[Historical Romance, Political Intrigue] [Forced Love] [Male Lead Turns Dark] [Rivalry for the Heroine] [Love Triangle] [Both Leads Are Each Other's First] (All male leads are virgins)
A 1v2 story: one man loves her with quiet restraint, while the other pursues her with obsessive force. The heroine and the second male lead share a few kisses, so readers who prefer couples to remain exclusive should decide for themselves.
Seven years ago, Song Huainian fell in love with Shen Que at first sight. They married, only for his former mistress to show up with a child and cause a scene at their wedding.
Knowing he had behaved improperly, Shen Que did not share a bed with her for the three years of their marriage, yet continued to care for her in secret.
At a lantern festival one day, Prince Jingping Gu Tingsi fell in love with Song Huainian at first sight, only to learn that she was already married.
After several carefully orchestrated encounters, an imperial decree ordering the Shen family’s arrest and confiscation of their property arrived. He remembered that day especially well: Song Huainian, usually so haughty, knelt in the pouring rain for an entire day and night, begging him to help reopen the investigation into the Shen family’s corruption case.
Gradually, they became “confidants” who used one another, and little by little, they found themselves unable to be apart.
Unable to win her love, Shen Que pretended to be Gu Tingsi and swallowed his pride, hoping to win even the smallest scrap of her affection.
After turning dark, he took her by force in a frenzy. “Song Huainian, you show compassion to everyone else, but you’re merciless toward me.”
“You taught me to fight and seize what I want, and molded me into this. Do you really think you can walk away unscathed?”
“You and Gu Tingsi are so deeply in love. What about me? What does that make me?”
On the day of the palace coup, Gu Tingsi asked her, eyes bloodshot, “Would you rather be a marquis’s wife or the empress?”
Song Huainian replied, “I want to be chancellor.”
She plotted at every turn, ambitious and relentless. Her goal had never been limited to two men, but rather the power that stood above them all.
From then on, she was a civil official, he was a military commander, and he was a wise ruler who heeded advice.
