Jade Mountain

*The main story and bonus chapters are complete. Bonus chapters and revisions may be posted from time to time. The main plot will not change significantly, so feel free to ignore the revisions. 【Reborn empress with a golden finger and acting skills at level ten × lovesick young emperor who finally has his heart broken】 Blurb One: Empress Renyi, née Xiao, was from Yingzhou and the eldest daughter of Xiao Xiaomu, Prince of Jin. In the twelfth month of the sixth year of Kaitai, there was a solar eclipse. Xiaomu was then serving as chancellor of the Northern Court and was accompanying the emperor to Dalishan. The empress was born after the eclipse, as sunlight suddenly broke through and shone on a bronze mirror inside the tent, revealing a lozenge-shaped flower. Delighted, Xiaomu gave her the Han name Lingsheng and the childhood name Tali. In the eleventh month of the tenth year of Taiping, Xiaomu returned victorious from his eastern campaign. At the banquet, Shengzong personally poured him wine and promised a marriage alliance. After Xingzong ascended the throne, the wedding rites for the empress were performed. The following autumn, she gave birth to a prince, Fanghenu. In the eighth month of the twenty-fourth year of Chongxi, Crown Prince Yelu Fanghenu was enthroned, and she was honored as Empress Dowager. In the third month of the second year of Dakan, the empress dowager died and was posthumously given the title Renyi. Blurb Two: Xiao Lingsheng, a clever young noblewoman of the Khitan imperial clan, kept a secret no one knew: when she was seven, she transmigrated more than a hundred years into the future. There, she learned that history had branded her aunt, the Yuan Consort, a wicked concubine, while her cousin the Crown Prince was remembered by later generations as a mediocre ruler. And in the fifth year of her cousin’s reign, she would be made empress and give birth to a brutal heir. Fortunately, after a dream as fleeting as a journey to Nanke, she returned. The good news: she could recite the later version of the Book of Liao from memory. The bad news: it had no imperial biographies. When she was fifteen, Xiao Lingsheng returned to Yingzhou to visit her grandmother. A fierce wind blew the red ribbon from her hair, and it landed in the hands of Crown Prince Yelu Zongzhen, who was passing through on an inspection tour. Lingsheng turned around and froze. From then on, rumors spread that the Prince of Yan’s daughter had fallen for the Crown Prince. Even the emperor teased his lovestruck young heir about it. In private, Xiao Lingsheng wrote down the verdict that historians more than a hundred years later would pass on Yelu Zongzhen: “Gold and jade on the outside, indulgence within. Lacking in filial piety, and unrestrained in his desires.” Xiao Lingsheng: Got it. Looks good, but no substance. When Zongzhen ascended the throne, the empress dowager began to make her move. Xiao Lingsheng thought of the palace coup recorded in the history books. This time, with no one to warn him, would the young emperor still escape his mother’s schemes? As she looked at her sleeping son, Xiao Lingsheng’s gaze deepened. “Our Fanghenu is almost three years old.” Xiao Lingsheng: Doubt the empress dowager, understand the empress dowager, surpass the empress dowager. Yelu Zongzhen: The empress and I were wed as young people, and I promised her a hundred, a thousand years together. It all depends on whether you’re the one. Xiao Lingsheng: Either Your Majesty and I rule as emperor and empress, or we die together as a dragon and phoenix. So you’d better behave. A hibiscus in the mirror and a saker falcon in a cage Young spouses, political allies Among all the people in the world, I know you best Also: 1. There will be aging, illness, and death. No one is perfect. 2. Some details are fictionalized; this is a fantasy setting. 3. The male lead is faithful. 4. The one-line premise was inspired by Professor Wang Xiaofu’s book The Formation of Ethnic Groups in Medieval China, published by Zhonghua Book Company. End of this novel’s blurb. The following are upcoming novels 1. The Young Prince Is Acting Strange 【Beautiful, strong, tragic, cool-headed, gentle heroine with a hidden ruthless side × sunny, devoted, lovesick male lead】 I The emperor heard that Prince Wei’s consort was beautiful and had blue eyes, so he ordered her to appear before him in the capital. But the person who climbed down from the carriage at the palace gates was Prince Wei’s legitimate son, the young Prince Wanyan Zhi. The emperor was furious. Wanyan Zhi had a dream. After waking, fragments of scenes would flash through his mind from time to time, and he could make out three phrases: Lost his mother as a boy. Died before turning twenty. Everything in the household was decided by Consort Xiao. At first, he paid them no mind, until the imperial envoy arrived in Liaoyang bearing the emperor’s decree. The emperor was suspicious and cruel. Everyone said it was impossible to know whether Prince Wei’s consort would survive the journey. Only Wanyan Zhi knew that his mother would take her own life along the way. Wanyan Zhi saved his mother and went to the capital in her place as a hostage. Life in the capital was perilous and far from easy. As he counted down the days until his twentieth birthday, Wanyan Zhi searched for the seemingly dependable “Consort Xiao.” II Xiao Zhuo had been running into that young prince from Liaoyang an awful lot lately. When Xiao Zhuo went to a friend’s home for a banquet, he lurked around the garden. When she went to the autumn hunt, he stood outside the woods clutching a branch, looking suspicious. Once, Xiao Zhuo even heard him quietly ask his attendant, “You said before, who was she going to marry?” Wanyan Zhi was whispering with his attendant when Xiao Zhuo appeared in front of him. “Do you need something from me, Young Prince?” Wanyan Zhi: ... Wanyan Zhi: “A Zhuo, A Zhuo, the emperor wants me to welcome the empress dowager.” Xiao Zhuo: “Pretend to be ill. The emperor and his stepmother have never gotten along. Don’t get involved.” Wanyan Zhi: “A Zhuo, A Zhuo, at today’s imperial banquet, the emperor had a high-ranking official beaten to death. I secretly memorized one of his poems.” Xiao Zhuo: “Write it down. Let me see.” Wanyan Zhi: “A Zhuo, A Zhuo, do you prefer magpie or broken-branch patterns? I just got a fine piece of jade, enough to make a pair of flower-shaped jade screens...” Xiao Zhuo was born into the former dynasty’s imperial clan. Orphaned as a child, she was raised by her grandfather. With a cruel, bloodthirsty tyrant above her and a sworn enemy watching from the sidelines, the survival of her entire clan depended on the whim of another. She learned early that the only way to protect herself was to sink into the dust and become a grain of sand. Or at least, to look that way. Yet someone kept picking her up, wiping her clean, and holding her close to his heart as he said, “Who left a star here?” III Later, the tyrant died, and Wanyan Zhi’s father ascended the throne. Xiao Zhuo: “Congratulations, Your Highness. You no longer have to live in fear.” And he no longer needed her. In desperation, Wanyan Zhi came up with an idea. “I... I want to be Crown Prince! The struggle for the throne is full of danger. A Zhuo, help me!” Xiao Zhuo glanced at Wanyan Zhi, then at the loving emperor and empress behind him. “The struggle for the throne?” Xiao Zhuo emphasized the first word. The emperor and empress had only one son. What was there to fight over? “The struggle for the throne!” Wanyan Zhi was thinking of one thing he could do to keep Xiao Zhuo by his side. Wanyan Zhi was far too easy to read. The political attacks and mutual suspicion between father and son that troubled him weren’t serious problems to Xiao Zhuo. Unfortunately, living a peaceful life had never been a priority for Xiao Zhuo either. Someone presented Wanyan Zhi with evidence that Xiao Zhuo had colluded with the rebels. “This woman is treacherous to the core. How could she be worthy of you?” Wanyan Zhi glanced at him and corrected him. “Call her Crown Princess.” 2. The Empire’s Moonlight After Being Reborn 【Strongest fighter with a stubborn streak hidden beneath the surface × male lead who starts out lazy and later almost turns evil】 In the year 281 of the New Star Calendar, a genius first-year student appeared at First Military Academy, and the Crown Princess, who had spent five years guarding the border stars, was summoned back to the capital. At first, You Xin thought none of this had anything to do with him, until he used his ability to eavesdrop on the Crown Princess speaking in a disdainful tone. “You called me back just for a fake?” Later, as he looked up at the woman at the control console, smiling as she pressed the button that could decide whether he lived or died, his cells screamed at him as he fled in disgrace: Why run? Wouldn’t it be better if she kept watching you? Because he had to survive first. Only then could he fight for what he wanted. Ming Ying had no past. Her birthday was the day she broke out of her cultivation pod, and her name was just a label casually assigned by the researchers. She understood neither love nor life, nor what it meant to be alive. Once, someone had tried to teach her, but he failed. Later, she met someone else. Then she could only wish him luck getting out in one piece. Ming Ying raised her glass high. (See the author’s page for details. Hope you’ll leave a ★!) Theme: Only sincerity can move another sincere heart.