Half a Sheet of Merit

Powerful duo | Court intrigue | A touch of ensemble cast Ruthless, cold-hearted, beautiful male general × decisive, aloof female strategist - Lu Mingqin used to think that if the road to fame was hard, then there was nothing he couldn’t use and nothing he couldn’t abandon. That was why General Lu feared no death on the battlefield, but didn’t have much of a conscience in the way he did things. People respected him for his outstanding military achievements, but feared his ruthlessness, cold heart, and unscrupulous methods. Until he met Lin Nanxu. After meeting Miss Lin, Lord Lu understood what it would look like if the shadow of a crane over a cold pond took physical form: a vision of such quiet desolation. An inconspicuous clerk serving under Military Advisor Yanxi, a minister’s daughter living under an assumed name, a decisive strategist. Lu Mingqin thought this was nothing more than a mutually beneficial arrangement. But after working together in Jiangling, he sank deeper with every step, risking his life to protect her. For the crane’s shadow that had captivated him at first sight, he fell into a world of turmoil from which there was no escape. And he did so willingly. - Lin Nanxu had no lofty ambition to serve the people. The world belonged to the Zhou family. What did it have to do with her? Bearing the injustice done to her as the daughter of a disgraced minister, she lived under an assumed name, calling herself Qin Wenqing as she worked as an inconspicuous clerk in Yanxi. All she wanted in life was for the people around her to be safe and well. But in the seventeenth year of Shaozhi, the siege of Yanxi ultimately pushed her into a treacherous abyss. The bandits were brutal, the powerful families of Jiangling harbored hidden motives, and factional struggles in the court surged beneath the surface. Danger lurked everywhere. With their lives hanging in the balance, they fought with everything they had. They put down the Japanese pirates in the east, drove out the northern invaders, and saved the people from catastrophe. Yet in the end, their achievements became shackles of guilt, their deep affection a noose. Through a sea of misery, they were doomed to suffer eternally. The lonely crane’s shadow ultimately traveled alongside tigers and leopards. - Readers who want a happy ending can skip from Chapter 36, “A Thousand Ages of Rivers and Mountains,” straight to Chapter 45, “A Bountiful Harvest.” - I really can’t write blurbs. Please come read the actual story, I’m begging you. Theme: May righteousness endure through the ages, and may people like this rise again today