*Content warnings: 1. The heroine suffers first, then the hero. The hero is a corpse-burning furnace.
2. Neither lead is a virgin. The heroine has two children with her former lover.
Sheng Yerong, the legitimate daughter of Duke Anguo, was breathtakingly beautiful, radiant and dazzling, her splendor captivating the world. At sixteen, she married the Prince of Xuan and soon gave birth to a son and daughter. She and the prince were perfectly harmonious and deeply in love, the envy of all.
Then the winds of fate shifted. The imperial mausoleum collapsed, and the emperor's fourth son, Wei Zhang, ascended the throne.
Forced to kneel in the long street, slapped across the face in the main hall. Beaten and humiliated, then forced into the emperor's bed beneath the red canopy.
At the Lishan Palace, the emperor, Wei Zhang, stood disheveled, looking like a man who had just visited a brothel. He repeatedly forced Sheng Yerong, bruised all over, beneath the hot spring water until she choked. She coughed so violently she could barely breathe, with no strength left even to cry.
Unable to bear watching, the palace attendants quietly looked away, not daring to show the slightest sympathy. The lotus flower of yesteryear had become a rootless weed. After the wind and rain had battered it, not even a trace of its rosy fragrance would remain.
Blurb from the hero's perspective:
Because of a terrible misunderstanding, he locked her within the palace gates and tormented her in every way, yet still could not quench his hatred. After surviving calamity upon calamity, the misunderstanding was resolved, and she once again became the lotus in his palm. Wei Zhang thought she would forgive him for love, but forgot the saying: once a mirror is broken, it is hard to mend.
Rain cannot fall back into the sky, and spilled water cannot be gathered again. Your love and my affection have long since flowed in opposite directions.
Theme: Opposing romantic manipulation and emotional abuse
