Spring Buds, Summer Blossoms [Marriage Before Love]

Upcoming Story 1: Now available

The summer heat is unbearable,

so here's a refreshing little short story to cool you down: "After Trying on a Wedding Dress for an Enemy Princess."

Blurb:

Wu Xinrun, a seamstress just turned sixteen, is dragged to the capital by her father.

While relieving herself in a bamboo grove, she is ambushed at knifepoint and forced to take the princess's place to try on a wedding dress!

She wakes to find a cold-faced, handsome man in fine clothes clasping her hand and demanding, "Come with me to the bridal chamber!"

Upcoming Story 2: "The Phantom Stairway" (also known as "The Phantom Stairway: Slaying Spring" and "Strange Tales of the Imperial Road")

Blurb:

Double secret identities: a cold, seductive "female general" with a wooden hairpin tucked through her hair, and a wild rose of a "male constable" with a silver crown binding their hair

Strange Tales of the Imperial Road:

Ten years ago, an imperial decree proclaimed: Anyone who trespasses on the Imperial Road will have their entire clan executed!

When starving refugees cross the forbidden boundary of the Imperial Road, the emperor flies into a rage: "This is a riot! This is treason!"

But Xunyu County has already become a living hell...

A thousand miles of barren land, corpses of the starving everywhere, while plants grow wildly along the Imperial Road alone.

A glimmer of hope, yet also a place of death!

---- If life blooms on the Imperial Road's eerie steps, the vast heavens are as dark as the underworld!

The Two-Faced General

Yue Zheng Zhenqiu receives an imperial order to guard the Imperial Road as punishment for a crime, and is forced to don silver armor and raise a great saber to suppress the rioters.

The world knows only that the female general guards the border and kills without hesitation, but no one knows that beneath the silver-white armor lies:

1. A man who swore to clear his family's name and overturn their wrongful conviction.

2. A trembling saber, raised against the very people he once protected.

And that handsome constable who always looks at him strangely is getting on his nerves, too.

The Constable's Secret

Guanqiu Dingyu bows her head and accepts the imperial decree, her hands trembling against her will.

Her older brother has disappeared, so she has no choice but to disguise herself as a man and take his place to investigate the case.

But then she sees...

Onions along the Imperial Road dancing out of their skins on the branches.

And how does the "female general" who saved her life have an Adam's apple?

The Great Reveal: Both Secret Identities Exposed

"The suspicion of being attracted to men? I have to avoid that." He spends the night repairing and reinforcing his armor.

"How could I possibly like a woman?" She kills a monster with one hand to steady her nerves.

When the cocoon wriggles, the face that emerges... is her missing older brother!

The blurb for this story:

Also titled "Spring Still Blooms"

A half-obedient, grown-up girl with no grand ambitions and a hardworking, modest young man with lofty goals

When she was twenty-six, someone asked her, "How come you're not dating anyone?"

Without even thinking, she blurted out, "Romance dramas ruined me."

"There are plenty of handsome guys in our town!"

She sighed. It's not that she didn't date; it was that none of the guys she'd met could compare to the sunny, handsome, devoted, gentle boys in romance dramas.

"All the handsome guys left town for work. The ones who stayed aren't even close to being handsome."

At thirty-six, a relative joked, "You're this old and still single. Why not ask more relatives and friends to find someone for you?"

Over the years, to placate her mother, she'd been on countless blind dates.

Ask relatives and friends?

Wasn't that what her mother had been doing every single day all along?

Thinking of how her mother had grown quieter with each passing day, she felt guilty. Her marriage troubles had driven her mother into severe depression.

She began following her mother's example, calling all her aunts and uncles to find a blind date for her.

One day, a distant relative brought a young man over.

A thirty-six-year-old small-business owner who had just started his own company.

He was average height, average build, average-looking, and the right age...

She squeezed her eyes shut and prepared to meet her fate. To hell with her ideal handsome leading man; this one would do!

---- Settling for compromise and taking life as it comes: Shen Shuihe

He was a grown man who had moved south to make animated films. He was meticulous about his work, but he could never find a sponsor.

After a few drinks, an industry peer let him in on a secret: Only when you're married do those bosses think you're dependable.

What era are we living in? Why are sponsors still so old-fashioned? If his team's skills were good enough, wouldn't the animated series they made become a hit anyway?

His dreams could buy five villas, but reality had him trapped in a two-bedroom rental...

His aunt, who had raised him, kept urging him to get married every few days...

Could getting married really change his circumstances?

He wanted to give it a try!

---- Taking a chance and wishing for forever: Qian Tanglin

Reading Guide:

1. Marriage Before Love

2. Slow burn

3. Everyday life

4. A short story

Theme: Even if you make a mistake, you can still turn it into something right