Xie Jinglan had done two particularly outrageous things in his life:
First, he spent over a decade posing as a dissolute playboy while secretly weaving a network that spanned the realm.
Second, on the day his sworn enemy was married, he snatched the famed eldest daughter of the Shen family right off the street.
He had meant to ruin his enemy’s marriage and rescue a beautiful woman from a miserable fate.
But when he lifted the sedan curtain, the stunning woman who should have been terrified met his eyes with the same calm resolve as his own.
She placed her hand in his palm and whispered:
“Xie Jinglan, take me with you. I know what you want, and I can give you even more.”
Later, the whole capital witnessed this “scandalous outrage” turn into a “match made in heaven.”
He cleared his name, rose to the highest ranks of court, and set his sights on the realm.
She founded an academy, challenged the Confucian order, and made a name for herself far and wide.
When his nemesis snarled resentfully from below the steps, “She was just someone I didn’t want, ”
Xie Jinglan’s sword was already at the man’s throat. He smiled faintly.
“No. She was a treasure you failed to recognize, and at last she found someone who could.”
