Fate does not strike like thunder.It echoes like a temple bell-slow, deep, inevitable.She leaves Qing Shan Temple unaware that the end is already moving toward her.The attack comes without warning.Steel breaks the stillness of the mountain road. The carriage veers, shatters, and man and horse are thrown together over the cliff's edge.As the world falls away, a distant bell reaches her-low, ancient, and impossibly calm.It marks the end of this life.When she opens her eyes again, it is not salvation.It is continuation-lived with every memory intact, and no permission to forget.And yet she must live it again.Her second life is not meant for revenge.It is a debt.The temple bell follows her back into the world, echoing what cannot be undone-what must be buried, what must never be claimed again, and what she has been warned not to believe in.Three echoes mark her return: the end of the wife she once was, the desires she will no longer dare to touch, and the final echo-the choice to release, the only ending that brings her peace.And three men stand in her path, each bound to a future she already remembers.Su Zhang, her former husband, returns changed by loss. Once her shelter and her prison, he now offers a devotion born too late. Where he finally learns how to love, she feels only the exhaustion of a heart that has already given everything.Gu Xiao, the loyal general, walks steadily toward a battlefield she knows will claim him. His sincerity is unguarded, his fate fragile. To save him could preserve what remains of her faith-or destroy them both.The Third Prince, Li Suo, does not see her as a woman to cherish, but as a weapon. His interest is measured, political, and dangerous: freedom offered in exchange for allegiance, desire entangled with power at the heart of the court.As court intrigues tighten and war stirs along the border, Qin Nianyin is forced to move between restraint and intervention. Every choice alters a future she remembers. Every silence carries its own consequence. And the truth of her rebirth must remain hidden, even as its effects ripple outward.A second life does not arrive as correction.Qin Nianyin wakes again not with hope, but with exhaustion-the weight of two lifetimes pressing against the same fragile body. Memory does not sharpen her resolve; it wearies it.She does not believe a return can set the world right.She believes only that it demands payment.What is called a second chance-is it a gift, or a debt that can never truly be repaid?Knowing how events unfold gives her no power-only restraint, silence, and the futile effort to step away from everything she once was, even as history pulls her back.The future may still change.But order, once broken, does not simply restore itself.A historical saga of over 230,000 words, The Temple of Qing Shan combines psychological depth with political tension and restrained, slow-burning emotion. It is a novel where morality is measured not by intention, but by consequence-where love is inseparable from responsibility, and rebirth offers no clean escape.Discover character illustrations and more about my works here: https: //www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61581325000577