On the day the Wen family was raided, Ge Congjian locked his wife, Wen Wan, in the woodshed and gave her a slow-acting poison.
"His Majesty has shown mercy and spared married daughters from their families' crimes. But my Ge family has always been loyal, and we cannot harbor the offspring of a treacherous traitor like you. Stay here and wait to die!"
Ge Congjian held an extravagant wedding to bring his mistress into the household, saying he wanted to make up for all the years she had suffered in silence.
The front hall was filled with red silk and the clamor of drums and gongs, while Wen Wan curled up in the woodshed, enduring the bone-deep torment of poison amid utter silence.
What made it even harder for her to die in peace was that her father-in-law had orchestrated the charges of treason against her father, all to bring down the entire Wen clan.
After she died, she was reborn.
In this life, she knew she would reclaim everything she had lost from the Ge household, and thought her heart would remain undisturbed.
Until Gu Yanzhou shone upon her like a ray of light.
*
He was the Duke's legitimate son, the Noble Consort's nephew, and a talented young Minister of the Court of Judicial Review.
Everyone said Gu Yanzhou was arrogant and ruthless.
No one understood that his world was the realm of the dead, where he adjudicated cases from the underworld.
He witnessed Wen Wan's intelligence and courage firsthand, and watched her turn danger into opportunity, step by step.
Before then, he had never imagined he could fall for a woman, much less one who was already married.
The harder he tried to suppress his feelings, the faster and more wildly they grew in his heart.
Until one day, he finally admitted, "I did harbor ulterior motives when I forced you to divorce your husband back then."
Theme: Women should strive to stand on their own.
