[Traditional historical romance + everyday face-slapping + devoted one-on-one romance + sweet-on-the-outside, dark-on-the-inside heroine]
When Yan Chenfeng, Marquis Cheng'an, returned to the capital, all he wanted was horse races, music, and a carefree life. Instead, his father shoved a marriage contract into his hands.
“Her grandfather saved your grandfather's life. You have to marry her.”
Yan Chenfeng scoffed, a roguish air mingling with menace. “I'll get on my knees to repay the debt. But I'll choose my own wife. Her old-fashioned scholar of a father raised her like a book of rules. What would she and I have in common?”
As it happened, Ye Xiyan wasn't interested either. She secretly sent back a pointed reply: “The marquis's household has many rules, while Xiyan is wild by nature. I'm afraid I'd be a nuisance to the marquis.”
Neither of them expected to be sabotaged. Enemy troops, noblewomen who admired Yan Chenfeng, and a spoiled young lord he'd rejected all meddled in their affairs, and somehow the two ended up in bed together.
When Ye Xiyan discovered she was pregnant, she didn't wail or despair. She simply clenched her handkerchief. The child had to be saved. Yan Chenfeng smashed a wine jar and laughed like a madman. “Keep it.”
Trouble came one thing after another. The Yan family matriarch declared, “I want the child, not the mother.”
Yan Chenfeng stormed into the old lady's room with a knife and pointed it at his own abdomen. “If you won't let me marry her, I'll castrate myself first!”
The marriage was settled. The marquis's household kept making life difficult for Ye Xiyan, but she never swallowed her anger and left the matriarch speechless with her retorts.
Yan Chenfeng found her fascinating. She wasn't some book of rules, but a thorny rose. He fell for her first, teasing and protecting her, and made winning Ye Xiyan's heart his greatest challenge.
Afterward, the Marquis of Cheng'an stopped going to Pingkang Ward and spent all his time with her and their child. People teased him for being afraid of his wife, but he was happy to take it. Who could have guessed that the mad general would fall for a girl who was anything but easy to handle?
