Mother, Don't Marry Him

The day I was betrothed to the heir of the Marquis of Jing'an, a blood-soaked little boy burst into the reception hall, clung to me, and sobbed as he called me Mother.

He said that if I still married Lu Chengxiao that day, the Shen family would be destroyed three years later, my father would be imprisoned on criminal charges, and I would be trapped in the marquis's residence's western courtyard and burned alive. And he would watch me die with his own eyes.

Everyone thought he was mad, until he pulled from Lu Chengxiao's sleeve the account sheet that had been stolen from my father that very morning. Then I realized this wasn't a childish prank, but a warning that had come too late to ignore.

A single page of accounts led to illicit salt in the southeast, an old military supplies case, and plots by powerful families. An old jade pendant engraved with “Changheng” brought me to Pei Changheng, a cold and heartless man. Everyone said he was the sharpest blade in the Court of Judicial Review, but no one told me why the child who called me Mother would cry out to him as Father.

The engagement was a trap, the inner residence was a trap, and the court was a trap too.

In this life, I refuse to be the Shen family's legitimate daughter, placed on someone else's chessboard. If anyone wants to use my marriage to clear their way, or climb to power over the Shen family's blood, I'll tear away their respectable facade with my own hands and take back my life.