Childhood Sweetheart

The eldest daughter of the General’s household, Zhao Qingmei, is eighteen and peerlessly beautiful. Her threshold should have been worn down by suitors, yet her path to marriage has been anything but smooth. It all started with a rumor from five years ago. On the day Xie Heng, heir to the Marquis of Dingyuan, left the capital to travel, Miss Zhao supposedly clung to him, weeping and begging to be allowed to wait for his return, like Wang Baochuan.

For five years, Zhao Qingmei suffered because of that rumor. When she learned that the culprit was due back in the capital, she led a large group of people out, declaring she’d break one of his legs.

But the young man in white outside the city gate was still as graceful as ever, and his leg had already been broken. He was sitting in a wheelchair.

Zhao Qingmei couldn’t bring herself to break his other leg, so she returned empty-handed.

Yet the group she’d brought along became, in the rumors, a band of musicians she’d specially led to the city gate to welcome Xie Heng back with drums and gongs, proof of her deep devotion to him.

What’s more, when her brash general of a father heard the rumor, he barged straight into the Marquis of Dingyuan’s residence and urged them to send the betrothal gifts.

Most surprising of all, Xie Heng actually took out a letter on the spot, with an auspicious date for their wedding written on it.

*

On their wedding day, Xie Heng pushed open the door.

Zhao Qingmei gaped. "But your leg..."

Xie Heng smiled faintly. "You mean that day? I happened to sprain my ankle."

The hero is a calculating wolf in sheep’s clothing, and the heroine is a spoiled young lady.

Theme: Strike first