Spring Snow in the Ninth Year of Anhe

(This novel has been contracted for publication in simplified Chinese. Follow my Weibo for updates.)

My new book, Little Pillow, is now open for preorders.

Blurb:

After a car accident, An Sheng finds herself in Qiu, a dynasty that never existed in history.

She wakes up alone in the mountains. It is the third month of spring, yet snow is falling. Shivering, she searches for shelter and finds a small hut. She pushes open the door...

“Hello, may I ask...”

Before she can finish, someone pulls her into his arms. His voice trembling, he says, “A Sheng, you really have come back, just as you did in the ninth year of Anhe.”

*

An Sheng follows Zuo Shiheng back to the capital, where she learns that this Minister of Works, not yet thirty, had a wife who died five years ago. His late wife looked just like her and even had the same name.

Lord Zuo was so heartbroken that he never remarried. Despite his frail health, he raised their two children alone.

Though An Sheng repeatedly explains that she is not his late wife, this handsome widower and his adorable children seem to have placed all their boundless longing in her, treating her better than anyone could ask.

An Sheng cannot bear to disappoint them, and... she falls for him, too.

She has always longed for a home.

*

When the first snow of the ninth year of Anhe arrives, An Sheng and her husband agree to watch the snow from a pavilion in the middle of a lake. But in the time it takes her to turn around, An Sheng vanishes. Lord Zuo is left alone in the pavilion, standing dazed until snow piles on his shoulders. He coughs up blood and collapses in the snow.

*

An Sheng returns to the day of the car accident. Alone in her hospital room, she gazes out at the cherry blossoms in March and thinks it was all a dream.

Until she goes to Qiu again.

This time it is the final years of the Taiyong era, ten years before the ninth year of Anhe.

*

In Taiyong's final years, Zuo Shiheng travels to the capital to take the imperial examinations. He catches a chill and spends the night alone in a ruined temple, where a kind and beautiful woman saves him and treats him wonderfully. He falls deeply in love with her.

After passing the exams with honors, he immediately marries An Sheng. Their loving marriage is the envy of everyone around them.

That year, An Sheng becomes pregnant and gives birth to a pair of adorable, bright-eyed children.

*

Lord Zuo steadily rises through the ranks, eventually becoming Vice Minister of Works. His children are clever and well-behaved, and he and his wife are blissfully in love.

But he senses an unshakable sadness between his wife's brows. She has something on her mind that she has never told him, and he cannot get it out of her.

*

At the start of spring in the fourth year of Anhe, An Sheng suddenly begins to cry. She tells him softly, “I've tried many things, but I don't think any of them will work. Remember, if I ever disappear one day...”

“Then come look for me in the mountains of Yunshui in the third month of the ninth year of Anhe. I'll come back to you again.”

Coming soon: Little Pillow

Jiang Mingzhu owes one person an apology:

Ling Suijin, the son of the Minister of Justice, a boy as pure as a mountain stream.

Jiang Mingzhu's father was the magistrate of Songqing County. The family of four lived simply, but happily.

Five years ago, a major upheaval rocked the imperial court. A sweeping case implicated countless people, and her father was unjustly condemned and executed. In a single night, her father was dead, her younger brother exiled to Lingzhou, and her mother, unable to bear the blow, fell ill and died.

Before she passed away, her mother took her hand and wept. “My child, I'm sorry I won't be here to see you grow up and marry. You must live well, and one day bring your brother home.”

Mingzhu went to the capital.

She knew the only way to bring her brother home was to clear her father's name. But no one would care about the innocence of a minor seventh-rank official, let alone risk reopening an old case for his sake.

Only the newly appointed Minister of Justice had the power to do it. If he was willing, he could order a fresh investigation into the details.

Mingzhu entered Nanxun Pavilion, the capital's most famous and elegant pleasure house. Beautiful and talented, she soon made a name for herself.

At last, she met the Minister of Justice. After planning it for so long, she intended to seduce him, get close, and collect evidence of his corruption to use as a bargaining chip.

But the plan failed... or, more accurately, something unexpected happened.

The one who drank the spiked wine was the minister's son, who had come to persuade his father to return home: Ling Suijin, named this year's top third-place graduate by the emperor.

Ling Suijin was as noble and radiant as a gentleman of jade. He never suspected her motives, assumed he had simply gotten drunk by mistake, and took full responsibility. He formally married her and brought her into his household.

She had achieved her goal, in a way, even if everyone in the Ling family despised her.

After her father's name was cleared, she packed her things and prepared to leave the capital. At the farewell pavilion, she saw Ling Suijin.

The young man gave her a willow branch and asked whether she had enough money, whether she needed an escort, whether she knew anyone in Lingzhou, and whether she would be careful about where she stayed along the way.

Mingzhu said, “I deceived you.”

Ling Suijin smiled. “I knew from the start. But I don't blame you. I like you very much, and I know you don't feel the same, so I'll let you go.”

Mingzhu thought that was the end of her connection with Ling Suijin.

But three years later, Minister Ling was suddenly brought down for corruption, and his entire family was arrested and their property confiscated. Ling Suijin was spared exile because of his official position, but after being tortured, he was stripped of his post and banished from the capital.

She saw him again.

He was sick and in pain, blind in both eyes, no longer the bright, spirited young man who had once shone like the moon.

She brought him home and cared for him devotedly.

When he woke, the cheerful, lively boy she remembered had become quiet and withdrawn, insecure and gloomy, always wanting to leave.

Mingzhu found him again by the river.

She held the broken Ling Suijin tightly in her arms and told her younger brother, who had hurried over,

“This is your brother-in-law. You must respect him for the rest of your life.”

Theme: Love can cross mountains and seas.