I have a general I've always gotten up to mischief with. I never planned on getting involved with him. Years ago, I had a vivid dream that someone stabbed me to death, and the last person to protect me before I died was him. After I woke up, somehow we ended up together.
His sister and I were once engaged, but she died very young. Influenced by that dream, I never married. His family is practically an in-law clan. He's so powerful that no further honors can be bestowed on him, and the court is starting to panic. The ministers my father entrusted to me hinted that I should marry one of my sisters to him, making our families kin by marriage.
I agreed, because we really were just having fun. I strongly suspected he thought I might be humiliating him. So I tested the waters and asked which of my father's daughters he wanted to marry.
He bowed to the ground and disobeyed my decree for the first time, saying he wouldn't dare marry a princess. I asked which nobleman's daughter he wanted to marry, but he only said he would devote his life to the country, with the spirit of, “With the Xiongnu still unconquered, how can I think of home?”
Suddenly, I understood something.
“Jiang Youchuan, are you in love with me?”
Jiang Youchuan has always known that the emperor summoned him to bed only because his features bear some resemblance to his sister's.
He knows how despicable he is, yet can't help feeling secretly delighted by that resemblance. Whenever he sees the emperor's eyes grow tender, his heart races.
He swore he would hide his feelings forever, remaining the emperor's most loyal subject and sharpest sword, as long as the emperor would let him stay by his side.
But everything changed the day the emperor encountered someone who looked even more like his sister.
The emperor no longer summoned him to bed or let him attend at his side. The looks of favor he'd once received were now bestowed on someone else.
He took on the mission to put down a rebellion and won people's loyalty, all so the emperor might find him more useful and look his way again, even just a little.
But what came was an imperial edict arranging his marriage.
1. Third-person narration, focused on the gong. A cheerful, shameless, lovestruck playboy and reborn emperor gong × a loyal, long-suffering general shou
2. Pure romance, with the career plot only briefly touched upon
3. One-on-one romance. The person mentioned in the shou's blurb is just a plot device; the gong isn't in love with him.
Theme: Love matters
