Glazed Armor

[Mutual secret crushes × stomach illness × a long road to winning her back | A seemingly domineering but inwardly insecure general × a coolheaded, clear-eyed noblewoman who gradually softens | Court intrigue and belated love letters entwined in a bittersweet tale]

In the fifth year of Yongzhao, at a victory banquet celebrating a triumph on the frontier, an imperial decree of marriage thrust Shen Ying, daughter of the prime minister and the young general Pei Qinzhen's sworn enemy, into his bloodstained armor. In the eyes of the world, he is the sharpest blade of all: he killed bandits on horseback at seven and struck fear into the northern deserts by twenty-four. Yet no one knows about the stomach illness rotting beneath his armor, or the old affliction that leaves him coughing blood until dawn as he fingers twenty unanswered letters. The half-piece of poria cake Shen Ying once offered him in the imperial gardens has long since become a thorn lodged deep in his heart.

The ink in Shen Ying's sleeve-copy of The Thirty-Six Stratagems stops at “Beauty Trap” as she coolly eyes this bloodthirsty “executioner.” She loathes the remorse flooding his gaze. It reminds her too much of the dying golden songbird from her childhood, beating its wings with tender despair. As the thirty-day countdown to their wedding begins, Chang'an becomes a new battlefield. Pei Qinzhen lays out a thousand-mile formation on the drill grounds, only to be driven back by a cup of cold tea from her. She can unravel the court's nine-linked puzzle, but not the heat of his fingertips grazing the blade as he pins a flower in her hair.

The moment an urgent dispatch from the northern frontier shatters their wedding night, Shen Ying uncovers the truth in the bloodstained battle report: for years, her father had tossed the letters sent from the frontier into a brazier in the imperial study. As the smoke of war rises again and silver armor rustles in the courtyard, she grips the tiger tally Pei Qinzhen left behind and finally tears away his perfect disguise. He forged his love into armor and tempered his insecurity into a blade, never realizing that the more flawless the glass helmet, the more fiercely it conceals the blood and scabs beneath.