A Stunning Vision of the Capital

[Marriage first, love later + two equally strong leads standing side by side + the powerful one learning to yield + unrequited love fulfilled + both leads are devoted only to each other]

On her wedding day, before the veil has even been lifted, she hears her fiancé say he wants her as a concubine.

She doesn’t cry, make a scene, or get on her knees. She does something no one in the whole capital would dare do: she writes four words to the young lord known as the God of Death. Come steal me.

Pei Jinghan has been waiting three years for that letter.

Three years ago, at the Qionglin Banquet, she was cornered and harassed. She refuted every accusation one by one. Her hands trembled when she finished, but she never lost her composure. He watched her from where he leaned against a pillar, wine cup in hand. Just one glance. He remembered it for three years.

He leads soldiers to kick open the doors of the wedding hall, his sword pointed at the groom. She lifts her veil and tears the marriage contract in half. “I, Shen Luotang, will never accept sharing a husband with another woman. I’d rather shatter like jade than remain intact like a roof tile.”

He reaches out. “Come with me.” She places her hand in his. “I won’t stand behind anyone. I want us to stand side by side.” He is silent for a moment. “All right.”

After the wedding, he stubbornly insists, “I won’t touch you unless you want me to.” But when she kicks off the covers in the middle of the night, he comes in again and again to tuck her in. When he goes to the northern frontier, he climbs back over the wall and leaves an inscribed arrow on her windowsill: The wind of the northern frontier can’t extinguish the lights of the capital.

She opens a secret compartment in his study and finds the handkerchief she dropped at the Qionglin Banquet three years ago, the torn pieces of her marriage contract, and a prescription she once jotted down.

On the journey north, snow and wind block the road, and she shivers in the carriage. He pulls her onto the same horse as him and wraps his cloak around her. “Still cold?” “Not anymore.” She leans against his back, and his hand covers hers. He doesn’t let go.

She thinks that letter was her last desperate gamble. She has no idea that for him, it was the fulfillment of a wish he’d waited three whole years to see come true.