Sixteen-year-old Su Wanxi should have been carefree and innocent. But her father, seeking powerful patrons and hoping to secure his business empire, pushed her into a political marriage, marrying her into the Duke Zhenguo’s household, a family powerful enough to make the entire prefectural city tremble with a single stomp.
Before her wedding, Su Wanxi had little comfort in the Su household. Her mother had died young, and her father favored his concubine over his wife. On her wedding day, she also learned that the duke’s second son, Pei Jinghuai, was said to bring death to his wives: his previous two fiancées had died of unexplained illnesses, leaving her deeply uneasy.
On their wedding night, Pei Jinghuai was distant and aloof. He bluntly said that the Su family had married off their daughter for its own benefit, and admitted that he was no good husband. Su Wanxi, however, firmly declared that since she had married into the family, she would behave herself and fulfill her duties. Her backbone surprised Pei Jinghuai, and the two agreed to treat each other with courtesy and stay out of each other’s affairs.
From then on, Su Wanxi would face unknown challenges in the seemingly peaceful but secretive Duke Zhenguo’s household. Though the daughter of a merchant, she refused to let fate dictate her life. In this sprawling mansion, can she break free of fate’s chains and make her place amid complicated relationships and undercurrents? And will she and Pei Jinghuai develop feelings for each other despite their initial cold distance? See how Su Wanxi cuts a path through the Duke Zhenguo’s household and writes her own legend.
