Synopsis
At sixteen, Shen Yan married Jing An, and the two became a couple everyone in the capital mocked.
The reason was simple: Shen Yan had an elder legitimate sister, Shen Yu, who excelled in both beauty and talent and was known as the capital's greatest beauty. Jing An had several elder imperial brothers, a prestigious family background, and the emperor's favor. Among them, the Crown Prince, Jing Liang, was especially admired, a man as bright and graceful as the moon, a true gentleman.
By coincidence, those two also became a married couple.
In the twelfth year of Chenghua, a joke made the rounds in the capital: At a flower-viewing banquet, the Shen family married both daughters into the imperial household. One became a pearl set in the Eastern Palace, while the other, a blade of grass, was paired with a nobody.
The joke was not entirely wrong. Compared to that perfect couple in the Eastern Palace, Shen Yan, a concubine-born daughter, seemed ordinary and timid, with a merely average appearance. And Seventh Prince Jing An, born to a palace maid, was strikingly beautiful, yet disliked by everyone.
But what did that matter?
That year, the young man carefully lifted her veil. At the sight of her gentle, pretty face, he suddenly blushed.
“My lady, you are so beautiful.”
“No matter what others say, in my heart, you are the best.”
As far back as Shen Yan could remember, all the good things were meant for her elder sister. She only needed to take what her sister left behind and never compete with her.
She had always done just that, and never felt wronged. She simply thought she had no great ambitions anyway. All she wanted was a home of her own, peaceful and quiet, with children laughing and a cat lazily sunning itself beneath the eaves.
After she married Jing An, life was not quite what she had imagined, but the two loved each other, and that was enough to make it a happy ending.
And so they kept each other company for seven years. For all those years, Shen Yan believed that everyone else might change, but she and Jing An would not.
In the nineteenth year of Chenghua, Crown Prince Jing Liang lost the use of both legs in an accident, and turmoil swept the imperial city. Rumor had it that Crown Princess Shen Yu, once the capital's greatest beauty, had voluntarily opened the gates of the Eastern Palace to Jing An's forces.
The bloodstained man looked down from his horse. The woman who had once seemed so noble and untouchable knelt before him. Snow fell in the winter cold, yet she wore only thin clothes. As she looked up at the man above her, weeping softly, she was still so alluring and beautiful.
Shen Yan later wondered if that was the moment Jing An had already changed.
Everyone praised the new emperor, Jing An, as a hidden dragon who had risen to the heavens. Some people also mocked him: They had heard the new emperor had a wife, who had suffered for years. Now that he had taken the throne, he still would not make her empress, demoted her to Noble Consort, and brought the deposed crown princess into the palace, keeping her close in a tangled affair. The whole court was shocked.
As everyone wondered what the new emperor would do and how beautiful the former crown princess was, a fire broke out in Changchun Palace.
The emperor's wife, Shen Yan, whom no one had ever cared about, now the Noble Consort, perished in the flames. She had set herself on fire and died with unyielding resolve.
She left no words and took nothing with her. As the flames turned the night red, the new emperor was horrified. He ignored everyone's attempts to stop him and rushed into Changchun Palace to save her, but it was too late. The Noble Consort was dead.
The red thread on the charred corpse's wrist had burned away, but the broken bell from the year they had gone together to the Yuqing Temple to pray for a child was still there.
What kind of person was Seventh Prince Jing An? Young Shen Yan lay awake, turning the thought over in her mind. In her eyes, he always seemed to stand in a corner. He was so handsome, yet always kept his head lowered. When people passed by, they would sometimes glance at him with disdain.
She thought they were alike. At least, back then, in the cold imperial city, when everyone mocked them and the two of them huddled together for warmth, they had both sworn to each other:
You and I are husband and wife, devoted to one another, sharing both joy and hardship, and staying together through life and death.
*
Winter's snow was bitterly cold. The deposed Crown Prince Jing Liang was imprisoned in the deepest part of the palace, in Cold Parasol Court. Rumor had it that the new emperor would not let him live to see the coming spring.
The place where he awaited death was overgrown and desolate. The hall was dark, without a ray of light, and the air reeked of rotting refuse.
The young man sat with his head lowered on a battered wooden chair. His legs were useless, and maggots seemed to writhe around his ankles. It struck him as absurd.
Suddenly, a door creaked open, and a beam of light appeared.
“Greetings, Your Highness. I am the new palace maid assigned to Cold Parasol Court.”
“My name is Liang Yan.”
She did not envy the phoenix soaring through the sky. She had always been a swallow, roosting alone on the rafters, longing for home yet having none.
Reader's Guide:
1. The story opens seven years later.
2. The male lead is Jing Liang. The heroine is not a virgin, while the male lead is.
3. Yan is a down-to-earth woman.
4. Most importantly, in the main story, the heroine does not spend her whole life suffering alongside a man. The blurb gives a one-sided impression. The leads have known each other for a long time. Yan's fundamental nature is to follow her own heart and do as she pleases. The male lead, on the other hand, is bound by the strongest moral restraints in this melodramatic story.
So the early story has a sibling-like feel, then things go completely off the rails later. Amidst all the bloodshed, our Yan remains true to herself:
*I'm just an ordinary, honest woman.*
(Two people who both seem so proper and kind, and so unfortunate.
From the start: younger brother's wife? / brother-in-law.
In the middle: A-Yan. / Elder brother?
At the end: My wife. /)
A self-indulgent work, with a long list of potential squicks. The second male lead is a bewitching ghost, and the male lead is a celestial beauty. The blurb itself is a content warning. The important point has been marked: this is not a story about enduring hardship. The main text focuses on the plot, but if this still bothers you, feel free to stop reading. If you don't like this simple story, please don't complain. (´o`ʃƪ)
The blurb was screenshotted on April 20, 2026.
Theme: Keep moving forward
