The Black Lotus Only Wants to Save People

(Light edits in progress, with a large backlog of chapters. I will never abandon this story.)

(Early on: mutual manipulation and deception, with intense push-and-pull and a game of cat and mouse. Later: two strong leads joining forces, saving each other, taking revenge, and bringing the villains to justice.)

Shen Tingsi lost half the best years of his youth to hatred, yet more than once he wished Jiang Hanyan could be free. They could have been such kindred spirits, couldn't they?

“She was born to live a life of privilege. She shouldn't be trapped where she is. So I'll avenge her.”

A practical, bewitching black-lotus princess who shows a surprising side vs. a scheming, younger, unhinged fox of a bodyguard

Jiang Hanyan transmigrated into the body of a noblewoman from the capital whose family had been destroyed.

Her mother, a princess, took her own life. Her father, the top scholar, remarried. The legitimate daughter became a daughter of a concubine, and at twelve she was sent to the Seven Star Bureau, an organization that trained royal assassins.

After six years of living by the blade, she made the Seven Star Bureau's Heaven List.

Perhaps Heaven took pity on her. Her heart meridians were completely damaged, and she was sent home. At the time, Jiang Hanyan thought:

“My ambitions aren't great. Saving one person is enough.”

It wasn't until her only friend died before her eyes that Jiang Hanyan understood how wrong she'd been. Some things had rotted and festered. Unless they were completely eradicated, they would always remain a threat.

From then on, Fengyun House gained a courtesan with an exceptional singing voice.

Her eyes brimmed with feeling, her voice plaintive and moving. Her beautiful voice could pierce the heart, just like the blade in her hand.

Shen Tingsi was the late emperor's only son and the rightful crown prince. His father valued him, and his mother doted on him. But one day, everything changed.

His uncle usurped the throne and drove his parents to their deaths. Hunted like a stray dog, he kept running until he met Jiang Hanyan.

This woman took him in.

Jiang Hanyan found a miserable man, battered and covered in wounds, with a face more beautiful than a fox's. He had lied to her, but that was all right. A face that pretty would surely come in handy if she kept him around.

She'd thought he was just a little fox who liked to lie. She never expected him to be a fox spirit steeped in tea-like sweetness.

When Shen Tingsi learned that “Jiang Hanyan” had been in love with her childhood friend since they were young, and had nearly been engaged to him as children, he lost it.

Her gentle, jade-like childhood friend said, “Xiaoyan, it's been so long. How have you been?”

Jiang Hanyan was just about to answer.

Shen Tingsi: “Sister, Sister, look at me.”

Shen Tingsi: “Princess Sister, Hanyan Sister, Yanyan Sister...”

Jiang Hanyan: “…”

“Shen Tingsi, don't believe that nonsense about being fated to stay trapped in the mud. You were born to stand at the top. If I say you can leave, then you will.”

[Reading Guide: Almost every chapter includes a character profile or a little skit. Readers can keep an eye out, as these may change from time to time (characters planted for later plot developments) / a bit of an ensemble cast / amnesia trope (the female lead transmigrated twice, meaning the original host is the female lead).]

[The male lead's role is a hidden thread. You'll have to read further to find out exactly how he uses the female lead. Early on, both leads are drama queens with great instincts, and they know exactly when to hold back and when to go all in.]

The upcoming novel, The Formation Cultivator Goddess Strikes Back Against the Divine Realm, is fully drafted. Click the author's page to save it, and feel free to let the chapters build up.

[A clever, eccentric, black-hearted formation cultivator pretending to be a delicate flower vs. a tsundere, pure-hearted senior brother who fell into demonic cultivation]

Sheng Mingyuan died.

Her master stabbed her through the heart. Her fellow disciples used the formations she'd taught them to drain her blood and refine it into pills. Even her closest friend ripped apart her soul with a Soul-Eating Banner to build the Stairway to Godhood.

All because she refused to obey orders and kill Shang Huaijin, who had fallen into demonic cultivation and nearly razed the Jingyun Sect to the ground.

But until the day she died, Sheng Mingyuan never knew that as soon as news of her death reached Shang Huaijin, he offered himself as a sacrifice and fought his way back to the Jingyun Sect. This time, he wiped them out, from the oldest to the youngest, then took his own life beside the Stairway to Godhood.

Enemies? Perhaps she'd mistaken who her enemy was all along.

In this life, Sheng Mingyuan returned to the time before she was captured and taken to the Jingyun Sect. She would tear away the hypocrites' masks and uncover the conspiracy behind them. More importantly, Shang Huaijin must not fall into demonic cultivation. She had to save him.

Sheng Mingyuan excitedly took the broken bowl from the junior disciple who had killed her in her previous life. Yes, just like that. Hurry up and teleport me! Sheng Mingyuan remembered clearly that in her previous life, an accident had sent her straight onto Shang Huaijin's desk.

She'd not only cleared away every painting tool on his desk in one fell swoop, she'd also been grabbed by the collar and thrown out in disgust. When they met again at the Jingyun Sect, the two of them had held a grudge ever since.

“It's fine. As long as I don't knock over his paints this time, we can be friends and stop him from falling into demonic cultivation!”

When Sheng Mingyuan opened her eyes again, she thought, “Why is it dark? And why is the bed so soft? Wait, whose bed am I in?”

She lifted the covers and saw a medicine chest, along with Shang Huaijin, who had just finished training, his hair damp with sweat. He had been sitting beside an empty table, apparently waiting for someone.

Now he was staring coldly at her.

Sheng Mingyuan: “Don't do anything rash. Just listen to me! How about we start by becoming friends? Hey!”

In the end, he threw her out anyway…

Everyone in the Jingyun Sect said Shang Huaijin had a clingy little pest at his side, someone who had latched onto him from the moment they first met at the Stairway Peak. Yet the cold and heartless Shang Huaijin had never actually pushed her away.

Only Sheng Mingyuan knew she wasn't there to pester him. She was there to save his life.

On the day they took the poison worms and swore their oaths, the two met again in the main hall at Stairway Peak. The worm marks on their hearts faintly resonated, but both tacitly dismissed it as their imagination.

Sheng Mingyuan: “You're an old friend! Stick with me from now on. I'll look after you!”

Shang Huaijin coldly turned his eyes away from the hand trying to hook around his shoulder. “Has the drug still not worn off?”

Until the day of the immortal-demon war, when Sheng Mingyuan's whip wrapped around Shang Huaijin's neck. “Sheng Mingyuan, kill me first this time. Use my blood to make a pill. Once you become a god, you'll be free.”

The whip tightened abruptly, and the memories of three lifetimes shattered. It turned out their bond went back further than their last life. The truth she'd never learned before she died had been this all along.

“Who wants your life!” she screamed, eyes red, tears falling onto his bloodstained clothes. “You're not the one who deserves to die. They are!”

Shang Huaijin trembled all over. His crumbling emotions surged to the surface, his eyes filled with madness and elation. He seized the whip and pulled her close, pressing his forehead against hers. “All right.”

This time, the two of them stood side by side on the Stairway to Godhood.

(Also titled The Fallen God)

Synopsis dated 2025.11.21

Theme: Your fate is yours to decide