On the day the city fell, her father swept up the treasure and silver notes, took his principal wife and elder siblings with him, and forgot only Shen Huaiwan, the obscure concubine-born daughter left behind in a side courtyard.
The maids and servants had long since scattered to save themselves. Shen Huaiwan wandered out of the residence, met with ruins and smoke from the fires of war.
And there, mounted on a fine horse, was the enemy ruler Yin Zhenge, handsome in appearance but cold and fierce in expression.
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Yin Zhenge, the new ruler of the Sheng Dynasty, led his army into battle in person and won a great victory, capturing a host of the enemy kingdom's imperial relatives and court officials. The most striking among them was a beauty with skin like ice and bones like jade.
On the way back to the capital, the beauty tried to escape.
Yin Zhenge stopped her with ease. He stretched out his long arm and encircled her slender waist, so delicate it could be held in one hand.
The beauty was soft and warm. Suddenly enthralled, he leaned down and breathed deeply against her neck.
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Yin Zhenge favored harsh laws and military conquest. In the eyes of the people, he was an out-and-out tyrant.
That was, until he captured a beauty and brought her back.
Once the beauty entered the harem, the tyrant lost his taste for bloodshed, an unusual turn of events. He poured all his attention into the beauty.
At last, the court and the people breathed a sigh of relief.
But before they could finish exhaling, they heard that the beauty had seized an opportunity to escape.
The widowed tyrant, left alone in his empty chambers, seemed... even more terrifying.
Message: Live well, and let your paths cross in time.
