Pure-hearted, quirky heroine × decisive hero with a complicated past
Also known as "How the Wooden-Headed Hero Turned a Heart-Fluttering Moment into Ripples on Stagnant Water"
"What Should You Do with a Wife Who's Too Clever?"
And "The Ultimate Push and Pull Between Two People Who Don't Understand Love"
Xu Lu, Minister of War, rose from humble beginnings to the rank of third grade through one thing alone: decisiveness. When someone at court accused him of disloyalty, Xu Lu submitted a memorial in accordance with the law. The very next day, under the Ministry of Justice's investigation, the accuser was left "broken beyond recognition."
Though a military man, he also possessed the quick mind prized in civil officials. His elegant, cultivated manners could make people forget that he was a warrior born to humble circumstances.
He would travel a long way just to personally bring a bowl of warm rice porridge to his hardworking servants. He was amiable, observant, and generous with praise, often lending a hand when people were down on their luck. As Minister of War, he had certainly mastered plenty of ways to win people's hearts.
A man so decisive saw everyone in his world as either a black or white chess piece. Depending on where they stood, people naturally fell into one camp or the other. All he had to do was arrange each piece where it belonged. Who would have thought that a man so skilled at directing events from behind the scenes could be moved by a stranger?
The first time Xu Lu saw her was in the dead of winter, with bitter winds sweeping through the valley and snow falling without a sound. Yun Ni'an lay beside a drainage channel buried in the snow.
The woman before him had fainted, looking heartbreakingly frail. Snowflakes clung to her long lashes, and hunger seemed to have left her too weak to stand. She wore a plain, almost comical padded coat patched in several places, yet her exquisite features gave her the impression of a lotus rising pure from the water.
He had thought it was a sordid beauty trap. As it turned out, she was simply a woman who had happened to collapse by the roadside. Sharp-minded and quirky, she warmed the ice around Xu Lu's heart with her burning sincerity.
"The world is full of mysteries. A coincidence or two can happen together without being anything unusual, and even three coincidences in a row can still be put down to chance.
But when one strange, unreasonable thing after another piles up, intertwined layer upon layer and closing in step by step, it can no longer be dismissed as an innocent mistake.
When countless 'coincidences' form a pattern, the fragments that seemed so random quietly twist together into a single thread, eventually weaving a web that was planned all along. When the coincidences become too many to make sense, they are no longer coincidences. They are inevitable."
From a distance, Xu Lu saw a slender figure dancing toward him from the far end of the corridor. Her sleeves stirred lightly, like a breeze brushing a tender willow, or a startled swan gliding beneath the moon. Her offhand words had stayed with him for so long. Looking back now, he realized he had fallen for her long ago.
If he was going to be done in by her for the rest of his life, that might not be so bad.
*Happy ending *Strong heroine *Mystery solving *Both leads are each other's only partners
Theme: Love between equals is the kind that lasts.
