Where Spring Cannot Be Seen

Dashing young general × gloomy, melancholy little white flower

When Wei Zhuo was young, he accompanied his father to the palace. On the jade steps, a figure in plain white caught his eye. Zhao Pingwu was bending down to pick up a kite blown away by the wind, without even a single hairpin in her hair.

After five years of bloody battles, he had conquered all eighteen commanderies of the Xiongnu. At the victory banquet, the emperor asked Wei Zhuo what reward he wanted. The young general dropped to one knee, still in his armor. “Your Majesty, I ask to marry Princess Yongning.”

The court erupted in shock. Everyone knew that Yongning’s mother had died after being convicted of a crime, and that the princess had already been chosen to marry off for an alliance.

Red candles blazed high as Wei Zhuo gently took Princess Yongning’s cold hand.

But she turned her face away. “Why would a general marry me?”

Wei Zhuo paused. Candlelight flickered in his eyes, and he only said softly, “Go to sleep. We have to get up early tomorrow.”

Zhao Pingwu lost her mother when she was young and spent fifteen years alone in the palace. It wasn’t until a marriage contract was brought before her that she left the Cold Palace for the first time.

Wei Zhuo treated her so well that the whole capital praised their marriage as a beautiful love story. Yet she remained distant. When helping him change, she never looked up. She quietly set aside the food he served her. When he returned home late at night, the lights in her room were always out early.

Until the day an assassin broke into their home. Wei Zhuo took a sword in the back meant for her, his blood soaking through his clothes. Before he passed out, he urgently told the guards, “Don’t frighten her... Don’t let her see the blood.”

Zhao Pingwu kept vigil at his bedside for three days and nights. When he woke and saw her swollen eyes, he smiled with a sigh. “How did you still end up seeing it?”

[Bonus scene]

In early spring, Zhao Pingwu discovered an old wooden box in the corner of Wei Zhuo’s study. Neatly arranged inside were the cord bracelet she had lost as a child, a copy of the edict ordering her marriage alliance, his bloodstained wrist guard from the battlefield... and a stack of papers, each bearing a single sentence. The handwriting grew from childish scrawl to strong, vigorous strokes.

“She ate alone again today.”

“I wonder if the moon at the border shines through the little window of her Cold Palace.”

“I won. Now I can go back and marry her.”

“She smiled at me today.”

The last page was freshly inked, the characters pressed firmly into the paper:

“There’s no hurry. I have a whole lifetime to wait, little by little.”

Magnolias bloomed outside the window, their petals drifting in and landing gently in her suddenly blurred vision.

1. One-on-one romance, both leads sexually inexperienced, happy ending.

2. Set in a fictional world, focused on everyday life.

Check out my upcoming novel, To You, Zhenzhen

Spoiled, beautiful young heiress × restrained, patient top scholar

Ye Zhen has spent sixteen years as a spoiled young heiress. Everyone in town knows the Ye family’s only daughter is precious beyond measure and has quite a temper.

When she reaches the age to marry, her parents come up with a clever plan: toss an embroidered ball as a mere formality, put an end to the rumor that she can’t find a husband, then call it a day.

But just as the ball leaves her hands, the new top scholar, who happens to be parading through the streets, looks up and catches it perfectly.

The whole city is in an uproar. Then an imperial decree arrives right on its heels: the emperor has personally arranged a happy match, and the wedding is to take place on a chosen date.

Ye Zhen grits her teeth and accepts this sham marriage, intending to treat the stiff, formal top scholar with icy courtesy.

On their wedding night, she deliberately makes things difficult for him. “I’m sleeping in the inner room. You can sleep on the floor outside.”

Shen Yanshu nods. “All right.”

The next morning, Ye Zhen discovers he really did spend the night sleeping on the hard floor, without even touching her bedding.

As time passes, she realizes that he’s wonderful in every way. His colleagues at the Hanlin Academy try to curry favor with him, but he ignores them. His superior wants to marry his daughter to him as a secondary wife, but he turns her down. When someone brings up Ye Zhen’s status as a merchant’s daughter, he immediately turns cold.

Ye Zhen can’t help asking, “Are you like this with everyone?”

Shen Yanshu glances at her without replying.

Then one day, she overhears him talking with a colleague. The man teases him for being afraid of his wife, and Shen Yanshu actually laughs. “It’s not that I’m afraid of her.”

“Then what is it?”

He lowers his eyes, his voice calm. “I’m afraid she’ll be treated unfairly.”

Theme: Strive to live well