Lin Wan transmigrated into the frail, sickly son of a concubine in the Marquis of Yongning’s household.
From the start, there was a coffin, and her concubine mother wept more convincingly than she sang. Unfortunately for them, she wasn’t quite dead.
A training-school teacher with an English degree from a second-tier college, her entire stock of worldly assets consisted of two hundred classical poems from compulsory education, the knack for reading people she had developed through IELTS listening practice, and the ability to speak appropriately to anyone, whether human or ghost, learned from teaching classes.
The problem was that this world had no Li Bai or Du Fu. The Quiet Night Thoughts she recited offhandedly became her father’s impromptu masterpiece. At the Mid-Autumn poetry gathering, her “Thoughts on the Moon from Afar” moved the Director of the Imperial College to his feet, bowing in admiration.
Worse, the Eighth Prince, a playboy on the surface but cunning beneath, had his eye on her.
“I need a retainer.”
“I need money.”
“Deal. But I have one condition: I’m not becoming cannon fodder.”
She only wanted to lie flat and stay alive, but kept getting pushed into the heart of court politics. She only wanted to play dumb and get by, but got dragged into the fight for the throne. Worse still, the Princess Zhaoning, who refused to marry, pulled her into signing an agreement:
A fake marriage, a real partnership.
But as they played their parts, the princess started looking at her in a very different way.
After Lin Wan had made her name, the princess blocked the doorway, still wearing her phoenix crown and wedding robes. “Chief Councillor, shouldn’t we renew our agreement?”
The history books recorded: Lin Yan was a renowned scholar of his age, whose poetry spread throughout the realm. He and his wife, the Xiao family, treated each other with respect, and had no children.
The emperor on the throne knew the truth: she was no ordinary person, but the one and only kindred spirit of his life.
