“Scheming, deranged emperor vs. cool, restrained chief minister”
In a turbulent age of endless factional strife, corrupt power brokers rule the court.
Lu Hanzhang is immensely talented, but her future is fraught with danger, so she has no choice but to return to her hometown on “sick leave.”
Who would have thought she would fail to become “mired in the muck” and instead unexpectedly become Prince Yu Zhao Zhen's tutor? Then the late emperor dies, and as the vassal princes arrive in the capital, she rises rapidly through the ranks.
Lu Hanzhang knows she has the emperor's favor. Perhaps after her death, she'll even be honored in the Imperial Ancestral Temple.
What she never imagined was that the emperor who once walked alongside her harbored such a dark, fervent obsession, heedless of the boundaries between ruler and subject...
-- -- --
Several years into his reign, Zhao Zhen still has no empress. Because...
At every moment, he is lost in fantasies of stripping the chief minister of that vermilion robe embroidered with a python.
Until one day, he can no longer suppress himself and loses control. Then he abruptly discovers that his right-hand man, his pillar of state, is a woman.
The discovery is like a sudden return to his senses...
From then on, the emperor, usually so restrained and self-possessed, gives himself over to endless demands.
Bowl after bowl of fertility-inducing medicine is poured into the chief minister's mouth on the imperial bed.
Lu Hanzhang cannot escape.
The constant demands wear her out, and the endless medicine fills her with fear.
Her waist aching and her body weak, she pushes away the porcelain bowl before her and says in a trembling voice, “I am the chief minister of Daping. How can Your Majesty face the people of the realm after acting this way?”
Zhao Zhen bends down and wipes the traces of medicine from the corner of her lips, his voice low and hoarse.
“I've been mad for many years. Didn't you know? Whether or not you become my empress, you can only stay by my side and bear my children.”
“Hanzhang, is it really so hard for you to love me a little?”
(Hanzhang is steadfast and true; whether serving the king or not, she will see things through to the end.)
[Reader's Guide]
1. Woman disguised as a man, both pure, HE.
2. Angsty romance, possessive love, and emotional push and pull.
Theme: Serve the country and its people, and never forget your original purpose.
