The Regent Tears Up the Divorce Agreement

To balance the powers at court, Xie Wanning became a pawn in Prince Ming's hands and was forced to marry Xiao Yunting, the all-powerful regent. He left her alone on their wedding night, treated her coldly and warily after their marriage, and even publicly slandered her as unworthy of being his consort. Determined to prove herself, she studied household management, cooking, poetry, and literature, yet she could never warm his frozen heart. After losing hope, she stopped trying to please him and returned to her old martial arts and medical texts. She quietly did good deeds and made a life of her own. Xiao Yunting was finally moved by her clear-eyed strength and resilience, but just as his view of her began to change, he took a secondary consort for political gain. On the wedding night, she danced with her sword until dawn, alone beneath the osmanthus trees. In the years that followed, the secondary consort constantly made things difficult for her, while his favoritism only made matters worse. When the nation faced peril, she betrayed her father for Xiao Yunting, persuaded him to surrender, and joined forces with her husband to fight their foreign enemies. Her sincerity finally brought him to a belated realization. Just as he was preparing to spend the rest of his life with her, Xie Wanning left a letter of separation, determined to grant him and his secondary consort the “lifelong devotion of two alone.” The once-arrogant regent tore up the letter of separation and embarked on a long road to win his wife back.