The first time Ji Bai saw Yun Shan, the prince renowned throughout the capital was sitting quietly in a wheelchair beneath a flowering tree. His face was pale, like a withered tree adrift with nowhere to call home.
After the new emperor ascended the throne, Yun Shan's wings were clipped. He spent his days beneath the flowers and moonlight, mourning the passing of spring and lamenting his fate.
A person like that was made to be humiliated at will.
And who could be better suited to do it than Ji Bai, the treacherous lackey notorious throughout the court?
So when the emperor rewarded his achievements, Ji Bai did not ask for a promotion or a title. Instead, he specifically requested that the emperor arrange his marriage to the frail Prince of Ning'an.
On their wedding night, Ji Bai entered the bridal chamber and saw Yun Shan sitting quietly on the bed in a blood-red wedding robe.
Ji Bai lifted the bridal veil, his tone lecherous. “Prince of Ning'an, your looks are truly otherworldly. I wonder what you look like beneath someone.”
At that, Yun Shan merely raised his eyes slightly and arched a brow.
As it turned out, running your mouth comes with consequences. That very night, Ji Bai was taken by his seemingly frail wife.
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The Prince of Ning'an's household had always been the target of imperial suspicion. Yun Shan, an award-winning actor, transmigrated into the body of the young Prince of Ning'an just as the new emperor clipped his wings.
There was no going back. Yun Shan had to play the sickly, aloof prince who spent every day mourning the passing of spring and lamenting his fate, all while guarding against the emperor and the hidden attacks of every faction.
Returning to this old line of work was exhausting. His one stroke of luck was that, one day, the emperor arranged his marriage to Ji Bai, a powerful minister in the imperial cabinet.
Yun Shan laughed in his sleep.
The emperor clearly had no idea what it meant to give a tiger wings or to set one loose in the mountains.
The notorious minister Ji Bai was clever, but hopelessly slow when it came to romance.
So, on the morning after the wedding, the culprit sat at the bedside, his refined face lowered and his eyes downcast, looking as though his good name had been ruined and he would rather die than live.
Yun Shan's expression crumpled. “Lord Ji forced himself on me yesterday. My innocence is gone. I might as well die.”
Ji Bai, the one who had actually lost his innocence: ?
He stared at the sanctimonious man before him, wishing he could be deaf, and asked in disbelief, “What?”
Yun Shan wiped away a tear from the corner of his eye. “But Lord Ji was not in his right mind at the time. I cannot blame you. My life has simply been full of misfortune, and this was a trial I was bound to face.”
Ji Bai: ...?
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Ji Bai actually believed Yun Shan's story. So later, when Yun Shan used his help to stir up the political world, Ji Bai noticed but would only tell others that his wife was frail and helpless, and they should not speak of him that way.
Until a coup erupted in the great hall. Without changing expression, Yun Shan rose from his wheelchair amid the rebels and walked step by step toward the throne, then cut off the emperor's head with a single stroke.
With the assembled officials looking on in terror, the rebels surrounded the hall, knelt, and hailed Yun Shan as emperor.
When the new emperor took the throne, the first person he executed was a trusted aide of the old ruler. No one was more suited to be made an example of than Ji Bai.
Memorials impeaching Ji Bai came streaming into Yun Shan's hands. Yet on the dragon throne, Yun Shan rested his head on one hand and smiled warmly. “My wife is frail. Don't speak of him that way.”
A scheming, notorious minister who has been blinded by beauty × a sly, shameless prince who spends every day mourning the passing of spring and lamenting his fate
Theme: Peace and redemption
