Matriarchy: The Husband I Won Through Scheming Is Both Obedient and Wild

[Matriarchal society + court intrigue + mutual salvation, one-on-one romance, devoted couple, cool and calculating crown princess × energetic, sweet-natured young husband]

An Lan, crown princess of Dayan, is a skilled martial artist with a stern disposition, accustomed to treating the whole realm as a chessboard. She has always weighed gains and losses, never considering people’s hearts.

Until one rainy night, at a ruined temple, she finds a young man covered in whip marks: Zhang Zhile, son of a river official from the previous dynasty. He clawed his way out of the mud of the entertainment house, is adept at reading people, and is most afraid of being abandoned. She saves him only to keep a useful witness close.

She takes him to reopen old cases, investigate powerful clans, and uncover the hidden accounts of the Eight Kingdoms, traveling from Jiangnan’s bone-deep secrets to a land where mountains and rivers are the chessboard. Without realizing it, she raises him into a stunning beauty who dares to go alone to Yumen and help her move the pieces.

She believes love means choosing a safe place for him and protecting him there. He asks through tears, “You never even asked whether I wanted that.”

At last, she lets go of her instinct to scheme for the whole realm, and he finally believes that being loved does not mean owing a debt.

My wife, from now on, I’ll be by your side across these ten thousand miles of mountains and rivers.