She was the daughter of a general, but after her family was wiped out overnight, she hid her identity and became the lowliest kitchen maid in a marquis’s household.
He was once the capital’s most dazzling young general. Betrayed by his own men on the battlefield after being set up, he was left disfigured and disabled, reduced to a “useless heir” confined to a side residence.
Everyone avoided him like the plague. Only she came barging into his world of wreckage with a bowl of hot porridge and a bright smile.
At first, she only wanted to find clues about the truth behind her family’s massacre.
Later, he planted himself in front of her, leaning on his crutch, and said to the blade poised against her: “Only I get to punish my woman.”
From using each other to standing together through life and death, from a gloomy side residence to a public trial at court, two people crushed by fate pulled each other back from the abyss.
When the dust finally settled, they gave up their wealth and glory and slipped away in an old carriage.
She said, “All I want is to live quietly for the rest of my life.”
He said, “What a coincidence. Me too.”
So beneath the osmanthus tree, they planted vegetables, tended flowers, and grew old together.
