Flowers in Shanghai: Young Marshal Lu's Cherished Wife

Angst first, sweetness later + warlord's devotion + satisfying power fantasy

Beneath the neon lights of Shanghai's glittering streets, she is the sacrificial bride forced to marry in place of her younger sister, while he is Lu Tingchen, the young Beiyang warlord who rules Shanghai.

On their wedding night, he strides in wearing his military uniform and crushes the red candles underfoot. His cold gaze sweeps over her pale face. "Su Qinghuan, don't think your family's mess can tie me down." She lowers her eyes, hiding her defiance, and takes the marriage for a cage meant to save her family. Little does she know that, somehow, this cage will come to hold them both.

He once suspected her of having an affair with her childhood sweetheart and slapped her in front of everyone. Yet when someone pushes her into a pond, he leaps into the freezing water without hesitation, carries her back to her room, and calls for a doctor in a trembling voice. He once brought a socialite home to test her, but when rumors start flying, he storms through the courtyard with a whip in hand. "She's mine. Who gave you the right to gossip about her?"

When she takes a fatal bullet for him and lies unconscious for three days, the young warlord who never bows his head turns red-eyed. He stays by her bedside, brewing medicine himself, and each word strikes straight at the heart: "Qinghuan, wake up. I'll protect you from now on."

From then on, everyone in Shanghai knows that Young Marshal Lu has become a henpecked husband. When she wants to take charge of a textile mill, he deploys troops to protect her trade routes. When she wants to open a girls' school, he clears a plot in the foreign concession for her to choose from. If a political enemy dares lay a finger on her, he'll tear down their stronghold.

From a caged rose forced into marriage to Mrs. Lu, standing beside him against foreign enemies and wielding commercial power, Su Qinghuan finally understands: amid the turmoil of this age, beside the fiercest gunfire lies his deepest devotion.

"Lu Tingchen, didn't you say I was just a pawn?" He holds her close, his thumb brushing the scar behind her ear, his eyes filled with an inexpressible