[Synopsis]
On the day Pei Qingfu married Mu Zheng, the young general stationed in the north, she received a wedding gift from her legitimate elder brother, Pei Shuyue.
She accepted it with a smile and thanked him, finally letting out a breath of relief.
She thought she had neatly put an end to that secret past, when she had deliberately gotten close to her elder brother just to survive.
But she never saw the shadow of anguish in the eyes of the man who turned and walked away.
Later, the general's household was swept into a struggle for the throne and fell overnight.
To save her husband, Pei Qingfu went to plead with Pei Shuyue, her brother in name only, now the chief chancellor, the emperor's trusted aide, and the most powerful man in court.
Within the high walls of the secluded residence, the man stood with his hands behind his back when he heard why Pei Qingfu had come. He said nothing for a long while, only reaching up to pluck a hibiscus flower and rolling its stem between his fingers, his feelings impossible to read.
At last, he slowly approached and tucked the flower into her hair.
He leaned down, his breath brushing her ear, his voice as faint as mist. "The tricks you used to charm me back then, little sister... have you really forgotten them all?"
He still looked as refined and aloof as the moon, but Pei Qingfu felt a chill run down her spine. She looked up sharply and met his deep, dark gaze, only then realizing:
The scene she thought had ended long ago was something he had never let go of.
-
Everyone in the capital knew that Chief Chancellor Pei Shuyue was proper and self-controlled, and cared deeply about propriety.
No one knew that in his heart he hid a hibiscus that could never see the light of day.
When he was seventeen, the quiet hibiscus in the corner of the rear courtyard blushed an enticing red, ripe for the picking. So he indulged his timid, illegitimate younger sister as she deliberately drew near.
He waited for her coming-of-age ceremony, planning and dreaming of how to keep her by his side forever.
Instead, he watched her happily marry another man.
While he defied his elders and knelt in punishment at the ancestral hall, while he branded his skin with one burn scar after another, she was plotting her escape. She slipped away so easily, leaving him behind to drown alone.
Later, the hibiscus fell into his hands once more.
He caressed the back of her trembling neck, his laughter steeped in a possessive tenderness. He coaxed her into divorcing her husband, then kissed the bloodstain from her lips as tears blurred her eyes.
"You chose him over me back then. Now... it's time to come back to my side."
-
In Mu Zheng's eyes, his friend Pei Shuyue was quiet and reserved, but always open and straightforward in how he conducted himself. Yet at some point, his friend became dark and inscrutable.
Later, after a clash ended their friendship, Mu Zheng swallowed his resentment for the sake of Pei Shuyue's status as his wife's brother and continued to show his nominal elder brother-in-law due respect.
It was only after divorcing his wife, when regret consumed him and he had nowhere else to turn, that he barged into Pei Shuyue's courtyard. Just as he was about to ask for help, he saw the wife he longed for every day nestled in the arms of her refined, moonlike elder brother, letting him have his way with her.
Furious, he swung at Pei Shuyue's face, only to see his wife's stricken expression, her eyes full of concern for her elder brother and reproach for him.
-A moon that seems to hang high in the heavens.
-In truth, within reach, and willingly fallen into the mortal world.
#Forbidden tension at first, then possessive pursuit.
"Reader's Guide"
1. SC. The male lead is pure in body and mind from beginning to end, chaste and unmarried.
2. There is a scene where the ex-husband and male lead come to blows.
3. The female lead is not simply kind and innocent. If our values don't align, please don't read.
4. This is not an empowering female-lead power fantasy. It's a bittersweet, half-sweet story, with the male lead suffering most in their relationship.
5. The leads are not related by blood. In the truest sense, the female lead is living under someone else's roof.
Theme: Love yourself before loving another.
