Breaking the Spell of Her Charm

Blurb:

The day the entire Shen family was condemned, Shen Zhiwei fell from the clouds into the mud.

Once the beloved daughter of the Shen family, she was now the lowest-ranking government courtesan in the Music Bureau. But she refused to accept her fate.

Her father's name had not been cleared, and all the men in her family had been exiled. How could she let others trample her underfoot?

Shen Zhiwei escaped the Music Bureau under cover of night, wearing nothing but a thin gauze robe.

Barefoot on the imperial road, she fled in a panic and crashed straight into someone's carriage.

The curtain lifted, revealing a face as cool and flawless as jade.

It was Xie Yun.

The youngest Grand Secretary in the court, a close confidant of the emperor, and the very man who had personally sent her father to the imperial prison.

On a snowy night, with the wind cutting cold and her clothes soaked through, Shen Zhiwei knelt in the mud and looked up at the man in the carriage.

She should have hated him to the bone.

But now, trembling, she reached out and clutched the hem of his robe, letting his icy fingertips brush across her lips.

"Miss Shen," he chuckled, "that's not how you beg someone."

/

Xie Yun saved her on a whim.

Cold by nature and accustomed to the world's filth, he had never believed in true feelings. Yet this wounded little bird was so stubborn that she amused him.

He gave her fine clothes and good food, but wanted her to be a caged bird. He allowed her to investigate her father's case, but forbade her from taking a single step away.

"Is Lord Xie planning to keep a beauty hidden away?" she sneered.

He stroked the shackles around her wrist and said gently, "I'm breaking her in."

From then on, a tame little bird was locked in a gilded cage.

By day, she was a docile maid, grinding his ink and tending his incense. By night, she was his captive, warming his bed and letting him do as he pleased.

Xie Yun thought she had accepted her fate.

Until the day she held a blade to his heart, and he finally realized the truth.

This little bird had never been tamed.

"Knowing how this would turn out, I should have let you die in the Music Bureau," he sighed.

Her hand trembled, but she smiled fiercely. "Xie Yun, you couldn't bear to."

[Side Story]

One day, Xie Yun returned from court and saw Shen Zhiwei standing on tiptoe to pick a plum blossom.

He stopped beneath the corridor and looked at her reddened fingertips. "You want it?"

She stared coldly at him without answering.

That night, every plum tree in the garden was transplanted to stand outside her window.

Shen Zhiwei was furious. "Xie Yun!"

He embraced her from behind and chuckled by her ear. "Now you'll have to see me every day."

"He broke her wings with his own hands, yet yearned for the undying flame in her eyes."

*A clear-eyed, scheming daughter of a condemned minister x a refined but depraved, powerful official

*Coercive possession; love and hate

Theme: To be added.