[Historical Romance] [One-on-One] [Both Leads Untouched] [Two Strong Leads] [Career-Minded Leads] [Case-Solving]
The year Su Qingtang turned seventeen, the clanking chains of the Imperial Guard shattered the peace of the Su residence.
"Su Wenyuan has been embezzling. Seize him!"
As her father was dragged away, his anguished cries rang out, while her mother clutched her young brother, trembling all over. Friends and relatives who had once been close now avoided them like the plague. With nowhere else to turn, Su Qingtang heard that the Lu family could cure the poison afflicting Lu Jingran, the young top scorer in the imperial examinations, in exchange for granting one wish.
He was a top scorer who had passed the examinations at sixteen and taken charge of criminal cases at twenty. The cure required a woman's body to help balance his condition for three days. Su Qingtang steeled herself and entered the Lu residence.
He was so proud that he would rather die than comply, but a physician restrained him with acupuncture. His father promised to rescue Su Qingtang's father, then afterward offered her only land and silver. She accepted them and turned to leave.
When Lu Jingran woke, however, his eyes were red. This official, who valued propriety above all, overturned a table. "I have taken your innocence, so I must take responsibility!" Despite his illness, he reopened the case and rescued Su Qingtang's father. When he found her, he declared with ringing conviction, "Marry me."
Su Qingtang was sketching a case file and did not even look up. "My chastity is not for a man to define."
He was ordered to leave the capital, while she carried his child. She moved with her father to a distant town and lived there for three years. When they met again, he had become an imperial inspector. He came upon her with a two-year-old child who could neither walk nor speak, but whose features looked remarkably like his.
"Can the perfect life of Lord Lu really accommodate this 'blemish'?" she asked pointedly.
He held the child tightly in his arms, his gaze burning. "If the child is mine, then they're no blemish."
When they investigated cases, her brushwork broke open the clues, while he delivered verdicts according to the law. Their teamwork was astonishing. He went from insisting he had to "take responsibility" to falling genuinely in love, while she still thought he was simply following the rules
