Blurb: (Draft in progress)
To the north, a military marquis has risen like a force of nature. No one has ever survived his seven-foot sword.
Three years have passed, and the court has been forced into retreat at every turn. The empire teeters on the brink of collapse.
To stabilize the situation, the court dispatches a princess to marry the marquis, along with ten thousand taels of gold.
Yet despite a steady stream of envoys, the marquis's residence keeps its gates firmly shut.
From within, only one sentence is sent out: Have County Lady Shen Jian Yue accompany the princess as part of her dowry.
*
Shen Jian Yue never imagined that, as the family member of a low-ranking official, she would twice stir up a storm in the treacherous court.
The first time, she presented evidence of treason and sent Xie Ji, the dashing young marquis of Shengjing, to the executioner's block.
As the young man's prison cart passed the Shen residence, an imperial decree conferring the title of County Lady was delivered into Shen Jian Yue's hands.
The second time, a military marquis she'd never even met casually declared that the esteemed County Lady of the empire would now serve as part of a bride's dowry.
The marquis was ruthless, and the princess was merciless. Knowing she couldn't stand against them, Shen Jian Yue could only flee on her wedding night.
But in the cramped, pitch-black maids' quarters, porcelain suddenly clinked against porcelain.
"Where are you going?"
The marquis, who should have been attending the wedding rites, sat behind her, his black python-embroidered robe blending into the night.
Only his long fingers, crisscrossed with whip scars, were exposed to the moonlight as he slowly stirred his tea.
On his fingertips remained two old bite marks, left by the young girl who had once playfully bitten him...
*
For a year after the princess entered the residence, the marquis claimed his military duties kept him too busy to spend the night in her chambers.
One night, the princess came to see him with a bowl of warming soup. Through a crack in the window, she accidentally caught sight of military treatises scattered across the floor.
The broad-shouldered, muscular marquis had his dowry maid, who was always absent-minded and sickly, trapped before a mirror.
In the mirror, the young woman stood with her hair in disarray, biting the man's index finger as she wept with restrained anguish. "Xie Ji, it's been a year. Isn't that enough?"
"Shen Jian Yue, this is only the beginning..."
Back then, she had abandoned him and ruined him, turning him into a monster everyone despised.
So he would break her, shatter her, drag her into this lightless hell, and rot in the mud with her. They would never be free of each other until death.
Love and hate tangled together + possessive love
1. The princess is not innocent. The marquis has his own reasons for bringing her to his territory. He is devoted to her alone.
2. The leads both have their own troubles. Neither is a flawless saint.
Note added 2026.10.10
Theme: Love can give people flesh and blood.
