Jiang Xiachu had just finished the gaokao when she awoke from a dream and found herself the newly delivered Xia Ji of the Northern Frontier Marquis's residence.
Flowers were pinned by her temples, bells tied around her wrists, and even when she cried, someone taught her how to make it look pretty.
That night, wind and snow battered the city as she was pushed into the tent where Wei Yuanting was staying.
Before dawn the next day, the Marquis of the Northern Frontier donned his armor and rode out through the pass. Before leaving, he gave just one order:
"Set her up in a side courtyard."
He did not visit her once in the month that followed.
The old nurse laughed at her. "You're in the marquis's residence now. Still thinking of leaving?"
She lowered her head and tucked each piece of silver into her purse, then murmured,
"I want to buy my freedom."
Wei Yuanting guarded the northern frontier and commanded a hundred thousand border troops. He had spent his life surrounded by flattery and obsequiousness.
At first, he paid little attention to his young concubine.
That was, until someone reported that Xia Ji had pawned the gold hairpin he'd given her for two fake travel permits.
Then someone reported that she'd tried to climb the wall in the middle of the night and had been hauled back by the night patrol.
The third time, she disguised herself as a servant and slipped into a grain convoy, nearly making it through the pass.
Wei Yuanting bent down to look at her. "You want to leave that badly?"
Jiang Xiachu raised her face, snowmelt still clinging to her eyes.
"The Marquis has slept with plenty of people. One less won't make a difference."
After that night, whenever Wei Yuanting went out, he tied Jiang Xiachu to the headboard with a silk sash.
The more she tried to escape, the harder he stopped her.
She wanted to buy her freedom, so he tore up the contract.
She wanted to leave through the pass, so he sealed the city gates.
The more she refused to bow her head, the more he insisted she admit her fate aloud.
Until one day, Jiang Xiachu looked at him and said,
"What you like is watching me fail to escape, isn't it?"
Wei Yuanting's expression finally changed.
Later, there was a time when he treated her very well.
He taught her to ride, took her up to the city tower to watch the snow, and draped his own cloak over her shoulders.
When she shivered with a fever, he kept watch all night.
When she casually mentioned wanting to read, he had an entire roomful of books brought in the next day.
Jiang Xiachu knew she shouldn't, yet with each return through the wind and snow, she could feel her heart growing unsteady.
She hated him for keeping her prisoner.
But she also remembered him taking a blade for her, and clumsily fastening her cloak.
She remembered him asking her beneath the city's countless lights,
"If one day I let you go, would you look back at me?"
She did not answer then.
Later, she really did obtain a pass to leave the frontier.
The night Wei Yuanting discovered it, he burned the document to ashes with his own hands.
Firelight illuminated his face, and his voice was cold as ice.
"You can leave only if I die."
Watching the ashes fall to the ground, Jiang Xiachu suddenly understood that the man she'd once softened toward had never intended to let her go.
Later, chaos engulfed the northern frontier.
Wei Yuanting was impeached for harboring bandits to strengthen his own position, embezzling military pay, and delaying military operations...
Every blood debt in the city was laid at his door.
Wei Yuanting defended the isolated city to the death. He was not defeated by the enemy, but he was about to die to the knives of those behind him.
Before he left, he placed her deed of servitude, household registration, travel permit, money, and pass to leave the frontier into Jiang Xiachu's hands.
The city gates stood wide open, and the carriage and horses were ready.
He stood in the wind and snow, armored and bloodied:
"Go."
"This time, I won't stop you."
Clutching the pass, Jiang Xiachu had finally obtained the freedom she'd dreamed of.
If she headed south, she could leave the northern frontier, the marquis's residence, the name Xia Ji, and this absurd, painful entanglement.
But suddenly, the drums on the city tower began to sound.
Sitting in the carriage, she heard someone shout in the distance:
"The Marquis has gone out to face the enemy!"
Jiang Xiachu clutched the pass tightly.
She knew she shouldn't look back.
But she still threw open the carriage curtain and ran into the swirling snow.
Theme: True love can make a man who was determined to imprison the person he loved open the cage door with his own hands.
