She Wields a Murderous Blade

[They say the young lord of the Changning Prince's residence is delicate and sickly, a beauty as fragile as a paper lantern in the wind. But no one ever said that the wind carried heads with it.]

[The seemingly fragile general who can chop people down like vegetables x the lovesick young nobleman who wields power over the court but is innocent and easy to coax in private]

Blurb:

The year the barbarians marched south, Ji Yanshu climbed out of a mountain of corpses with a bloodstained saber in hand. She traded one ear and an arm for five years of peace on Great Qi's northern frontier.

But after she returned to the capital gravely wounded, her military achievements went to someone else, her title went to someone else, and she herself was forced into the prime minister's residence by imperial decree, where she became the wife of Han Yi, her sworn enemy.

Ji Yanshu naturally assumed that he had married her only because she was the orphaned daughter of the Prince of Changning and a veteran of the Northern Frontier Army.

So after they married, she was consumed by hatred, constantly giving Han Yi a hard time and treating him coldly.

Yet he never once complained. He even clumsily shielded her in life-and-death moments, and stayed up all night caring for her when she was gravely ill, his tears soaking his clothes.

But she didn't believe him.

She didn't believe that the hand manipulating the court could ever stop for her without reason.

Until the night the Turkic delegation arrived in the capital, when he saw her holding a sword to a barbarian's throat and heard the secret past no one else knew.

She thought Han Yi would finally name his price.

But he only hurried to explain, "It's not... I didn't marry you because of that."

"I did it because I like you... because I love you."

Years passed, and the aftershocks of that world-shattering event became a hurricane, shattering the brilliant peace the capital had once known.

Turkic cavalry once again marched south, while rebel forces advanced north toward the capital.

With the enemy at the gates, the Northern Frontier general who had stolen her military achievements sent a letter by courier, asking to retreat south and come to the emperor's aid.

Ji Yanshu stands on the city gate with her saber in hand. Facing the dark clouds pressing down on the city, she grabs the scout by the collar and throws him off the wall.

"Go back and tell your general that if he dares retreat one step, I'll haunt him even after I'm dead."

(Arranged marriage to love + mutual pining fulfilled + equally strong leads fighting together + secret identity revealed)

(Heroin-centric, one-on-one romance. The romance may be a little slow at first, but it will definitely get sweet later, trust me!!!)

#The heroine says one thing but means another; the hero is magically lovesick#

#Before the reveal: too frail to care for herself. After the reveal: a head-taking machine#

#He makes a scene; she acts tough but is soft-hearted#

I'm also starting a new upcoming book! Go take a look if you're interested

(Though I barely have any readers yet, so maybe it doesn't make much difference whether it's upcoming or not...)

[Back then, we both had our reasons...]

[As if!]

In her previous life, Zhou Wan was the young female heir of the Marquis of Wuan's household, riding a white horse with a silver spear as she cut a dashing figure on the frontier. Shen Yi was the crown prince, gentle as jade and peerless in the capital.

Childhood friends who grew up together, they were inseparable as children. As adults, they supported each other as sovereign and subject for ten years.

But then...

She commanded four hundred thousand Northern Frontier cavalry and became too powerful for the emperor to tolerate. He ascended the throne as the Son of Heaven, his intentions impossible to read.

She feared he would discard her once she was no longer useful; he suspected she was using her troops to build her own power.

News of victory and slander arrived at the palace at the same time. The celebratory wine he bestowed upon her concealed poison that could kill with a single drop.

Zhou Wan died never knowing that the jade pendant she had casually given him when she was ten lay hidden in his sleeve, worn smooth and luminous by his constant touch.

Shen Yi never knew that in a desk drawer at the Marquis of Wuan's residence, a letter asking to resign her title and hand over her seal had been written long ago.

They both waited for the other to give in, but one ended up poisoned to the core, and the other spent half his life going mad.

Reborn, Zhou Wan resolves to stay away from the capital's dangerous political whirlpool.

She gives up her military authority, avoids the honors bestowed on her, and even makes a request at a palace banquet: "Your Majesty, I ask to be sent to the frontier for the rest of my life. I will never rebel."

But the usually composed emperor hurries down the jade steps, gripping her wrist tightly amid the falling snow. His eyes are as bloodshot as they were on the night she drank the poison in her previous life:

"Zhou Wan, either kill me right now..."

A bloodstained jade pendant falls into the snow. "...or trust me once more."

(Emotion-driven, both leads reborn, love and hate, though honestly I mostly want to write a tragic, epic romance)

Theme: A woman raises her sword; the land returns to her heart.