Tales of Yong'an

Short version: [Two ambitious schemers meet head-on, evenly matched]

After the Empress Dowager's decree of marriage bound together two people who could hardly have been less suited to each other, the fierce rivalry between the young lady of the Zhong family and His Highness Prince Yong never let up.

She nervously exposed Prince Yong's private army before the emperor, gently sent his trusted aide to the imperial prison, and, while she was at it, tore his new policies to shreds.

He enthusiastically confiscated her cousin's property, kindly sent her clan uncle to repair the emperor's tomb, and thoughtfully exposed her carefully laid plan at court.

As they traded wins and losses, feelings and regrets neither of them had noticed began to sprout. At first, they were like a blade of grass pushing through frozen earth: just a tiny crack, yet enough to make the whole plain of the heart itch.

We weren't born enemies, so we must have been born lovers.

The itch didn't hurt, but it seeped into their veins until neither could keep pretending not to care.

When a long-planned upheaval suddenly began, Zhong Hanzhang realized she might have been too arrogant.

As if to punish herself, she knelt in the snow, asking herself again and again: If only she'd paid a little more attention, if only she'd planned a few more steps ahead, could all of this have been avoided?

A broad black umbrella opened above her, sheltering her beneath a quiet sky. Meng Cezong gazed at her forever-stubborn eyes. His voice was still cool and calm, yet it seemed to hold emotions Zhong Hanzhang couldn't quite identify: perhaps anger, perhaps resentment, perhaps restrained pain.

"Zhong Hanzhang, would you like to try playing this game of chess with me another way?"

The swirling snow suddenly stopped.

In the fourth year of Yong'an, the Empress Dowager passed away, and the entire nation mourned. Qingpu Temple was ordered to conduct the funeral rites. During the solemn ceremony, three tolls of the bell, announcing the death of a sovereign, broke the silence. With the death of the person who had struck the bell, the dark secrets behind Qingpu Temple, an ancient monastery with a history of centuries, came to light...

Prince Yong Meng Cezong personally sent the parasites who clung to the great aristocratic families to the imperial prison, yet he sensed that he, too, might have become a pawn in someone else's game.

When he turned around, he met a pair of eyes as still as jade-green waters, yet concealing ripples beneath the surface.

In that moment, their gazes met like two lone wolves encountering each other on a snowy night, cold and alert.

Meng Cezong suddenly remembered Zhong Hanzhang at Dongqing Academy: poised in the breeze, her gaze bright and spirited. Her mind held ambitions for the land and all its people, while her writing spoke of the way to govern a peaceful and prosperous realm. Like him, she knew that the abuses of the great aristocratic families would sooner or later bring Great Zhou to ruin, consuming it and dragging it into the abyss.

Meng Cezong thought that perhaps she really was different from the others in her family, and perhaps they should be allies.

But Zhong Hanzhang frowned in displeasure and said coolly, "Your Highness, do you have some misunderstanding about me?"

[Reader's Guide]

A powerful couple, married first and in love later, with intense push and pull. At first, they fight like their lives depend on it, each pursuing their own ambitions. Later, they dote on each other just as fiercely while pursuing their ambitions together.

The female lead is clear-headed and rational, and no pushover. She isn't exactly a good person: at first, she's devoted to protecting her own and her family's interests, regardless of what happens to anyone else. She grows and changes her outlook in the middle and later parts of the story. The male lead is a warlord forged in troubled times, driven to reform, with both ambition and ability.

Set in an alternate Wei-Jin era. Don't take it as historical fact!!!

Theme: Affection can change, but the value of being useful lasts forever