Wintering Without Dying [Book Transmigration]

The story mainly follows the female lead's rise to power, with the male lead's pursuit of his wife as a secondary thread.

A deliciously angsty read, like an old-school, dark power fantasy.

Blurb:

The first time Xie Changyue saw Si Dong, she was wearing an oversized dark blue dress and holding a plump tabby cat in her arms.

The cat had been fed until it was fat, but she was painfully thin.

Her beautiful face looked brooding against the dark blue. Her slender fingers were pale and clean as she soothed the tabby, which was baring its teeth at him. When she looked up and lowered her gaze, she had the arrogant, cold detachment unique to a great villain.

She was the ruler of the Thirteen Provinces of the Demon Realm, an evil Demon Lord who terrified everyone who heard of her.

She was also the woman in his bed.

As the Child of Heaven, Xie Changyue spent a hundred years battling her in schemes both open and covert. Before his tribulation, he finally sealed Si Dong in the Changle Realm, then turned with a carefree smile to face the lightning tribulation.

The lightning struck, darkening heaven and earth.

He closed his eyes, then opened them. Reflected in his golden amber cat eyes was a disheveled young woman. She crept toward him, planning to capture him and keep him as a pet.

Xie Changyue fell silent. So he hadn't passed the lightning tribulation. Instead, after dying and having his cultivation destroyed, he'd transmigrated a hundred years into the past and become the cat who stayed by Si Dong's side.

At that time, Si Dong was only sixteen, young and immature, nothing like the poisonous beauty he'd met.

.

Si Dong was a half-demon with the lowliest bloodline. She knew her life was worthless, and that she was nothing but an unnamed cannon-fodder character in a book.

To survive, Si Dong entered the demonic path, killed her brother and her master, and rose step by step to become ruler of the Thirteen Provinces.

To the demons, she was an unreachable savior, praised by thousands. To the immortals, she was the embodiment of evil, infamous throughout the land.

Through the long, bloody winter, the only one by her side was a tabby cat.

Even when her former husband sealed her inside the Changle Realm, that cat alone remained with her.

After sleeping for many years, she woke, but the cat couldn't withstand the passage of time and never woke again.

The seal failed. Si Dong stepped out of the Changle Realm, holding the cat's corpse.

She buried the cat and was about to get another pet when her former husband, who should have already ascended to immortality and godhood, knocked on her door.

Seeing the little dog she'd just bought, her former husband teared up in a panic. "The cat died. I can be your dog instead."

1. Lovers who fight each other + the male lead's wife-pursuit crematorium.

A resilient, reed-like woman who transmigrates into a book x a male power-fantasy protagonist, a Heaven's Chosen One who later turns into a lovesick fool. Both are each other's only partner, happy ending.

Neither of them is wholly good, but neither is especially bad.

2. The male lead is not reborn. He travels back to the past. The female lead is the only woman he ever meets.

3. Mainly told from the female lead's perspective, with occasional switches to the male lead's.

4. Not a pure power fantasy. It's deliciously angsty.

5. Plot-heavy.

6. The female lead grows over the course of the story.

7. Two versions of the male lead exist in the same timeline, creating a love-rival showdown.

Theme: Hold fast to what is good, and survive the winter.