Synopsis
“He plots, she fights / Two strong leads drawn to each other / Clear-eyed surrender”
[Overpowered female commander x Beautiful fox who calculated himself into the equation]
As Left Commander of the Palace Guard, Linghu Shuang's favorite pastime was scaling walls at midnight to chase thieves.
That night, the alley was dark as ink. She failed to catch the thief, but spotted a blood-soaked man lying at the foot of a wall. A sliver of moonlight slipped through the clouds, illuminating his pale, refined face. He looked barely twenty, with features as beautiful as a painting.
He stared at the hilt of the saber at her waist for a moment before speaking with difficulty. “My lady... give me a hand.”
Linghu Shuang turned and walked away, but after two steps, she cursed under her breath and came back.
If the man died on Palace Guard grounds, how many incident reports would she have to write?
Though very much against the idea, she took him to the Imperial Medical Office. She never expected that he would turn out to be Wen Ji, the newly appointed chief physician personally selected by the emperor.
The empress specifically told her to keep a closer eye on him and make sure he wasn't hurt again.
So she really did take a few more looks at him.
Who knew that before long, an imperial decree of marriage would come crashing down on her?
Linghu Shuang held the yellow silk decree, unable to make sense of it for a long while.
Wasn't he one of the emperor's people? How had he ended up in her hands?
As they spent more and more time together, she increasingly felt there was something off about the man sharing her bed.
How could a physician who supposedly had nothing to do with court affairs see the fatal flaw in a military formation at a glance?
Why did he disappear for no reason in the middle of the night?
And why could a single confidential letter from the border make him sit alone beneath a solitary lamp until dawn?
But the strangest thing was herself.
Whenever he came close, her fingers instinctively reached for her saber. Yet the moment her hand touched it, she worried the sound of the blade might startle him.
Then one day, the neighboring kingdom massed its troops at the border and demanded that the empress hand over a fugitive.
In the imperial study, the empress pushed a confidential letter toward her, her gaze heavy. “Find out who this is for me.”
Linghu Shuang unfolded the letter, her fingertips trembling.
The three characters on the page caught her eye, and the place on her neck he had kissed that morning suddenly burned again.
[Short scene]
Late at night, Linghu Shuang was fast asleep when an arm suddenly wrapped around her waist. The man rolled over and pressed close, breathing softly by her ear as if he were still asleep.
She stiffly moved his hand away and had just breathed a sigh of relief when he wrapped himself around her again and nuzzled into her arms.
Linghu Shuang's hand instinctively reached for her saber. Her mind raced through the possibilities: draw her saber, kick him out of bed, and move back to the Palace Guard's quarters tonight.
In the darkness, the man chuckled softly. His warm, calloused fingertips settled precisely over the back of her hand on the saber hilt. His voice was lazy and husky. “Wife, you can put the saber farther away. I'm not going anywhere.”
Reading guide:
1. One-on-one romance, both leads' first time.
2. The male lead is one year older than the female lead. This is not an older-woman-younger-man romance.
3. They intensely circle each other at first, marry in the middle, then fall for each other completely.
4. Romance-focused with political intrigue as a secondary element. Happy ending, fictional setting.
Please add it to your reading list! I'm building up a backlog and expect to start posting in December. I promise I won't abandon it!
Theme: Amid all the twists and turns of life, she is his one and only light.
