[Gentle and poised on the surface, but actually a cold-hearted beauty x A groveling emperor who'll gladly be the other man for love]
Every noblewoman in Shangjing thinks Xu Lan, daughter of the Deputy Minister of the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, got incredibly lucky to win the favor of the Princess Royal's son and marry into the Princess's household.
No one knows that Chen Dunan was the one who kept pursuing Xu Lan at first. She only agreed to the marriage after he saved her father's life.
After they married, her husband treated her very well, but Xu Lan grew more and more unhappy.
After a year of marriage without a child, she took the initiative and found Chen Dunan a concubine.
In the second year of their marriage, she was accidentally jostled by the Princess Royal's younger daughter and miscarried. Meanwhile, children kept arriving one after another in the household. The Princess's residence grew livelier and livelier, but Xu Lan was always an outsider.
In the fourth year of their marriage, Xu Lan waited all day, but her husband never came out of the room of his pregnant concubine. That day was the anniversary of the death of the child she had never been able to meet.
In pouring rain, Xu Lan, soaked through, knocked alone at the gates of a Buddhist temple.
Only later did Xu Lan learn that she was the heroine of a so-called "groveling ex-husband" romance, where, after enduring betrayal, miscarriage, and other physical and emotional abuse, she was expected to reconcile with her ex-husband because he wept bitterly and turned over a new leaf.
How absurd!
She alone would decide her own life. No one else could decide it for her.
Not even the "Creator."
*
Yan Linxi first meets Xu Lan when he visits the imperial temple to listen to sutras and calm his mind before a headache strikes. Outside the temple on a rainy night, he finds a woman braving the storm alone to pray for her child.
Taking pity on her, he has his guards let her in. She is indeed quiet and well-behaved, never disturbing him. When his headache torments him, she even uses a melody that calms the mind to ease the throbbing pain in his head.
At first, he pays no attention to his cousin's wife, treating her merely as a tool to relieve his headaches.
Later, after using every means at his disposal just to make her look at him a little longer, he realizes just how cold-hearted this woman truly is.
*The female lead is not a virgin; the male second lead has reasons for his actions. His love for the female lead is genuine, but he's also genuinely awful. He won't be redeemed. A groveling ex-husband story, meaning he won't win her back.
*An idea I've wanted to write for a long time. Extremely melodramatic, extremely melodramatic, extremely melodramatic. The male lead won't hurt the female lead, at most using mild coercion.
Theme: Never lose the courage to start over, no matter the circumstances.
