Has Madam Yin Been Widowed Today?

[An “evil woman” who will stop at nothing to climb higher × a stoic young general | Intense push and pull | Mutual, understated affection]

Setting: #Life is cheap# The chaotic era at the end of the Tang dynasty and start of the Five Dynasties

When they first met, she was the Seventh Miss, declared “dead” by her family, while he was the son of a high-ranking general. She did everything she could to ingratiate herself with him. He saw through every one of her tricks at a glance and labeled her “unruly.”

When they met again, he had fallen into the mud, his family destroyed and himself forced to live under someone else’s roof, careful and cautious. She, meanwhile, was a warlord’s favored concubine, outwardly high and mighty but constantly on thin ice.

She despised his self-destructive behavior, and he scorned her short-sightedness and ignorance. They could barely stand each other. But he was the son of the man who had saved her life, so she came to his aid again and again. Each time, she treated the help she gave him as a chance to look down on him and reclaim her self-respect. He saw right through her, as hard and unyielding as iron.

Their fates became hopelessly entangled. In the vast Liu residence, she alone saw through his ruthless ambition, and he alone saw through the obsession and cruelty beneath her fragile exterior.

Yin Sinan: Sinan, “thinking of the south,” a name that also sounds like “thinking of men.” Even her name showed that she was an unloved concubine’s daughter. After her family cast her aside, she carefully plotted her way into the good graces of the son of a Youzhou warlord and became his most favored concubine. Fine clothes, delicious food, mountains of gold and silver: at last, she had found a lifeline in a chaotic age.

But beneath that lifeline lay an even deeper whirlpool. The man was a notorious womanizer, given to unpredictable moods. Today he would lift her up to the clouds, and tomorrow he would cast her aside as if she were worthless.

Exhausted by life in the inner residence, she found the endless scheming unbearably dull. Her tired eyes, eyes that could never settle down, shifted direction and fell on the man in the residence who was even more down on his luck than she was.

He was stern and restrained, yet never abandoned the people around him. She thought she understood how cruel the world was and that no one could be trusted, but without realizing it, she had staked something worth more than money on him.

What? He has someone else in his heart?

So what? She had been born into this world with nothing. If she took something, then it might become hers.

But after weathering countless storms, fate told her that what was never hers could never be hers…

So what? She wiped away her tears and climbed back to her feet. If she couldn’t have Gao Xingzhou, there was still Li Xingzhou or Wang Xingzhou!

[Happy ending] He chases her after losing her.

The heroine has more than one romantic relationship. The hero, Gao Xingzhou, is sexually inexperienced. The heroine has relationships with people other than the hero early on, an essential part of her growth arc.

Theme: Life endures, never destroyed even when crushed.