Rong Qing, the daughter of a merchant.
Though she was alluring and beautiful enough to outshine the moon, she was still just a girl from a modest family. No one could have imagined that this country girl from a backwater would one day marry into a noble house and become the seventh prince of Daqing's principal wife.
On her wedding day,
there were hardly any guests at the banquet, and the courtyard stood empty. The whole scene was desolate.
Rong Qing, however, didn't notice at all. With her heart pounding up into her throat, she sat rigidly in the bridal chamber until the hour of the tiger. At last, the man in black robes arrived, lifted a jade ruyi scepter, and raised one corner of her veil.
Beneath the veil,
the young woman's bright, almond-shaped eyes were as lovely as a painting. Her gaze shone with the burning warmth of someone in love, and she called out, timid yet certain,
"Husband."
-
Rong Qing knew that the seventh prince, Wei Bocen, had no feelings for her.
But she didn't care.
For a merchant's daughter like her to marry a noble prince, so gentle and refined, so well-read, was already an utterly absurd turn of events.
Rong Qing was in love with the seventh prince, and always wanted to lay her heart bare before him.
She warmed his hands when the weather was cold and fanned him when it was hot. Though the seventh prince kept her at a distance, he was at least courteous. Rong Qing firmly believed that one day she would warm his heart and win his love.
That was, until the world was thrown into chaos and the previous emperor died.
The small merchant family she came from was branded traitors and stripped of everything. As for her, she suddenly learned that her true identity was that of a princess of the former dynasty.
It turned out that from the very beginning, she had been no more than a pawn on Wei Bocen's chessboard. She was destined to be offered to the Minister of War, an old enemy of the former dynasty, in exchange for a third of the empire's military power.
The revelation struck like a bolt from the blue.
That day, the woman knelt beneath the imperial throne, gazing coldly at the ruler above her, who seemed like a god. In the end, she accepted the name of a remnant of the former dynasty, then took a short blade and cut her own throat.
Rong Qing knew that this single slash ended more than her life.
It also severed the laughable bond of marriage between her and Wei Bocen, as well as the years of unrequited devotion she had poured into him.
-
When she opened her eyes again, she had been reborn.
By then, she was already married to Wei Bocen, and rumors had spread throughout the land about the schemes she had used to trick a prince into marrying her. Rong Qing didn't care in the least. In this life, all she wanted was to stay as far away from Wei Bocen as possible.
Divorce, then move far away.
In the thirty-second year of Zhaohua,
the seventh prince led his troops to put down a rebellion and seized the throne. Then, before the eyes of the people and against the opposition of all his officials, he traveled a thousand miles to propose to the merchant's daughter he had divorced.
The emperor, whose status was second only to the gods, performed every proper rite before a humble little residence and presented her with a betrothal letter.
"Now that you know I am a princess of the former dynasty,"
Rong Qing's eyes curved like crescent moons as she smiled coolly. "Wei Bocen, destroy Daqing, and I'll consider marrying you. How about it?"
[A bright sunny day, a carriage on the road.]
[I know the road is long.]
The heroine's death had nothing to do with the hero. He has to win her back after a devastating breakup.
Both leads are virgins.
2022/9/21
