Jade Mountain

* Main story and extra chapters complete. Bonus extras and revised chapters will be posted from time to time (the main plot won't change much, so feel free to ignore them).

(The companion novel in the same series, The Little Prince Is Acting Strange, launches in November.)

[Reborn heroine with a golden finger and top-tier acting skills x young emperor whose love-brain is in crisis]

Blurb One:

Empress Renyi, née Xiao, was from Yingzhou, the eldest daughter of Xiao Xiaomu, Prince of Jin.

In the twelfth month of the sixth year of Kaitai, there was a solar eclipse. At the time, Xiaomu served as Chancellor of the Northern Court and accompanied the court on a journey to Dali Mountain. When she was born, sunlight suddenly broke through and shone upon a bronze mirror inside the tent, revealing the pattern of a water chestnut blossom. 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 the eastern campaign. At the banquet, Shengzong toasted his relatives and arranged a marriage between their families. When Xingzong ascended the throne, the rites for taking an empress were held. The following autumn, she gave birth to the prince Fanghe Nu.

In the eighth month of the twenty-fourth year of Chongxi, Crown Prince Yelu Fanghe Nu was enthroned, and she was honored as Empress Dowager.

In the third month of the second year of Dakang, the Empress Dowager died and was given the posthumous title Renyi.

Blurb Two:

Xiao Lingsheng, a clever young noblewoman of the Khitan imperial clan, was no ordinary girl. Unbeknownst to anyone, when she was seven, she transmigrated more than a hundred years into the future. There, she learned that her aunt, the Yuan Consort, had been branded a wicked concubine, and her cousin the crown prince was remembered by later generations as a mediocre ruler. As for herself, she would be named empress in the fifth year of her cousin's reign and give birth to a cruel and merciless heir.

Fortunately, she woke from that dream and returned.

The good news: she could recite the later edition of The History of Liao from memory.

The bad news: it had no imperial annals.

When she was fifteen, Xiao Lingsheng returned to Yingzhou to visit her grandmother. A fierce wind tore the red ribbon from her hair and carried it into 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 was in love with the crown prince. Even the emperor teased his lovestruck young son about it.

When no one was around, Xiao Lingsheng wrote down the verdict that historians more than a century later would pass on Yelu Zongzhen: “Gold and jade on the outside, indulgence within. Deficient in filial piety, unrestrained in passion.”

Xiao Lingsheng: Got it. Looks good, but useless.

When Zongzhen ascended the throne and the empress dowager began to make her move, Xiao Lingsheng thought of the palace coup recorded in the history books. This time, no one would warn him. Could the young emperor still escape his mother's machinations?

As she watched her sleeping son, Xiao Lingsheng's eyes darkened.

“Our Fanghe Nu is almost three.”

Xiao Lingsheng: Question the empress dowager, understand the empress dowager, surpass the empress dowager.

Yelu Zongzhen: “I was wed to the empress, and I vowed we would be together for a hundred, a thousand years.”

“Now let's see if you're the one.”

Xiao Lingsheng: “With Your Majesty, either I reign in glory as empress, or I die beside you as a phoenix in a cage.”

“So you'd better behave, Your Majesty.”

A hibiscus in the mirror and a gyrfalcon in its cage.

A young married couple, political allies.

Among ten thousand people, I know you best.

Also:

1. There is birth, aging, illness, and death. No one is perfect.

2. Some details are invented; this is an alternate-history setting.

3. The male lead is sexually inexperienced.

4. The one-line premise was inspired by Professor Wang Xiaofu's book The Cohesion of Ethnic Groups in Medieval China, published by Zhonghua Book Company.

---- End of this novel's blurb. The following are blurbs for upcoming novels. ----

1. The Little Prince Is Acting Strange [beautiful, tragic, cool and gentle heroine who seems sweet but is secretly calculating x sunny, sincere, loyal puppy-like male lead with a love-brain]

I

The emperor heard that Prince Wei's consort was beautiful and had blue eyes, and ordered her to appear before him in the capital.

But at the palace gates, the one who stepped down from the carriage was Prince Wei's legitimate son, the young prince Wanyan Zhi.

The emperor was furious.

Wanyan Zhi had a dream. After waking, fragments and scraps of it kept flashing through his mind. He could make out three phrases:

His mother died when he was young.

He died before turning twenty.

All matters in the estate were decided by Consort Xiao.

At first, he paid it no mind. That changed when an imperial envoy arrived in Liaoyang with an edict.

The emperor was suspicious and cruel. Everyone said the Prince of Wei's consort might not survive the journey.

Only Wanyan Zhi knew his mother would take her own life on the way.

Wanyan Zhi saved his mother and went to the capital in her place as a hostage.

The capital was perilous, and life there was no easy matter.

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 a lot lately.

When Xiao Zhuo went to a friend's house for a banquet, he lurked suspiciously in the garden. When she attended the autumn hunt, he lingered outside the woods, acting suspiciously with a branch in his hand.

Once, Xiao Zhuo even heard him quietly ask his attendant, “You said before, who is she supposed to marry?”

Wanyan Zhi was whispering to his attendant when Xiao Zhuo appeared before him.

“Is there something you need 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 legitimate mother have never gotten along. Don't get involved.”

Wanyan Zhi: “A Zhuo, A Zhuo, at today's imperial banquet the emperor had one of his close officials beaten to death. I secretly memorized his poem.”

Xiao Zhuo: “Write it down. Let me see.”

Wanyan Zhi: “A Zhuo, A Zhuo, do you like the magpie pattern or the broken-branch pattern better? I just got a beautiful piece of jade. I could have a pair of jade screens carved...”

Xiao Zhuo was born into the former dynasty's imperial clan. Orphaned young, she was raised by her grandfather. Above her was a cruel and murderous tyrant, and at her side, an old enemy watching her like a hawk.

She learned early that the only way to protect herself was to sink into the dirt and become a grain of sand.

At the very least, she had to look the part.

Then someone kept picking her up, time and again, wiping her clean and holding her to his heart. “Who left a little 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.

Wanyan Zhi came up with an idea in desperation. “I... I want to be crown prince! The struggle for the throne is terribly dangerous. 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 imperial couple had only one son. What was there to fight over?

“Fight for the throne!” Wanyan Zhi cared only that this gave Xiao Zhuo a reason to stay by his side.

Wanyan Zhi was far too easy to read. The court intrigues and mutual suspicion between father and son that troubled him were no great matter to Xiao Zhuo.

Unfortunately, living a peaceful life had never been one of Xiao Zhuo's priorities either.

Someone presented Wanyan Zhi with evidence that Xiao Zhuo had colluded with the rebels.

“This woman is treacherous and ambitious. How could she be a suitable match for you!”

Wanyan Zhi glanced at him and corrected him: “Call her Crown Princess.”

2. The Empire's White Moonlight Reborn [combat-power ceiling heroine with a stubborn streak hidden beneath the surface x male lead who starts out lazy and later almost turns evil]

In the year 281 of the New Star Era, the First Military Academy welcomed a genius new student, and the Crown Princess, who had spent five years defending a border star, was summoned back to the capital.

At first, You Xin thought none of this had anything to do with him. That changed when he used his ability to eavesdrop on the Crown Princess saying, in a contemptuous tone:

“So you called me back just for a fake?”

Then he watched from below as the woman at the control console smiled and pressed the button that would decide whether he lived or died. As he fled in a wretched state, every cell in his body screamed: Why run? Wouldn't it be better to have her keep watching me?

Because first, he had to survive.

Only then could he fight to win her.

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 nothing about emotions, life, or being alive. Someone once tried to teach her, but he failed. Later, she met someone else.

Then she could only hope he made it out in one piece.

Ming Ying raised her glass high.

(See the author's page for more. Looking forward to your ★!)

Theme: Only a sincere heart can move another sincere heart.