深藏不露 (Beneath the Surface) by 退戈 (Tui Ge)
Ancient Chinese historical romance

Song ChuZhao, who grew up in the border area and is unrivalled in her skills, exchanged “souls” with Gu FengJian, who lived in seclusion due to an injury in his childhood. Since then, the weak scholar Gu Wulang can ride a horse and draw a bow, and the unrestrained Song Sanniang can debate with scholars. Gu Fengjian was thinking about how to deal with it when he heard something knocking on the window pane from outside. The sound was very light and varied in pitch. It must be a stone. He walked out of the door silently, turned to the side, and sure enough, he saw the person who had been muttering just now on the high wall not far away. The two of them, one tall and one short, looked at each other from a distance, and showed extremely complicated expressions at the face that was extremely familiar to each other. Song Chuzhao’s voice trembled, and he tentatively asked: “Gu…Gu Wulang?” Gu Fengjian nodded quickly. Song Chuzhao was obviously relieved and adjusted [her] posture to make himself more stable. Gu Fengjian: “…” In his life, he never thought that his face would appear in a place like the top of the wall. – Translated from the original book page 

Or the blurb on NU:

On such a day, the fifth young master, known for his secluded scholarly pursuits and refined demeanor, accidentally revealed his mastery of martial arts and was now capable of effortlessly piercing a target with an arrow from a hundred paces.

The third young miss, raised in the untamed borderlands and unbound by convention, revealed a hidden talent. She could now debate with a room full of scholars, her wit and knowledge matching theirs blow for blow.

To everyone’s astonishment, these two had been hiding their true abilities. They were both forces to be reckoned with!

​November’s prompt is “it came from the 1990s” and … knowing absolutely nothing about the author let’s just pretend she was born in the 90s. That’s my prompt connection. I already skipped October’s “Spooky (Gothic)” because I felt nothing matched as much as Carrying a Lantern in Daylight so, yeah. Anyway, Beneath the Surface was an absolute delight. It might just come in second as one of the softest sweetest books I’ve read in my c[romance] novel journey, and that’s really saying something. If not clear, we’re talking about a body swap romance. And the most perfect delightful one. Imagine if you swapped bodies with the person most suited to fill in all your “deficiencies.” That’s what we’ve got going on with our pair. And they overall have the most wonderful, loving families – which also (sadly) isn’t something you see too often in cnovels. Anyway I loved this book and I know I’ll absolutely be re-reading it. I also keep clicking on the author’s name in NU hoping there will be more books for me – another historical, but no such luck yet. Alas. Another important thing is I think this book would be a great introduction or onramp to reading cnovels – nothing too difficult to accept culturally. Continue reading →