九重紫 (Jiu Chong Zi) by 吱吱 (Zhi Zhi)
Historical romance published in 2022

She is the legitimate daughter of the Dou family who lost her mother at a young age. Her status is noble, yet she is like a floating duckweed in the wind, with a pitiable fate. Her past karma remains unfinished, and in this lifetime, she returns to the bustling world, leaving behind the past of the mortal realm, seeking only a peaceful and enduring life like a gentle stream flowing endlessly. But unexpectedly, fate plays tricks, the more she tries to escape, the more she becomes entangled in the mortal world.

In a single encounter, she intruded into his heart, and in the mysterious realm of destiny, their love bond was already fated.

He is the highly esteemed heir, elegant and noble, yet trapped by his birth father’s schemes, facing difficulties at every step.

Amidst a faint fragrance floating, in a fleeting moment of brilliance, he dares to touch the forbidden, abandoning the prestigious and beautiful branches for the sake of a sincere heart, secretly pledging himself to the beloved.

Love has already blossomed, but the inner demons are hard to quell. The harder it is to attain, the more relentlessly it is pursued.

He takes the beauty as his own, experiencing the joys and sorrows of life together, never parting even in old age. She gives him genuine affection and lends him a helping hand; he offers her devoted love, helping her shed all hostility. Through all the ups and downs of life, she and he weather the storms together.

Can holding each other’s hands bring a lifetime of peace and stability? – lightly edited from NU

So the prompt this month was “drama!” and honestly, I wasn’t quite sure what book to choose. I’ve read a few I enjoyed but didn’t love (or super hate…) … but this one is the basis of a drama I’m looking forward to, so we’re going with 九重紫. The upcoming drama title is Blossom – fingers crossed it’s good. I’m very curious how they condensed a 523 chapter novel into just 34 ~45 minute episodes, so we’ll see. (I mean of course there was filler in the novel that could be cut … but not that much.) All that being said, our heroine here isn’t someone you love right off the bat, but she grew on me and I really loved her and felt she and our hero were a perfect pair. (Which of course is the point, but it’s extra here.)

Our heroine is Dou Zhao (DZ), and as stated she was rebirthed as her ~two year old self after dying in her 30s in her first life. (Her pet name is Shou Gu, which is how her family sometimes refers to her). DZ lived a very difficult life, and is determined to make changes this time around. Of course, it’s difficult to do so when one is a toddler – yet I felt she managed to accomplish a lot. Definitely her home life was entirely altered from her first life. (The way her step mother entered the household, her father’s attitude, the evil step mother never having a son…) It was interesting yet frustrating how reliant she was on her past life. Though not to an annoying degree like others. (And I’m trying to make sure I don’t mix things up because right after this book I read another “rebirth” book where FL was stubbornly reliant on her past life even though so much had changed.) I also liked how this life DZ was determined to live for herself – and live well. She wasn’t going to be constrained by society or familial relationships or expectations – or at least she would be as little as possible.

Our hero … man I almost don’t want to say who he is because I’m not sure if it’s a spoiler or not… mostly I’m saying this because I believe he doesn’t even make an appearance until chapter one hundred and fourteen. A guy I thought might be the hero – because he was around for the longest time … was probably our “second male lead” (SML). Anyway … “spoiler” – it’s Song Mo (SM) (which is on the MDL page – that for a while/when I started reading I thought might even be wrong considering I hadn’t encountered that character yet…) Oh this wonderful young man. Boy? The book starts before he reaches the age of majority (20). In fact he gets married at 15-16, which was totally acceptable for the time… but he’s definitely one of the younger heroes we encounter in c-novels. At least so far in my reading journey. (And in fact he’s one to two years younger than our heroine…) Song Mo is an incredible talent with an incredibly awful father. Truly astoundingly evil. He had a terrible reputation in DZ’s first life, but when we find out why he did what he did, we learn all his actions were justifiable. It just goes to show how powerful rumors and public opinion are. He’s smart, cunning, and utterly devoted to our girl. Good man.

There is a very complex cast of characters in this book. DZ’s father is the “seventh son” in his family – he’s actually the only son of his father, but at the time/dynasty families were (or could be) counted by generation – so he has six older male cousins. Some of them are brothers, some of them are also cousins – I believe that branch had three brothers in contrast to also DZ’s grandfather being the only male of his branch. (Familial relationships are complicated – especially in big families.) Anyway, DZ then has a number of cousins, and their relatives, and let’s just not get into details. There’s a lot that happens, as we see – DZ and SM don’t even get engaged until chapter 223. Just to give you an idea as to how complicated things are – plus everyone has in-laws/family too… and then there are the friends … (and important maids and manservants … guards … the emperor and imperial family members…)

While a lot of the tropes we see are common/old ones (evil step mother, evil half sister, evil in laws, court scheming, the “gold finger” of knowledge from rebirth, etc.), there’s a fresh take on a lot of it. Characters we think are muddled and stupid … aren’t. Characters that are bad are actually good, and the reverse is true. People act in their own interests and are two faced, sometimes the bottom line is family, sometimes the bottom line is power. Sometimes people are cruel just for the hell of it. Having to suffer and eat losses because of “filial piety.” (SM’s dad literally tries to murder him. A lot – and yet they have to all pretend to society everything is fine.) And for once we don’t have an evil emperor! He’s by no means perfect, but he’s not someone to hate.

I remember not loving the ending – but I can’t revisit it because the site appears to be down right now. I was actually disappointed there weren’t extras because I felt things ended abruptly. I wanted more of DZ and SM being able to be sweet and happy together without having to worry about surviving a rebellion, or his evil dad. Alas. (I think the author actually just didn’t write any – which I get considering how damn long the book is … but still.) Plus “extras” are kinda expected with c-novels. We do get sufficient closure with things though, and I loved how there were some twists and turns still with how things play out. (E.g. we know the prince who rebels is someone SM grew up with… and I loved their confrontation in the end.)

DZ and SM once they get together work together so well. There’s a lot of love and respect. DZ actually planned on never getting married in this life, considering how terrible her first experience was. SM was so sad – he had pulled strings and had a lot of machinations to marry DZ, not realizing she just … didn’t want to get married to anyone. (She had previously  told him she’d marry him if fate decreed it, but had only said that to be kind. Oops.) I loved that he went and talked to her, and let her make the final decision. Very rare for the time. (Marriages were arranged by the parents, with little to no input from the people getting married – it was common for noble couples to meet the first time on their wedding night.) Their first meeting was fraught – it was two years before they got engaged, and he essentially tried to kill her. She outsmarted him. It was all pretty awesome (other than the minor detail of him wanting her dead for a hot minute … not because it was her, but because he was trying to hide someone and she saw it…)

I’m sadly not going to link where I read the book because it’s barely (insultingly) “edited” machine translation – but hopefully one day an actual translating site picks it up. In the meanwhile, we can look forward to the drama which a) hopefully does the book justice and b) airs soon. Even with the terrible “translating” I can see myself re-reading the book

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