Also known as "Devour the Hibiscus," "The Hibiscus Trembles in the Rain," and "Jade Hibiscus." Blurb written June 5, 2025.
Melodramatic and old-school
Delicate young lady x old-fashioned, cultured man x another man (TBD)
The Cui clan of Qinghe was a famous northern aristocratic family, tracing its ancestry back to the feudal lords enfeoffed during the Zhou dynasty. Over the past thousand years, it had produced generation after generation of distinguished figures.
Cui Qingqing was born with the surname Lin. Her mother was distantly related to an old matron of the Cui family, and when she was young, she went to seek shelter at the Cui estate. After coming of age, she shamelessly married out of the Cui family. But her good fortune didn't last. Before Cui Qingqing was even born, her nominal father had already died. Her mother made a quick decision and, in the dead of night, returned to the Cui estate from their remote village, carrying her unborn daughter in her belly.
As a child, Cui Qingqing often heard that her mother had tried to seduce Cui Ji, the head of the Cui family. People even suspected that she was his illegitimate daughter. But what father would torment his daughter in bed?
Cui Ji, the current head of the Cui family, was in his thirties, handsome, with a slender waist and temples touched by frost. He had entered the Grand Secretariat and become a tutor to the crown prince at a young age. His only flaw, it was said, was that he desired nothing and had little interest in women. Yet this proper and courteous gentleman called for fresh water six or seven times every night. Cui Qingqing begged him in bed, but he refused, so she simply pretended to be dead. Unfortunately, her so-called friend, his own daughter Cui Jinyan, really did poison her to death.
By a stroke of luck, Heaven took pity on her and let her be reborn in someone else's body. But why were there even more men she wanted than before?
Cui Jinyan, the legitimate daughter of the head of the Cui family, had nothing but the finest things. She excelled at the four arts and was a renowned beauty and talent in the capital. But this peerless young lady lost at a palace banquet to Cui Qingqing, the impoverished woman she had always looked down on.
She just couldn't understand why the drug she'd given Cui Qingqing and the groom had led Cui Qingqing to get involved with her father. Once was bad enough, but after she drugged them a second time, Cui Qingqing was finally poisoned to death. But why did her father keep showing such concern for the new female tutor? So she...
1. Cui Ji is 33; the heroine is 15.
2. The heroine and Cui Ji are not related by blood.
3. Cui Ji is not a virgin; the heroine's original body was a virgin, but the body she was reborn into was not.
Theme: Love bravely
