The Cold-Faced Prince's Substitute Bride

Shen Qinghuan, an illegitimate daughter of the Chancellor’s household, is forced to take her legitimate sister’s place in marrying into the Prince of Jing’s household, becoming the wife of the cold-faced Prince Xiao Jue. On their wedding night, Xiao Jue tears her wedding dress to shreds and bluntly says he married her only to silence the gossip. All he offers her is cold possession and control: she must not cry, defy him, or harbor a single thought that doesn’t belong to him. After three years in a marriage like a prison, Shen Qinghuan is battered and bruised, transformed from a girl with light in her eyes into a hollow puppet with a dead heart. She stages an “accident,” dies in a sea of flames, and escapes her gilded cage for good. But she doesn’t know that her “death” becomes Xiao Jue’s undoing. The prince who once treated her as if she were nothing goes mad when he sees her charred belongings. He suspends court affairs and scours thousands of miles of rivers and mountains, determined to find her even if he has to dig up the earth itself. His goal changes from “drag her back and keep her under my control” to “as long as she’s alive, I’ll give her anything.” When Shen Qinghuan settles into a peaceful life in a riverside town in Jiangnan under a new identity, Xiao Jue finds her, his hair streaked with frost. He drops to one knee and holds his sword to his own heart. “Qinghuan, come back. If you want my life, it’s yours. If you want the empire, I’ll give you that too.” This time, the roles of hunter and prey are completely reversed.