[One-on-One Romance, Both Leads Are Chaste] [Court Intrigue] [Love That Grows Over Time]
A proud, straight-laced man falls head over heels, while a beautiful and talented rich heroine keeps him?
“Master Du, I’ll buy your writing, and I want you, too.”
The scandal of Ji Tang being publicly jilted by Pei Jingming on their wedding night spreads through the streets of Zhaoning’s capital like an epidemic. Her gold-threaded wedding dress is burned to ashes, and the mockery of a merchant’s daughter trying to ingratiate herself with the powerful rings especially loudly through teahouses and taverns.
Rain slants down into a ruined temple, where the tiles are cracked and mottled with leaks. Ji Tang strides in through the mud. In a moldy corner, Du Yanzhi coughs up blood as he writes furiously, his bloodstained fingers clutching the book so tightly they turn white. She gently lays banknotes on the cracked table and gazes at him intently. “Two thousand taels. I’ll pay for your treatment and your studies for the imperial examinations. In return, help me get revenge.”
Du Yanzhi’s fingers tremble slightly as he holds the banknotes, and his handsome face flushes red. “A young lady barging into a ruined temple in the middle of the night? What sort of conduct is that?” Yet he turns around and drains the calming tonic she offers him.
Later, the top scholar marries a merchant’s daughter, and when they get engaged, he even moves into her home as her live-in son-in-law. The whole city mocks them. Ji Tang once feared she wasn’t good enough for him, but she doesn’t know that he, too, is secretly ashamed of himself. Fortunately, they always stand firmly by each other’s side and never drift apart.
After the new emperor takes the throne, Du Yanzhi, now a minister of the Board of Personnel, returns home one day. Ji Tang holds their young child and sees he has brought nothing. She pouts and says, “Lord Du, pay me back!” The wind chimes under the eaves ring softly, stirring a courtyard full of drifting peach blossoms that settle between their smiling eyes as they gaze at each other.
