Killing the Treacherous Chancellor and His Prince Consort Is No Easy Feat

[Fake coldhearted, ruthless princess who grows up × genuinely self-deluded, beautiful and tragic treacherous minister]

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Without his protection, Yuan Zhen was the least remarkable princess in the palace. Her mother was lowborn, her younger brother was still a child, and she had to tread carefully at every turn.

The year her father fell gravely ill, her elder brothers fought viciously for the throne, while her mother told her to seduce a man.

When she first met Nie Wujie, he was the Second Prince’s chief strategist: strikingly handsome, with deep, distant eyes. His long fingers brushed her cheek as if he were examining a new treasure. After a long while, he smiled.

“Third Princess, I’m deeply honored by your favor.”

So she married him at sixteen, watched him help her younger brother ascend the throne at eighteen, and was carrying his child at nineteen…

Then she personally sent him into a deadly trap.

By then, her mother had become Empress Dowager. She earnestly advised her, “Zhen’er, that man is ambitious and treacherous. If he lives, your brother’s throne won’t be secure.”

She believed her, until she sorted through his belongings and found, in the wooden box he had treasured above all else, the only embroidered handkerchief she had ever made for him.

It turned out that the treacherous minister who betrayed his sovereign in the eyes of the world, the black-hearted man cursed by all, had carried no one in his heart from beginning to end but her.

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Three years after her husband’s death, the new emperor had secured his throne, and Princess Yuan Zhen set out for her fief with her daughter.

Bandits waylaid them on the road and dragged them to their stronghold.

She never imagined that the aloof minister she had spent another three years learning to love would be lounging in the bandit chief’s tiger-skin chair when they met again, spouting vulgar nonsense.

Though they had been married, she had feared and guarded against him, but never truly understood him.

She knew only that he had been born into poverty, helped the Second Prince bring down the Crown Prince at twenty, and wielded power over the court at twenty-one.

She didn’t know that he was a fugitive who had fled from the northern frontier, clawed his way out of a crowd of lowly slaves, and risen step by step to become the Second Prince’s favorite.

This time, he gripped her chin, his voice as cold as poison.

“You had me killed, yet gave birth to my child? If I ever believe another word you say, then I deserve to be the worthless bastard you trample into the mud!”

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He talked tough.

But that very day, he let her and her daughter go.

Five days later, he showed up at her door alone. “My daughter’s here. Can’t I come see her?”

Ten days later, he had changed his name and taken a new identity as a male companion in her household. “Who’d turn down a fortune handed to them? I’m only staying for my daughter and the money. Don’t expect me to perform any duties as your companion.”

A month later… well, you know how it goes.

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* Both leads are each other’s first and only, happy ending, six-year age gap.

* After once escaping death with severe injuries, the male lead is somewhat frail early on, though still perfectly capable in a fight. The female lead nurses him back to health later. Expect a passionate, bittersweet romance with plenty of sweetness.

* Not a typical “win back your husband” story. The male lead is ruthless and vicious toward others, but secretly means what he says and is hopelessly in love. He’s all bark and soft-hearted, with a PhD in sarcasm.

* The female lead is actually a good person. She hesitated before the assassins struck and left the male lead a way to survive. He knew her mother’s methods and didn’t trust them, so he came back on his own and only then “died.” That’s why he was never truly all that angry with her.

Theme: Love and trust are the only way home for you and me.