The Shadow Guard Becomes Empress, the Legitimate Daughter Becomes Crown Princess

At fourteen, Shen Qing was declared dead by her own father, erased from the family genealogy, and sold into a brothel.

Covered in brands, she was hunted through the wilds to the edge of a cliff, with nothing but a sharpened wooden stick in her hand.

Then the young emperor reached out to her. “The Shen family doesn't want you. I do.”

For the next ten years, she was the blade he raised with his own hands, and his only shadow.

He taught her to read, to love, and to conduct herself; she took arrows for him, caught blades, and slaughtered his enemies.

She knew nothing of love, only that it hurt to see him speaking with a female official. He was fastidious and abstinent, yet he alone let her come within three paces, falling asleep each night to the sound of her breathing.

She thought it was a bond between master and servant, but he pressed his ancestral dragon-patterned jade pendant into her hand. “Keep it. No one will dare lay a hand on you now.”

She thought it was a reward for her service, but he pinned her against the dragon throne and bit her earlobe. “Qingqing, I like the way you get jealous.”

Later, she became his empress, commanding the shadow guards and holding a rank equal to the deputy ruler. The historians recorded, “The Emperor loved her dearly.”

Later, when their daughter picked a military treatise at her first-birthday ceremony, he made her Crown Princess, setting a precedent never before seen in history.

Their son was made Prince of Yan and sent far from the capital. He said, “Qingqing, I won't let our children turn against each other.”

Later, he secretly used birth-control incense for ten years. When she gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl, she had nearly died, and he couldn't bear to let her suffer again.

She asked him, “Does Your Majesty think your consort has grown old?”

He kissed her forehead. “I'm afraid I've grown old and won't have the strength to spend a lifetime keeping you jealous.”

He raised a wolf as his empress, and her jealousy ran wild.

He placed this empire in her hands; she shared the realm with him.

Both devoted only to each other, one-on-one romance, happy ending