[A mad, powerful minister, a high mountain flower × A beautiful, seductive charmer with a tragic past]
Su Lanqing is the proprietress of the Xieyue Studio, and the most renowned courtesan in all of Jinling City.
Born with an alluring beauty, she is graceful and delicate, inspiring boundless affection. Her face is as lovely as snow, her skin as smooth as a lychee, and one glance from her peach-blossom eyes can steal seven-tenths of an audience's soul.
The officials who run the entertainment quarters treasure her, catering to her every wish for fear of displeasing her in any way. There is only one thing they refuse to do: even though she is well past twenty, they still will not release her from her contract.
On her birthday once again, the banquet hall is packed with guests, grand and magnificent. Every one of them is a powerful figure or a celebrated official of the court.
One man at the table wears a jade crown and white robes. Though she cannot make out his face, his manner is refined and composed, setting him far above the vulgar men around him.
Lanqing's peach-blossom eyes narrow slightly as an idea takes shape.
That night, she feigns drunkenness and, on the man's unavoidable path as he leaves, sways delicately into his arms.
Lanqing slowly climbs onto him. Beneath her gauzy, wide sleeves, her ample curves are revealed; her slender waist trembles, her figure swaying with an irresistible allure.
Her peach-blossom eyes shimmer like stars as she gazes at him again and again. "Lanqing has admired you for a long time, my lord. Please... take pity on me."
The man stops, his expression suddenly impossible to read.
*
No one knows that the once-famous courtesan of Jinling City was originally a noblewoman of respectable birth.
No one except Xie Ning.
That night, he gripped the woman's slender waist. Shadows stirred in his eyes as every frown and smile of hers matched the woman beneath him, and they clung together without end.
He pressed a fingertip beneath her chin and asked coldly, "Look carefully. Who am I?"
Lanqing's long lashes trembled. Her breath came in soft gasps, and a dazed smile played in her eyes as she replied, "You are... my lord."
Of course she knew.
He was the lord who had personally sent her to the Bureau of Music on that snowy night.
But now, hadn't he become a prize in her hands?
Reader's Guide:
1. Happy ending, both leads are virgins, adult couple.
2. Taking love by force, then chasing one's wife to the crematorium.
3. A Ming-inspired setting.
Synopsis first completed on May 16, 2022.
Theme: Pursuing independence and freedom, and growing together
