Hard to Climb High

(Please add this to your collection.) The story outline is ready, and I’ll update it gradually until it’s complete.

Yang Miaoyue is reborn in the body of the second daughter of a merchant family in Suzhou.

She is breathtakingly beautiful and utterly enchanting, with money and leisure aplenty. Her life couldn’t be more comfortable.

But then her family’s fortunes take a sudden turn. The household is implicated in an illegal salt-trading case and is about to be raided, so she flees in panic to the countryside. On the brink of death, she encounters Xie Lan, who has come to bring his country cousin back to the capital.

Relying on her peerless beauty, Miaoyue spends a night with him. She then successfully takes the place of his deceased cousin and accompanies him to the Xie family estate.

The two spend their days acting distant in public and being tender in private.

To maintain her status as a cousin staying with the family, Miaoyue gives in to Xie Lan at every turn, pretending to love and obey him.

After their many nights of passion, she even begins to hope he might treat her as his wife.

That is, until he starts discussing marriage prospects and tells her without hesitation that she is fit only to be his concubine.

Luckily, she has a face of unmatched beauty. She decides it’s time to find someone new.

But on the day she goes to meet the young duke, she falls down a staircase. When she wakes, she has lost her memory.

After losing her memory, Miaoyue fears nothing and refuses to put up with Xie Lan.

Xie Lan is soon to be married, so she plans to escape amid the wedding-day chaos.

--

Xie Lan is a notorious powerbroker of Great Qi: refined and aloof, like a flower atop a high peak, and indifferent to women.

On the day he goes to bring his cousin back to the capital, a beautiful woman sets a trap for him, and they end up in bed together.

His cousin is dead, so he brings Yang Miaoyue back to his estate instead.

He thinks he has treated her well, providing her with everything she needs, from food and drink to clothes and daily necessities. He even accommodates her in bed.

But after nearly half a year together, she suddenly starts meeting other men in secret with increasing frequency.

The day he goes to catch her in the act, he accidentally causes her to fall. He means to give her a stern warning once she wakes, but when she does, she has forgotten him completely.

The possessiveness that gnaws at him, having once possessed her so easily only to lose her entirely, torments him.

He wants to take her as his concubine and keep her imprisoned at his side forever.

He never expects her to escape just as marriage negotiations are about to begin.

Can she really abandon so easily the status she won by offering him her body?

--

After escaping from Xie Lan for the third time, Miaoyue discovers she is pregnant.

She gives birth to the child on her own.

The young duke devotes himself to her completely. He is even willing to acknowledge her daughter as his own, and Miaoyue is gradually moved by his sincerity and agrees to marry him.

Miaoyue feels that this life is free and happy enough, and waits in peace for him to marry her.

At the Shangyuan Lantern Festival, while the "family of three" admires the lanterns, Miaoyue feels a chill run down her spine. She can’t shake the feeling that an ominous gaze is fixed on her from behind...

Reading guide:

1. Both the male and female leads are virgins.

2. The male lead is seven years older than the female lead.

3. Forced marriage and possessive pursuit, the male lead grovels to win her back, pregnancy escape, fictional dynasty. There are no absolutely wicked supporting women, and neither lead is perfect.

4. The truth behind the confiscation of the Yang family estate in Suzhou is more complicated than it seems. The plot serves the romance.

Theme: Rather than depend on others for a living, it is better to strive for self-reliance.