Draftbook

Chu Ning, the top-ranked assassin in the martial world, has one final mission: execute an old general accused of treason. After completing the job, she plans to retire from the martial world for good.

So she turns around and marries a handsome, sickly farmer, simply because he is so pleasing to her eyes.

Unfortunately, her husband, Fu Yuanxi, is too frail to carry a shoulder pole or lift a hand. But his face is so beautiful and coolly aloof that she can't help feeling sorry for him whenever she looks at him.

Chu Ning sighs. What can she do? She's only ever loved good looks.

Maybe she should return to her old line of work, so she can buy medicine and keep the delicate flower at home alive?

But Fu Yuanxi won't let her do any work at all. He carries a hoe to the fields every day,

while she stays home, planting flowers, picking vegetables, and drying petals and salted fish. Still, whenever she sees the other village wives being hardworking, gentle, and kind, she can't help blushing.

Luckily, her husband never complains that she's lazy and clumsy. He even fills in her eyebrows, combs her hair, and pins on her hair ornaments.

Chu Ning thinks that after a hard first half of her life, she's been blessed with a good husband for the second half. That's worth it.

Until the new emperor takes the throne and searches everywhere for Chief Councilor Mei Shixue.

Chewing sunflower seeds in a teahouse, Chu Ning listens as the storyteller theatrically describes the powerful, wicked official: a stern-looking, ruthless schemer who faked his death and fled, only to secretly lay a trap and help the new emperor seize the throne.

She looks at the sun, thinking only of her sickly husband at home.

The sun is about to set. She needs to go home.

When she gets home, her husband speaks gently. "My dear, it's cold at night. Why are you dressed so lightly?"

She shakes her head. "I was worried about you."

She doesn't know that an hour earlier, her husband had been wearing a threadbare cotton robe, reviewing secret reports sent by urgent courier from the capital by lamplight.

The vermilion ink at the tip of his brush is red as blood. At the end of the report, the new emperor, whom Mei Shixue personally raised to the throne, asks urgently: "When will my mentor return to court?"

He coughs softly twice, then holds the report near the lamp with his pale fingertips. The flames lick it up.

The new emperor's summons are growing more urgent. The court is in turmoil, and countless pairs of eyes are searching in the shadows for the chief councilor, who is supposed to be dead but has come back to life.

The quiet of this countryside home is like stolen time, and it is on the verge of collapse.

He is best at plotting for the world, and his plans have never failed. But now he faces an unprecedented dilemma...

"Husband, I heard that Chief Councilor Mei is a terrible person. Good thing we're just commoners and don't have to fear him."

Mei Shixue lowers his eyes, takes the medicine bowl, and drains it in one go.

"You speak the truth, my dear."

Theme: Ideals, hope, and love