[Please read the content warnings]
During an assassination attempt, Zhu Mingyu and Xie Xun fell off a cliff together and became trapped in a remote mountain wilderness.
Their stations in life were worlds apart, separated by an unbridgeable gulf.
Xie Xun was the heir to the Duke of Rong. His father came from a distinguished family of hereditary nobility, and his mother was the emperor's only legitimate elder sister. From birth, he belonged among the most exalted of the elite.
She, by contrast, was merely the most inconspicuous maid in Xie Xun's household, from a family as lowly as dust.
He barely knew Zhu Mingyu, only that she was his good friend's beloved.
He thought her plain, and couldn't understand his friend's taste at all.
On the first day they were trapped, Zhu Mingyu accidentally fell into his arms. She was terrified.
His brows drew together in displeasure. "Stay away from me. I don't want anything to do with Yuchi's beloved."
She didn't dare talk back and could only nod nervously.
On the third day, she was shivering from the cold. Seeing her lips tremble, he softened and stripped off his clothes to warm her. "I'm only saving you for Yuchi's sake."
Half-conscious, she could only nod vaguely and swear that once they got out, she wouldn't say a word about it or ruin the young master's reputation.
On the twentieth day, during a thunderstorm, Zhu Mingyu was falling asleep when she felt something crawl into her arms.
She opened her eyes halfway and saw that usually brazen, arrogant face, now faintly flushed. "I've been afraid of thunder since I was little."
Zhu Mingyu's face flushed too. "...Mm."
Seeing her obediently agree, so meek and afraid to resist, Xie Xun thought he was awful.
But...
She was far too easy to bully.
He wanted to kiss her until she couldn't breathe.
As rescuers arrived, the two promised to forget everything that had happened during those thirty days once they got out.
Then they would go their separate ways.
At first, he kept his promise.
Until the day of the Duke's birthday banquet. Xie Xun sat at the head of the table and watched his good friend tenderly brush a strand of hair from her face.
His heart suddenly roiled with anger, and he drained cup after cup of strong liquor.
He thought he must be going mad.
That night, Zhu Mingyu prepared the papers to buy her freedom. She planned to leave the manor the next day and was calculating when she could marry. Then a shadow danced across the paper window beneath the corridor, and she recognized the person at a glance.
She was about to run when a pair of cold hands pushed open the door and dragged her into an embrace.
His familiar scent surrounded her, and his voice held both resentment and displeasure. "Zhu Mingyu, you'd rather stay with a man who's neither as handsome nor as well-born as me, and you won't even look at me?"
Her eyes held only fear and bewilderment.
[Content warnings]
The male lead is a real bastard and quite cruel, so before he falls in love with the heroine, he treats her with arrogance and cruelty.
This is essentially a melodramatic Mary Sue story, and an unapologetically trashy read, best enjoyed without overthinking it.
The male lead is sexually pure; the heroine is not (she has been intimate with the secondary male lead).
Includes: coercive pursuit | a long road to winning her back | stealing his friend's beloved
Theme: Love and eternity
