[Both Leads Are Experienced + Combative Couple + Clear-Headed Heroine + A Scoundrel’s Sincere Feelings + Love and Hate + Palace Intrigue]
(Warning: This is not a sweet romance. There’s little love and a lot of hatred, with the leads constantly hurting each other. Neither lead is chaste!!! If that bothers you, don’t read. The male lead is a real piece of work with no morals, and the story includes coercion and abduction.
The heroine doesn’t know the male lead well at first and is in a vulnerable position.
A scoundrel offers her a little sincerity, but she doesn’t want it.)
Her childhood sweetheart of a husband is entangled with his distant cousin? He curries favor with a county princess and tries to poison his wife so he can marry someone else?
What a ridiculous fantasy.
She neither cried nor made a scene, unaware that a pair of eyes had been watching everything from the shadows.
At a palace banquet, she publicly severed ties with him, laying the poisoning charges before everyone, one word at a time.
Emperor Pei Jinzhi watched the scene unfold, then stepped in to deliver justice.
Her husband was executed by lingchi, and his entire family was exiled.
Then, under the pretext of “protecting” her, the Emperor kept her in the palace overnight.
That night, he climbed through her window and onto her bed.
“I helped you. How are you going to repay me?”
She held a hairpin to her throat. “I can never repay you for saving my life, so let me give my life to Your Majesty in return.”
Later, he welcomed her into the palace in a grand ceremony.
She fought the concubines, fought the court, and fought the volatile tyrant.
