The Aloof Powerful Minister Falls for His Stand-In

Second-Chance Romance | Possessive Love | Angst Before Sweetness | Rekindled Love | Court Politics | Lost and Found

Pei Yan, the Grand Secretary of the current dynasty, held immense power and was cold and merciless. He was the last person anyone in the capital would dare offend.

He took no concubines and kept his distance from women. Only he knew that, deep in his heart, he cherished a pure white moonlight who had long since married another man.

So when Lin Weilan, daughter of the Vice Minister of Rites, caught his eye with eyes remarkably like his beloved's, he took her under his wing.

He brought her into his residence and hired the finest tutors to teach her music, chess, calligraphy, and painting. He gave her splendid clothes and exquisite food, yet never once shared her bed. He treated her like a work of art to be meticulously polished, every detail required to perfectly reproduce the woman in his heart. He always addressed her by her full name: "Lin Weilan, come here." "Lin Weilan, you shouldn't make that expression."

Lin Weilan always stayed clearheaded, keeping strictly to her role as a "substitute." She copied the woman's bearing and handwriting, and even when Pei Yan gazed into her eyes, lost in thought, she knew to lower her lashes in time, hiding every feeling she shouldn't have. She thought she was merely a reflection in a fleeting dream, and that when the real woman returned, she would wake from it.

Until the palace banquet, when his white moonlight returned with her husband.

Everyone waited to see Lin Weilan, the counterfeit, discarded like trash. But on the very night his beloved returned, she respectfully handed him her resignation: "My lord, it's time for the play to end."

Pei Yan accepted it expressionlessly, then tore it to shreds on the spot and held her captive in his arms. For the first time, a wild, uncontrollable flame burned in his icy eyes. "You can decide when the play begins. But I decide when it ends."