“Shen Zhao, receive the imperial decree!” The eunuch’s shrill voice shattered the solemn silence of the military camp. “Return to the capital at once and marry the young master of the Lu family.”
The entire camp erupted in uproar. Their general, the female war god who had donned armor at sixteen and swept across the northern frontier at twenty, was now to be confined to a grand manor by a marriage decree?
Shen Zhao accepted the decree with a cold laugh. How could she not know this was the court’s scheme to curb her, now that she commanded the army? Lu Jingzhi, rumored to do nothing but indulge in cockfighting and horse racing, was nothing more than a spy the emperor had planted by her side.
On their wedding night, she flicked up her veil with a sword and looked coldly at her drunken groom. “Young Master Lu, from today on, you’ll sleep in the study.”
But she never expected that this seemingly frivolous young master would shield her with his own body when assassins ambushed her; find the most outrageous ways to help her out when officials made things difficult; and keep watch by her bedside all night when an old injury flared up.
When war beacons blazed once more on the northern frontier and no one at court dared answer the call to battle, Lu Jingzhi took her hand. “I’ll go with you.” Only then did Shen Zhao discover that her “playboy husband” had a scar at his waist identical to the one on the young man she had rescued on the battlefield years ago...
In troubled times, even the sharpest sword may yield to the gentlest hand.
