The Pastry Shop Among the Peach Blossoms

[Though I'm still a little obscure, I'm giving my upcoming novel a little push!]

"Folding the Willow"

As the unwanted stepchild brought into the Yingchuan Marquis's household by one of his concubines, Lu Chaoying has always lived cautiously, doing her best to remain an unnoticed nobody in the vast marquis's residence. Then she hopes to marry a good man and spend the rest of her life supporting her husband and raising children.

But her increasingly graceful figure caught the eye of her nominal older brother, Fu Weiyan, heir to the Yingchuan Marquis, long ago.

His bedroom is hung with countless portraits of Lu Chaoying. The feelings he has struggled to suppress finally erupt when marriage talks begin for her.

Dark, brooding ghost of an heir x delicate yet resilient younger sister

[Novel Blurb]

Exclusively serialized on Jinjiang Literature City. We accept no responsibility for pirated copies.

While others transmigrate as princesses, noble ladies, emperors, or generals, Pei Qingwu opens her eyes to find she has become a young widow whose husband has just died and who is despised by her mother-in-law.

Naturally, she has no reason to remain faithful to a dead man, but her wicked mother-in-law refuses to let her leave. The original owner was an orphan whose parents had both died, with no family to rely on. Still, that is no problem: the law does not forbid widows from remarrying, and Pei Qingwu is not afraid to take the matter to court. Her wicked mother-in-law threatens that if she leaves her husband's family, she won't be allowed to take a single coin with her. Pei Qingwu smiles faintly. She isn't afraid. As a baking enthusiast with the skills to prove it, surely she can make a living on her own!

After taking her dowry and leaving her husband's family, Pei Qingwu registers as an independent female household with the authorities, rents a shop whose owner is eager to sell, and sets about experimenting with all kinds of treats: dragon's beard candy, soup dumplings, sesame cakes... A little pastry shop tucked among the peach blossoms becomes Pei Qingwu's means of making a living and finding a place in the world.

One day, a young man faints outside her pastry shop. They say you shouldn't pick up strange men from the roadside, but Pei Qingwu is kindhearted. She helps him inside and keeps him there with a flower pastry. "I'm a frail woman running a shop on my own. I need someone to guard the place. Would you be willing?"

And so Pei Qingwu gains a little shadow who follows her everywhere she goes...

Gentle, determined pastry shop owner x taciturn, devoted puppy with a tragic past.

Both leads are sexually inexperienced. Inspired by the Tang dynasty. The dynasty and region are unspecified, so please don't overanalyze them.

Theme: Young women should learn to take an active role in saving themselves and carve out a beautiful path of their own.