When the Crabapple Blossoms Faded

[Vengeful noblewoman x unhinged powerbroker | Deliberate seduction + Taking by force + The hero competes and fights to claim her] Not a farming story Her father and brother’s coffins had not yet been laid to rest when the Shen family’s plaque was chopped up for firewood. The general’s mansion of old was sealed off. She knelt in the snowy execution grounds, watching the heads of her loved ones roll from the platform. As her mother lay dying, her withered hand brushed her face. “Build a family. Find someone who cherishes you, and you won’t be alone anymore. Stay alive...” She chewed on dry rations like shards of ice, the taste of blood rising in her throat. Stay alive? Where could she possibly go? With a blood feud weighing on her, the only reason she had to live was to exact vengeance for her wrongly killed family. But the rotten court had decayed to its very roots. For a lone young woman like her, revenge was all but impossible. So she made her peerless beauty, capable of captivating all, her sharpest weapon. She smiled sweetly and spoke honeyed words, but never gave away a shred of her heart. She earned someone’s trust, then drew her blade. One victim down, and she would lure in the next. She thought everyone she had manipulated and personally sent to their graves had turned to dust. She never expected the young general she had pushed off a cliff all those years ago to come back from the dead. “Ah Tang, since you lied to me, you’ll have to keep lying for the rest of your life.” The man trapped her in the little house from their past, a possessive fire raging in his eyes. “This tiny place is your fate. I’ll keep you captive and make sure you see what it costs to deceive me.” When the hunter becomes the prey, when false affection meets obsession, who will have the last laugh in this life-and-death tangle of love and hate?