Everyone in the capital knows that Xiao Lingxue, the legitimate daughter of the Xiao family, is betrothed to Qi Yunfei, the young master of the Marquis of Yong’an’s household.
Even the pair of geese kept at the Qi family’s villa are so sleek and well-fed, just waiting for the auspicious day when they can be brought to her home.
But no one expected that at the poetry banquet, she would personally smear rouge on the wedding goose’s feathers. Its neck stiffened, exposing the unmistakable poison of crane’s crown red!
“So the goose for Miss He was poisoned for the future wife to see?” Her smile was icy, and the entire hall erupted in an uproar.
What shocked everyone even more was that Qi Yunfei picked up the wedding goose and turned to offer it to He Ranran. “Ranran, don’t be afraid. You can have the goose.”
Xiao Lingxue glanced at the pair of “perfect lovers,” then calmly looked away and turned straight into the arms of a warm yet resolute figure.
The Crown Prince, Xie Heng, took her wrist and pressed a jade pendant into her palm. “He chose his childhood sweetheart. I choose you. Xiao Lingxue, do you dare take a chance, give up being the marquis’s young wife, and become my crown princess?”
From then on, she was no longer a sheltered young lady trapped by a betrothal.
When the empress plotted to drug her with an aphrodisiac, she used The Classic of Birds to expose the poison, making He Ranran suffer the consequences of her own scheme.
When black magic was used to harm her, she rooted out the mole and presented the evidence at court, exposing the empress’s faction’s conspiracy.
As turmoil rocked the court, she stood shoulder to shoulder with the Crown Prince, exposing one frame-up after another, protecting the Xiao family and safeguarding the peace of the Great Yong.
One day, Xiao Lingxue gazed at the Crown Prince playing chess beside her and smiled radiantly. “There’s no need to regret a betrothal that was misplaced. The right person you meet after turning away is the greatest blessing of your life.”
But no one could have guessed that the goose brought in from a deserted hall as a stand-in for the wedding goose would later become the key to exposing the Qi and He families’ final lie…
