[Gentle Noble Daughter x Iron-Blooded General | Marriage Before Love | Protecting Each Other]
The year Shen Qingci returns to the capital, her father finds her a “good match”: the second son of the Vice Minister of Personnel, a mild and timid man whose heart already belongs to someone else.
She has no interest in pretending they are “in love,” nor does she want to be a stepping stone for her father’s ambitions.
The uproar over her refusal spreads through the capital. People laugh that a girl raised by merchants has no idea of her place, but just then, someone offers her an umbrella.
It is Xiao Che, the great general who guards the nation.
He has spent years defending the northern frontier, and carries the grit of wind and sand. He is an iron-blooded warrior whom the noblewomen of the capital steer clear of.
When she is ridiculed at a banquet, he coolly tells her, “People in the capital love to gossip. You needn’t listen.”
Later, red candles burn bright as Shen Qingci marries into the general’s household. The people of the capital are still laughing at her for marrying above her station.
Until, at a palace banquet, someone sneers that “a merchant’s daughter is not worthy of the general.” Xiao Che immediately shields her behind him. Without even taking off his armor, he roars through the hall:
“Who gave anyone else the right to judge my wife?”
