Also known as A Tender Heart for Qiu
[One-on-One Romance | Mutual Secret Crushes | Happy Ending | Mistaken Assumptions About Their Orientation | Woman Disguised as a Man (He Sees Through It at First Sight)]
When they first met,
he was a delicate, mysterious performer at a theater, burdened with secrets about his past and several identities, moving between the court and the world of commerce.
She was a stern, solitary junior minister at the Court of Judicial Review. Disguised as a man, she had gone from sheltered young lady to cold, powerful official, all to uncover the truth behind her family’s ruin.
He saw through every one of her disguises from the start, yet could never get enough of her serious demeanor. So he drew closer step by step, tested her again and again, grew jealous for her, and fell deeper and deeper.
She thought he was attracted to men; he thought she cared only about solving cases.
She thought he and the Second Prince were star-crossed lovers; he thought she had no feelings for him and treated him with nothing but professional courtesy.
They were secretly in love and misunderstood each other, yet both were convinced they had hidden it perfectly.
Until one night, when she collapsed into his arms, gravely wounded. His hands trembled as he removed her bloodstained official robes, and at last he could hide his feelings no longer.
“You knew from the start that I was a woman?”
“Of course. Why else would I tease you and only you among all the men at the Court of Judicial Review? Because you outrank them?”
