Too often I feel like women over 40 are invisible in film and television, and Pursuit of Jade has such a rich and well-rounded cast.

Also shout out to this whole exchange on menstruation:

Here are Book Auntie’s recommendations:

Books & Stories Featuring Mature Women (40+) as Protagonists or Strong Supporting Cast

1. The Lady Astronaut of Mars (novelette) by Mary Robinette Kowal - 63-year-old Elma York, decades past her famous first Mars mission, must choose between one last spaceflight or staying with her dying husband. (Hugo Award winner, 2014.)

2. Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman - Aunts Frances and Jet Owens, eccentric and powerful, anchor the household magic.

3. The Correspondent by Virginia Evans - Sybil Van Antwerp, a septuagenarian retired lawyer, narrates her whole life through letters.

4. The Last Contract of Isako by Fonda Lee - A battle-worn corporate samurai in her 50s undertakes one last mission.

5. The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by S. A. Chakraborty - One last job for this legendary pirate.

6. The Final Strife by Saara El-Arifi Anoor’s mother, the Warden of Strength, is a formidable older power player (antagonistic, but commanding).

7. The Seven Necessary Sins for Women and Girls by Mona Awad - A memorable cabal of older witchy women alongside the younger protagonist.

8. Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt - Tova, a 70-year-old widow, is the heart of the story alongside a perceptive octopus.

9. Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng - two powerful mothers (I actually have no idea how old they are) and so many secrets.

10. Homebound by - a Good Morning America pick, this book explores the lives of 3 women across centuries, one of them whom has spent decades at sea.

11. The Girl With Ten Thousand Faces by Sunyi Dean - despite the “girl” moniker, the protagonist Mercy Chan is 53 and confronting a ghost from her past that is even older.

12. The Inheritance by Ilona Andrews - Ten years ago, Adaline had a happy marriage and a job she loved. The invasion shattered both. Now she works for the government, searching the breaches for magic metals and medicine to help Earth repel an interdimensional enemy. Two kids, one cat, bills, benefits, mortgage and school tuition...Risking her life became routine.

And I would be remiss if I didn’t link Fonda Lee’s piece (gift link) in the NYT: In These Books You Don’t Have To Be Young To Save The World.

Do you have any you’d add to the list? Please share in the comments!

The Butcher’s Shelf, Part 2

Pursuit of Jade’s male lead, portrayed by actor Zhang Ling He, embodies one of the most romantic love interests I’ve ever come across.

Welcome the Butcher’s Shelf Part 2 where I go on and on talk about what makes the Marquis of Wu’an one of the most sweepingly romantic male leads in recent memory. (If you missed Part 1, where I broke down the 20+ tropes packed into this show, start there!)

Although he is older, of higher social status, better educated, and wealthier than Fan Changyu, he never talks down to her. Instead, he points out that he would be an ingrate to think badly of her when she has rescued him, and he converses with her about societal injustices. When he learns that her uncle has filed a petition to take the house because her father had no male heirs, he comments that the law should be changed to allow female orphans to inherit.

He also observes that she is quite capable so when she is in distress or conflict, he doesn’t necessarily intervene. He does just enough to assure himself that she is not in genuine danger. Maybe he flings a well-aimed piece of candy a particular wretch, but otherwise stays back.

WARNING SPOILERS AHEAD:

When she is in genuine danger, he becomes completely unhinged. (See Episode 11) This is in alignment with traditional alpha male characteristics, but it’s notably not his default mode with Changyu in Pursuit of Jade. His restraint makes me root for him more. And when she wakes up and asks him not to kill the failed kidnapper, Yan Zheng wraps her in his embrace and sheds a tear, which was so intense. My take was that his whole life he has been told it is his duty to put himself in danger for the nation, but here is Changyu asking him not to endanger himself on her behalf.

The biggest thing, though, is what happens after the first arc (those 16 or 17 episodes set in Ling’an). When they are later reunited, he becomes wholly emotionally available to her. This is a trend we’re seeing in romance novels too, as noted by Erin C. Niumata’s recent deep dive into publishing trends, What Romance Readers Actually Want Right Now: “The modern fantasy romance hero is increasingly emotionally devoted beneath the danger.” And: “Readers are exhausted. They do not want to spend four hundred pages begging a fictional man to use his words. They want yearning, tenderness, a man quietly making soup when she’s sick.”

Yes, yes, and yes! Yan Zheng has been doing exactly this since episode two.

The Man Beneath the General

After episode 17, when Yan Zheng sheds his false identity and resumes his role as the Marquis of Wu, we see a different side of him entirely. He is a ruthless general, constantly strategizing to preserve the empire and counter the enemy.

But when Changyu’s path intertwines with his again, he finds himself living a double life. He gets to bask in her tender care as a wounded simple soldier, a man she doesn’t yet know is the same man who broke her trust. This leads to some of the best comedy in the show, but also some of its most revealing moments for his emotional state. He knows exactly who he is to her. She doesn’t and he’s dreading the reveal. But he can’t help himself and he chooses, again and again, to stay close to her whenever he can.

This carries through even into the battle scenes later. He is effectively the commanding general in some of the most treacherous sequences in the show — and even there, the emotional devotion is present beneath the danger. (See episode 25, where he has to both issue a corporal punishment, but also insists he take the 20 strokes for her offense. Or how about Episode 26, when she drugs him and fights in his place killing the fearsome opponent in two hammer blows…but breaking her cleaver. He reforges the cleaver into twin swords for her.)

Waging War on Her Rejection

I’ve seen takes online about how people felt she forgave him too easily after episode 26 when his true identity is revealed — and that’s a separate post, because it speaks to something much larger about the vast difference in their social station. But what I want to focus on here is what happens after she rejects him.

It’s in her rejection that he works the hardest. He goes into full problem-solving mode, effectively waging war on her refusal and applying every skill from his martial and strategic life to the greatest battle he will ever fight: winning a place in her life and her acceptance of his proposal.

And that proposal. It is one of the most remarkable pieces of dialogue in all 40 episodes, second only to the pledge he makes at the shrine. (The Shrine speech needs a separate Substack!) I wish I could fully comprehend the untranslated version of his formal declaration, made as his true self asking for a place in her life. Even with the Netflix English translation it lands with full force. (This is a credit to Zhang Ling He who delivers it with complete sincerity, conveying a man who is offering himself wholly to his true love.)

“My name is Xie Zheng.
Courtesy name Jiuheng.
I come from a military background, a man of the Capital,
bestowed the title of Marquis of Wu’An.

Today, I offer you my whole heart, in absolute sincerity and devotion.
I ask to take you as my wife.
I vow to provide you a lifetime of peace and safety,
and to protect your quiet happiness for all the years to come.”

(Translation from u/G_Tsalach full post of translation)

The problem solving is more extensive in the webnovel, when he asks Xie Wu about Wu’s sister’s marriage and his opinion about commoners wedding nobles. But in the drama, we see him trying to using bring the full force of his privilege to bear, but asking Tutor Tao to adopt Changyu, and figuring out how to get an imperial decree to wed her.

Two Love Languages, One Relationship

Even more compelling than his emotional availability is actually his emotional intelligence.

In both the web novel and the C-drama, Yan Zheng is depicted as needing physical touch and words of affirmation. However, because of his keen powers of observation, when he studies Changyu and learns what she needs, he gives her acts of service— which is her love language. What’s impressive is that from the earliest episodes he is doing things for her that will make her life better, especially when considering that she doesn’t actually meet him where he is emotionally until twenty-four episodes in.

The Reunion, the Kiss, and What He Asked For

It’s only much later, when they reunite around Episode 24, that she tells him how much she missed him. She has been searching for him in the army, and there’s a look of surprised pleasure on his face when she reaches for him and gives him a big hug. That’s one of the few times she’s initiated physical touch out of affection as opposed to touching him to bandage him or measure him for his wedding robes.

In Episode 25, he asks for reassurance that she didn’t just search for him out of guilt. He wanted to know she was motivated by caring. She responds by begging him to come home with her. His face is a revelation and it’s clear he treasures this moment. For someone like him who has duties to his clan, to avenge his father, to preserve the peace of the northern borders…just knowing she doesn’t want anything from him other than to return to their days in Ling’an must be a balm to his soul.

Then later, when they’re about to separate again and he needs to take his soldiers to one location but she needs to go rescue Yu Qian Qian he has a big growth moment. He obviously offers to do it for her, but she basically tells him: “I wouldn’t be who I am if I let you do that. I have to go do this.” Instead of shutting her down or overriding her, he understands. What he seeks from her before she goes is (in the literal English translation) “tell me you like me,” but it’s really more like “tell me you care for me.” And that’s when she gives him a kiss.

These three episodes show us that his love languages are Physical Touch, and Words of Affirmation, which makes it even more romantic that he has been giving her Acts of Service since episode 2.

What the Web Novel Tells Us

In the web novel, there are some really lovely scenes that are not in the drama. In the drama, they go to the matrimonial tree and toss a ribbon, and it’s very endearing that he has threaded the tree with his own ribbons already so that no matter where she tosses hers, it will land next to his. However, in the novel there’s a scene where he takes her to a monastery that has the tree, and they sneak in over a wall. She has no idea why they’re doing this, but it turns out it’s so they can write their wishes onto a little plaque and toss it onto the tree. When she throws hers up there, she doesn’t show it to him…which is a classic depiction of their relationship, that she doesn’t often tell him how she feels.

So he sneaks back into the monastery and reads the plaque. She wrote: Morning and night, year after year, I wish to spend with you. He’s so happy after he reads it that he laughs. In fact, he is so joyously loud that he alerts the monks that somebody has broken into the monastery.

As much as I love the drama, I think this scene from the web novel says so much about his need for words of affirmation.

The Bonus Chapters and Her Puppet Show

There’s also a bonus chapter depicting scenes after they’re married. (They have a grand wedding and it’s a shame the drama doesn’t depict this!)

They have a disagreement, and it takes her a long time to figure out what is going on with him because he doesn’t express to her why he’s unhappy. She eventually makes a little puppet show for him. In the puppet show, she tells a story about herself, and then says:

“...the girl had recently learned a poem: Having seen my Lord, how can I not be joyful? Even in wind and rain, seeing you brings joy to the heart. She felt this was exactly how she felt every time she saw her husband, and that she should tell him.”

Changyu gives him the puppet show because she realizes she rarely says things like that to him but that he would appreciate hearing them and that’s how they make up after the argument.

To me this bonus scene demonstrates that their relationship is often out of sync. Changyu takes time to catch up to where he is emotionally since he fell first. Throughout the show Yan Zheng is always thinking about and doing things for her. Half the time it’s not even clear she realizes all the things he has done for her, and he never seeks credit for any of it.

This is a lot like the Mr. Darcy grand gesture in that Yan Zheng is not seeking credit. His gestures are often small, like the time he orders food and items for New Year and then tells his shopkeeper: when you deliver it, say it’s from her father, that he prepaid for it before he passed away. I don’t think she ever learns through the course of the 40 episodes that he did this. In his mind it was a very small sum of money, but for her and for Mrs. Zhao it was an abundance that genuinely shocked and delighted them.

The Craft Takeaway⇒ Don’t be afraid to have a love interest who gives all, often, and early.

And now for Book Auntie’s Book Recommendations:

• A Marvelous Light by Freya Marsk

• Book Lovers by Emily Henry

• The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

Welcome to my mini series: The Butcher’s Shelf where I unpack all the awesome things about this show and speculate wildly in public about why they work.

What is Pursuit of Jade?

It’s a Cinderella story about a young woman who goes from being a pig butcher to a female general in fantasy China. It started out as a webnovel, Chasing Jade by Tuan Zi Lai Xi and is inspired by Ming dynasty heroine Qin Liang Yu. It was adapted into the 40-episode idol Cdrama Pursuit of Jade by Iquiyi, and licensed by Netflix.

Pursuit of Jade is the first Cdrama to crack the Netflix Global Top 10 Non-English shows. It stayed there for a few weeks in March of 2026 but it’s streaming on multiple platforms and has racked up billions of views worldwide. BILLIONS.

For context, the highest-rated shows on Netflix:

• Squid Game: Season 1: An estimated 265.2 million equivalent viewings

• Wednesday: Season 1: 252.1 million views

• Stranger Things: Season 4: 140.7 million views

• Bridgerton: Season 1: 113.3 million views.

So if my math is mathing correctly, Pursuit of Jade has 4-5x the number of views as the most popular shows we can name here in the US. Why is this show resonating with so many people around the world? I can think of a lot of reasons, and one of them is the sheer number of tropes they packed into this show. Not to be reductive, but I think as a creative it’s helpful to peel back the curtain and see what is happening.

Here’s a list of some of the tropes, microtropes, and elements I’ve spotted in the show:

• Marriage of convenience

• There’s only one quilt

• Hurt comfort

• Fake dating

• Secret royal

• Competence

• Animal companion

• Eldest Daughter POV

• Slow burn romance in a small town

• Fish out of water

• Found family

• Touch her and die

• He falls first/He’s a simp for her/He’s down bad

• Female gaze

• Morally gray MLI

• Banter

• Female friendship

• Knife to the throat

• Calligraphy

• Yearning (so much yearning!)

That’s 20! When you look at your own WIPs, can you count how many tropes/microtropes are in there? If you’re a fan of then you’ll understand me when I say Pursuit of Jade is filled with BUTTER. The lesson from PoJ? Layer on that butter!

(apparently this animatronic pig weighs like 40 lbs! Our girl TXW is strong IRL)

This is already a huge list and doesn’t even cover my additional list of things I love about the show. For now, I’ll break down what I think are the three biggest things Pursuit of Jade is showcasing:

• Acts of Service

• Female Gaze

• Beauty and Craftsmanship

Why Acts of Service Is Our Love Language Right Now:

Friends, we are tired. The world and the news cycle are exhausting. While there are some very grand gestures in this show, the 40 episodes are built on a series of small, caring acts. These acts of service are quiet, in the background even. Watching these characters do thoughtful things for each other is soothing that constant anxiety in the backdrop of our modern lives. (Warning, spoilers ahead) Examples:

1. Yan Zheng composing new year couplets for all her neighbors until his wrist cramps

2. Frugal heroine Changyu buying expensive tangerine peel candy for him to cut the bitterness of his medicinal herbs

3. Yan Zheng staying up late to prepare her for her hearing before the magistrate

4. Yan Zheng carrying her little sister Ning when he sees other children at the festival are being carried by their fathers or brothers.

5. Yan Zheng buying a special salve for her hands and then making sure she keeps it when she frets it’s too expensive

6. Yan Zheng carrying her coat to her when she’s worked very late at the restaurant, and coming to walk her home in the dark

7. The seamstress making wedding robes for Changyu in addition to the groom’s robes

8. Gongsun stitching the princess’s slipper

9. Yan Zheng annotating archaic texts for her to simply them so she can understand the lessons

10. Yan Zheng salvaging her butcher cleaver from the battle with General Shi and reforging them into twin blades for her

Female Gaze, Agency, Friendships

Part of the recurring theme of both the webnovel and the cdrama is that the male love interest Yan Zheng is very beautiful. It’s handled with light comedic moments in both the drama and webnovel like when she cleans his face after she rescues him and there is a moment of stunned awe when his handsome visage is revealed. Or when he goes to help her at the pork shop and the ladies line up and clamor to be his customers.

This character is portrayed in the cdrama by Zhang Ling He, who radiates an unearthly beauty in every scene. It’s clear the director understands his job is to highlight the face cards of this absolutely gorgeous cast as the lighting and camera linger lovingly on the faces.

The only bare shoulders or chests revealed in this drama are those of Zhang Ling He or other male cast members.

But the female gaze is not about objectification, but for female characters to have agency. Changyu is a heroine that has been thrust into a role of family head very young (she is 15 in the webnovel but they aged her up to 18 in the drama thankfully) and her compassion and sense of duty drive her to take charge in many situations (even if her schemes are bananapants kidnapping plots).

Her friendship with Yu Qian Qian pass the Bechdel test with flying colors as their friendship is built on mutual respect and growing their respective business empires.

Beauty and Craftsmanship

I’m a huge fan of the Jennifer Lynn Barnes talk on Writing For Your Id. Sadly I don’t think there’s a way to purchase the audio of that lecture anymore, but she discusses her giant Id list here.

In her iconic talk, she talks about how humans are hard-wired to seek pleasure and that some of these universal pleasures are Beauty and Competition. This means we love beautiful things, and watching/playing games. I would say that battle scenes fall into this Competition category as well. When you watch a show like Bridgerton, they are hitting the beauty button in every scene. The cast is gorgeous, the scenery is stunning, the music is fresh and evocative, the costumes are sumptuous… and your brain is just flooded with pleasure.

Pursuit of Jade does this on the same level. Even when the show opens in the buccolic, country village setting of Ling’an, the snowy landscape is beautiful. Though the villagers do not wear fancy clothing, their robes have amazing texture and layers, giving visual appeal and depth. Every set is crafted to showcase the historical details of the buildings, the interiors, and the furnishings.

And now for some book recommendations from your Book Auntie:

If you like the court palace intrigue, the beautiful cast, and a resilient heroine, try Never Ever After by Sue Lynn Tan.

If you like Calligraphy and Painting:

Poet Empress by Shen Tao

Forgery of Fate by Elizabeth Lim