Jiang Fu was thrown out of her family home. The common folk had heard plenty of stories about noblewomen who turned out to be impostors, but this was such a rare spectacle that they had never seen one with their own eyes.
They gathered in front of the residence, craning their necks and waiting for a show, only for another piece of excitement to arrive instead.
The emperor's daughter, lost among the common folk, had been found and brought back. The young general Wei Chuan, thought to have died in battle, had returned safely with an enemy general's head.
Word came from the palace that the emperor would grant a general amnesty.
Yet the young general, usually so detached from worldly desires, suddenly broke with tradition. He rode two horses to death, then knelt in the Golden Hall. He asked for no reward, only to marry one person, but the emperor rejected him on the spot!
Now that was a real spectacle. The whole capital buzzed with rumors that the emperor had taken a liking to the young general's sweetheart.
Wei Chuan, drinking away his sorrows, heard the rumor too. For a while, he thought the man on the throne meant to steal the woman he loved. But when he turned around, he saw the person he had searched for so desperately climbing into a carriage with a newly risen noble.
He followed them all the way to a villa outside the capital. The noble addressed her softly as Imperial Princess, and the two of them behaved intimately as they admired flowers and drank tea.
In the shadows, Wei Chuan stared at the noble's face, which bore a striking resemblance to his own. His fists clenched until they turned hard and cold.
Once the guests had left, the Imperial Princess had barely stepped into the study when a gust of wind slammed the door shut behind her.
With bloodshot eyes, Wei Chuan pressed her lightly against a chair and ground out each word through clenched teeth. "Jiang Fu! Just because I refused to elope with you back then, you're going to abandon me?"
Jiang Fu hooked an arm around his neck. Her bright, dewy eyes were full of innocence. "If you don't want me, why can't I choose not to want you?"
Wei Chuan's blood surged. He laughed in anger, scooped up her petite figure, and carried her toward the bed. His voice was gentle, as if he meant to drown her in his very bones. "How could I not want you? I just don't know if you, a fake Imperial Princess, can handle me."
1. This blurb was screenshotted and documented on February 4, 2025.
2. The full novel has been completed in draft.
Theme: None of our encounters are coincidences
