[Greedy for life, money, and pleasure, the little wife × the refined but depraved father-in-law]
Meng Yuan was brought into the Shen family as a wife to bring good fortune to their sickly young master. Red candles blazed at the wedding, but there was no groom in sight.
She was left alone in the household.
She had heard that the master of the house was a third-place palace graduate who had inherited a noble title. He was thirty-two, and outsiders described him as a proper gentleman.
Since his daughter-in-law had arrived, he had never said an unnecessary word, nor had he asked whether the marriage had been consummated.
He was the only elder in the vast household, quietly keeping to himself.
That night, just after Meng Yuan blew out the candle, someone pushed open the door in the darkness.
Before she could cry out, she was pulled into arms cool with the night's dew.
The man said nothing, merely gripping Meng Yuan's wrist.
Thinking her husband had finally come to her, her heart fluttered with nervousness and softness. She resisted only a little before yielding.
Her husband left at dawn, putting on his clothes as he went. When she woke, no one was beside her, as if no one had ever come.
For more than ten days afterward, no one knocked on the west wing's door at night.
Then, at a family banquet, her husband came out of his room to meet the guests for the first time in ages, and weakly called her his wife.
She bowed her head in greeting, but out of the corner of her eye she saw her father-in-law in the seat of honor, slowly turning his teacup. On the thumb of his left hand sat a perfectly fitted white-jade thumb ring.
The chill that had pressed against her waist that night suddenly felt burning hot...
● Both leads are inexperienced.
● There is a fourteen-year age gap between the leads.
● Something else happened that night. They did not have sex.
Theme: Protecting world peace
