[This novel is undergoing major revisions and is expected to conclude in late 2026 or early next year. The projected length is around 600,000 Chinese characters. Thank you for your patience and company.]
Originally titled After Losing My Memory, I Got Involved with a Widower.
A seemingly noble and upright gentleman who is secretly a dark-hearted young widower x a seemingly lazy, aimless woman who is actually an ambitious, awkward spy chief.
"Young men from the Five Tombs meet east of the golden market, riding silver-saddled white horses through the spring breeze."
Gu Suihan was once the brightest young man in Lin'an, galloping through the streets and fencing with silken flowers on her sword. Now she returns from hell, covered in wounds and carrying an unknown secret, starting over from the very beginning.
She has lost her memory, as well as her ability to balance the various factions in the treacherous city of Lin'an. With no other choice, she takes an unconventional path, gambling on the love of a devoted man to make him willingly work for her.
But she gradually discovers that the way of the sword is constant, while the world is not. As she investigates, another story long buried in the past gradually comes to light, and the connections in her own story grow increasingly bewildering.
"I was born from this sword, made my way in the world with this sword, and will surely die by this sword."
"The only variable in between is you, who reached out and caught hold of me in the flood of fate."
P.S. 1. The title was inspired by Li Bai's poem Song of Youth II: "Young men from the Five Tombs meet east of the golden market, riding silver-saddled white horses through the spring breeze."
2. The heroine has several secret identities. The mysteries will gradually be revealed.
3. One-on-one romance. Neither lead has ever had a third party in their love life.
4. Low-magic setting in an alternate history. Women can become officials through merit. A story with a small ensemble cast.
A small word of caution: Every member of the main cast has fairly obvious character flaws, and most of them have made mistakes because of those flaws, haha.
One more small word of caution: Due to the nature of her work, as mentioned in the blurb, the heroine is a very cool assassin who has suffered irreversible bodily harm. She also remains disfigured for a long stretch of the novel, though she wears human-skin masks in her daily life.
Here's a blurb for a forthcoming novel in the same genre and shared setting. See my profile for details: An Excellent Graduate of the Unfeeling Dao Turns Out to Be an Old Flame.
"I'll chase after her."
"So I crossed thousands of mountains to the east, for a hundred years."
A promiscuous, unfaithful female demon king x a lovesick male lead with two personalities.
Romance blurb:
Zhou Yizhi is notorious throughout Chaoge for her fickle ways. She likes to play around and is generous with her money. She passes through a field of flowers without leaving a petal behind. She is like a blooming peony, with everyone scrambling for her favor, then feeling empty and forlorn after their brief time with her.
Until one day, Nan Qiao enters her world. He's gentle and reserved, like a polished piece of jade, making Zhou Yizhi want to buy him and keep him as a treasured possession.
But after one night, he vanishes from her life completely, like a drop of water that has evaporated.
Zhou Yizhi: "Playing hard to get? That's interesting."
Everyone in the Thousand Mechanisms Tower knows their leader, Zhou Yizhi, has taken a liking to the new formation cultivator, Nan Qiao.
By a twist of fate, the two meet again at the tower. In response to Zhou Yizhi's enthusiasm, Nan Qiao always acts resistant. But anyone with eyes can see that his evasiveness is coyness, and his retreat is an act of playing hard to get.
That's what Zhou Yizhi thinks, too.
Until she discovers that Nan Qiao is always talking to himself at night.
The cinnabar mole she believed in turns out to be the mosquito bite that festered years ago.
Plot blurb:
Fifteen years ago, a group of young women came from the west to sit for the imperial examinations in the capital. They crossed mountains and overcame every obstacle, only to die horribly at an inn.
Fifteen years later, the doors of the Minister of Rites' residence are thrown wide open. The entire family lies in the flower hall, dismembered by being tied to five horses and torn apart. They have been dead for some time.
Everyone says they got what they deserved. The finger of blame points at Zhou Yizhi, the only survivor in the household, and no one believes she is innocent.
The wronged souls cannot rest. The Minister of Rites once showed her kindness and recognized her talents, so she will devote everything to finding the truth.
"I hope that one day, everyone will have a home, and everyone will have meat to eat."
"I hope that everyone has somewhere to pursue their ideals, and that every long-held wish can come true."
"So I crossed thousands of mountains to the east."
Theme: Give up self-doubt and become your best self.
Finally, the heroine fell off her horse! 💪 It's so fun to read this new chapter. I thought about it and prepared to write a long review. [Panda head] I found this article from the list, and now I think I'm very lucky. When I read the first chapter, I really felt that it was amazing. The writing style is very spiritual and the writing is very good. But relatively speaking, the second chapter is a little inferior. I feel that the pace is a little slow and there is no very attractive plot development. But Song Anlan who appeared at that time attracted me. I like fierce and bold female characters, so I decided to continue watching. In fact, I feel that the author wants to say a lot in this article, such as the plight of women and the family of origin. But the author may be a person with a relatively soft personality. He only touched on many of the more profound aspects and failed to scratch the itch, so it was a bit unsatisfactory to read. But as the plot progressed, until today, I understood the story that the author really wanted to tell: as the previous introduction said, the author wanted to write a story about "finding myself back." Here I have to mention lightning protection in the introduction, which is also one of the motivations for me to read the article. The author said that most of the protagonists have shortcomings to a certain extent, but this happens to be one of the things I like about them. Many novels like to describe the protagonist's character in black and white, but I think this kind of character is unrealistic and empty. Facts have proved that characters with shortcomings are indeed fuller to read: Gu Suihan, as a "genius girl", has lost her memory, "constructs" herself from the descriptions of others, and lives a very suspended life (but I still don't quite understand the relationship between her and Ji Ling. If she is Ji Ling, then who was the "Gu Suihan" before?); Song Anlan is bold and fierce, and is a very typical image of a female general. However, she also has her own ambitions and selfishness. She is not perfect, but she is real. I am looking forward to her subsequent plot development. The villain Ji Li has not been portrayed much so far. There is a reversal from the sister's treasure to the later one who cheats her. I hope the author will describe her mental journey in more detail. Let's take a separate paragraph and talk about Ji Ling. The charm of the character Ji Ling was actually revealed by me in my later work. She appears lively and cheerful, and her novel title "Wuling Young Master" was given to her, but behind the scenes, which is unknown to everyone, she is preoccupied and overthinking. She was a "vassal" of her brother when he was born, which established the inferiority part of her character; and due to the influence of her parents who died young, she had extremely high requirements for herself, was loyal to the emperor and patriotic, and made up her mind to dedicate her life to Nansheng's intelligence career at a very young age. What struck me as most subtle was the relationship between her and "Qian Gu Suihan" mentioned in the article. It was really like the "lesbian hate" state of a female classmate with similar grades during her school days (not that she was a lesbian). On the one hand, she felt envious or even jealous because of the other's excellence, and on the other hand, she admired and helped each other like partners. Very real, I like it very much. Looking forward to more descriptions of Ji Ling after she loses her horse. The male characters in the article are also very interesting. The male protagonist Xie Tingzhou, who is well-educated on the surface but does not seem to be very moral in his heart, his brother Ji Yun, who is accomplished but seems to be arrogant towards women (but I think he was subdued by General Song), the sanctimonious domestic violence man Han Yuqing, and Shen Hezheng, who is very powerful but seems to have not been very successful so far. (Aside from the topic, I look forward to the future rivalry between the villain team and the decent ones. I can't think of how the decent ones will win at the moment) There are relatively few emotional scenes between the male and female protagonists, but in my opinion they are also very good. The scene where the two were childhood sweethearts was very cute, and I really liked the emotion of admiring Shao Ai. Later, the two met and got to know each other again because of their ambition to achieve something in the world. The male protagonist was attracted by the dazzling female protagonist, but little did he know that the hollow in the female protagonist's heart was filled by the existence of the male protagonist. I don't know how to end this long review. It seems that the authors who write long slow-paced articles are not very successful nowadays. I hope that the authors can strengthen their writing skills and write more good works. I like your words and hope that one day these words will be seen by more people. Come on. 💪 💪 💪
Happy Beginning of Winter 🎆
Congratulations on having a new partner [Spread Flowers]
I can see it, I can see it 🤩
I feel like this layout is okay, but if there are too many words in several consecutive paragraphs, and the font size is larger, the whole screen will be filled with words for several consecutive paragraphs, and there will be no gaps.
"If one of you in the Luoqi Pavilion wants to protect her" it will be a big bug for the author~ "Persistence" 🤗
Suihan is awesome, so smart, he even used reflection in such a short time 💪
I wish you success in revising your essay and a happy birthday 🎆 [Cake] In the new year, I wish you that the spring breeze of Ji Ling in my writing will always blow, the girl's dream in my heart will always be hot, and those long years of chasing dreams will be treated with tenderness and will eventually echo [Spreading Flowers]
Dear Euncier: Please forgive this chapter review for being a bit late. After reading Zuo's words, I thought about how to write this paragraph for a long time. I always felt that I had to carefully consider every word in order to live up to the words you wrote. As a result, a week passed in the blink of an eye. When I saw what you wrote, I felt soft and sour. Thank you for your sincerity and willingness to share this journey with me. You say "it is neither attractive nor mature", but in my heart, those "feelings of girlhood" are precisely the most precious things - brave, fiery and desperate, like the first grass buds emerging in spring. I believe that a story that has been conceived since you were a student and has accompanied you through half of your youth must contain the purest heart. What I read was not "childish writing skills", but the sincerity of a sincere person who carefully expressed his sincerity. And now, you go back and embrace it with your more mature self, which is a very romantic thing in itself. I admire your courage to "knock it down and start over" because looking back at your original self with this year's experience is like completing a conversation that spans time and space. "Complete" gives us the opportunity to meet, so "perfect" is a sense of responsibility for Ji Ling's resignation. This is not "a dog's tail continues to be a mink", this is "breaking out of a cocoon and becoming a butterfly". Happy New Year and look forward to seeing its rebirth in 2026. No matter what it becomes, you who never give up under the pressure of the list are already the best author. You said that you were confused and in pain during the serialization period, and that I was the "person who always accompanied you." In fact, I want to say that it is an honor for me to be trusted by you like this. Writing is a long journey, thank you for being willing to treat me as a traveler in lonely moments. I am also lucky to be able to accompany you as you grow up. Please believe that you are never alone. I will always be here, with all my expectations, waiting for you and your story to return in a more perfect state. No matter how long it takes, it's worth it. Thank you for your willingness to go the long way again for this story. The road ahead is long, but where the stars shine, I will always be there. Looking forward to the spring breeze coming back, Ji Ling rode through Zhuque Street again. Until then, we will still be here. ——The memories of a reader who was once gently adopted by your world
Shen Hezheng: I want to become a succubus and bewitch you [Sunglasses]