperial power struggle, all they can do is test and exploit each other. Yet at death's edge, they fight their way through together, back to back.

Matched in cunning, they eventually become each other's only accomplice through countless nights without end.

.

Later, the world falls into chaos and heroes vie for supremacy.

Only then does Gu Qingcheng understand that every fate manipulated around her began with the ancient wish to unite all under heaven.

And she was the pawn meant to be sacrificed.

After countless struggles, she throws herself into the game, determined to stand against the whole world.

This time, she wants both the power of the realm and the person in her heart.

This reckless gamble asks for nothing more than an almost delusional chance to have both.

Knowing the game is ever-changing, she still wants to wager on one heart

Three years later.

The two states are at war, their armies at the city gates.

She is the iron-fisted Marquis-Lord of Beilin, and he is the hardline emperor of Nanjing.

On the eve of the decisive battle, he risks everything and rides through the night for a thousand miles to reach her bedchamber.

He wants only to see her once more.

Outside the tent, iron steeds cross icy rivers. Inside, he stands covered in snow and wind.

She holds her sword to his throat, but he gladly calls her by name:

"Gu Qingcheng... Even if you've forgotten who you are,

"I would never mistake my wife for anyone else."

1. The heroine grows in the first two volumes; the third is about the struggle for supremacy. This is fictional political intrigue with many original worldbuilding details.

2. No transmigration, rebirth, or golden finger. A serious tone, devoted leads, happy ending. The plot-to-romance ratio is six to four.

3. A vast map, from snowy mountains to wastelands. Includes wuxia and light fantasy elements, such as formations and internal energy, and is not strictly realistic historical fiction.

4. Two powerful leads; the aloof one bows in submission. They start on opposing sides and use each other, but grow deeply bound to one another later. Their love and hatred are intense.

5. The heroine is the strongest.

Also, to better fit modern sensibilities, the coming-of-age ceremony in the story takes place at eighteen. Please point out any typos that I may have missed while revising.

Anti-piracy: 70%, 72-hour delay.

Blurb for my next novel, Two Hearts as One

[Deadpan, adorable little doomsday god × blind saintly puppeteer]

Hate and love, a saint's secret desire, mutual salvation.

Two powerful leads, the more they love, the more they hate, and the sweeter it gets.

Hua Wuhui first met Xie Jingci amid the flames that destroyed her family.

He was her enemy.

His eyes were covered in white silk, and blood dripped from his fingertips among countless threads that shimmered like flowing light. He was like an asura.

"There you are."

The man heard her breathing and turned around. The last thread pierced her heart.

.

Hua Wuhui thought she had died.

When she awoke, threads had bound her limbs.

She had become his puppet, and his plaything.

He controlled every action in her life: dressing, walking, even breathing.

She tried to escape, only to find that a thread always connected them. He wouldn't let her go.

So she wanted to kill him.

She had to kill him.

"All right."

A pleased smile curled his lips beneath the white silk.

He began teaching her magic arts, indulging her repeated attempts to assassinate him.

Each time she failed, he punished her by making her relive, again and again, the memory of her family dying.

"Hatred is what nourishes life."

The man manipulated the threads and spoke gently.

.

Hua Wuhui hated him to the core.

She would kill him.

.

Xie Jingci was the strongest puppeteer on the Cangzhou Continent. His whole life, he had searched for the Seed of Chaos, the reincarnation of the Evil God.

Then one day, he received a distress letter from the Hua family of Jiangzhou: the Seed of Chaos had awakened inside their youngest daughter.

He arrived just before the Evil God fully awakened and found her unconscious amid the flames.

To suppress the power that could destroy the world, he had no choice but to use the puppeteer's final thread on her: Two Hearts as One.

Two Hearts as One meant that from then on, he would feel her hatred a thousandfold and share her pain ten thousandfold.

But he would be forever deaf to her love and joy.

1. One-on-one romance, love and hate, a saint's secret desire, the leads are instinctively drawn to each other, happy ending.

2. The only way to stop the Evil God from awakening is to keep her from realizing that she is the Evil God.

3. The male lead is blind, powerful, and gentle, until he has no choice but to make her hate him.

4. He is her enemy, her master, and her secret lover.

He cannot see her or feel her love. He should push her away, yet he cannot stop himself from drawing near, testing the limits of forced love.

5. The heroine will grow stronger, so the male lead will regain his sight.

She will take care of everything.

6. Occasional unintentional angst for the male lead and melodrama. The author is a good person; this is just my particular taste, so read with caution.

"Flowers bloom endlessly, the moon shines forever. Two hearts as one." From Song of Sincere Feelings.

The heroine's name draws on the first two lines, hence Wuhui.

"Beauty leaves the mirror, flowers leave the tree; nothing in this world is harder to hold on to." From Butterfly Loves Flowers.

Xie Jingci's name comes from this poem.

The poem titles are prophecies.

Theme: The best way to stop war is to fight.