Breaking a Frosted Branch (GB)

Yan Yuxi is the daughter of the governor of Bingzhou. One day, she suddenly hears a report from the soldiers that they have captured a fugitive from Yandu. She goes to interrogate him on her father's behalf. In the dim prison, she sees a man as pure as a clear breeze beneath a bright sky, like white jade beneath frost and snow. His plain clothes are stained with mud and blood, and when he raises his eyes, his gaze is cool and sharp. She immediately tells her clerk, "Tell my father that the man will stay in Bingzhou. Send a report to the emperor saying he died on the road." She has never been an innocent person, while Wen Zijie is pure as snow and upright in conduct. She runs her fingertip over the blood at the corner of his mouth and watches him glare at her in fury. "I have done nothing wrong. Let me go!" Yan Yuxi smiles. "What does that have to do with me? Whatever status you held in the capital, from now on you are the pampered concubine in my tent." Wen Zijie was a righteous man in the capital. After his plan to launch a coup was exposed, he fled the city. He is devoted to the state and wants to restore the declining imperial house. Yan Yuxi disagrees with him. A defeat is a defeat; it is time for this world to change hands. "Wenzhi, since you are so loyal to your sovereign, I hope you will be just as loyal to me when I take that seat." He rebukes her coldly. "You are a traitor!" Yan Yuxi doesn't care. She covets his beauty and subjects him to relentless humiliation and torment. She drives him to hate her and try to kill her, but he cannot, so he tries to take his own life. Even that fails. "If I could get away, I would kill you!" Yet in the desire she gives him, he becomes confused, loses himself, and cannot control his feelings. Hatred, desire, and love have all twisted him to pieces. Later, the emperor dies of illness, the land is thrown into turmoil, and flames of war spread everywhere. Bingzhou cannot escape the chaos either. Wen Zijie finally seizes his chance to flee. Yan Yuxi hears the military report: he led the attack on the capital, enthroned the young emperor, stabilized the state, subdued the rebels across the land, and rose to the highest position beneath the emperor. As one of the rebel leaders, she is summoned to the capital. She assumes their reunion can only end badly. Deep in the palace, however, she touches that jade-white skin and snow-boned body once more, and hears his breathing grow unsteady. "It's been so long since we last met, and you still haven't forgotten me, Wenzhi?" She has become cold and indifferent, while he is bound by longing. ★ Notes: Genderbend romance, all the men are sexually inexperienced. The heroine is 1.8 meters tall, the kind who leads troops and seizes the throne. Theme: Accepting women's rise to power and abandoning support for the old order is the path to great unity.