Clear Pear Blossoms Reflected in the Evening Snow

[Faithful leads + slow burn early on + young married couple + steady, enduring love + nation and family + no rivalry between women + political intrigue as a supporting element]

Gentle, restrained war god x clear-headed, independent heiress? Turns out we've been shattering each other's carefully crafted personas all along.

Mu Chenyan was afflicted with a deadly chill poison. Rumor had it that any woman who came near him would die, so he was destined to be alone. But after years on the battlefield, his lonely, stoic heart met a blazing, radiant one, and she gave him the most passionate love.

Jiang Xueling believed marriage only meant falling from one cage into another. Then someone told her she could become a wild wind, free and unbound.

A marriage contract made them husband and wife in name only. Yet amid treacherous twists and turns, they held back their feelings and stayed by each other's side, distant before others, warm behind closed doors.

*

He could kill without so much as blinking. Though he always disliked getting blood on his fingertips, he would carefully wipe them clean.

Then he heard that the Princess Consort had arrived. The frost in his eyes melted away, and he was so startled that the handkerchief fell to the ground.

His earlier murderous fury vanished completely, replaced by the fluster of a young man. "Where is she?"

*

When someone scorned women, she quietly plotted and struck back with poison, even while imprisoned.

Afterward, she threw herself into Mu Chenyan's arms, her voice trembling. "Your Highness, I'm scared."

"Don't be afraid. Let's go home."

If he hadn't just seen her calmly make her plans, and if she weren't still reminding him to follow the clues left by the poison, Mu Chenyan would have believed her.

*

"I was like duckweed, with nowhere to call home. Through years of wind and rain, how fortunate I was to have you."

"I was like a caged kite, confined to a tiny space. Across a thousand rivers and mountains, how fortunate I was to have your protection."

(PS: This is not a transmigration, reborn, revenge-and-wish-fulfillment novel. The early chapters focus on the romance and everyday life. Political intrigue and other crises gradually unfold in the middle and later parts.)