Spring Warblers Between the Fingers

At fifteen, Cui Yingshi married the Crown Prince, her childhood sweetheart, just as she had always wished. After their wedding, he was just as he had been before: like the empire's rising sun, brilliant and radiant, noble and dignified, gentle and considerate toward her.

The Crown Prince was perfect in every way, except for one taboo that no one else was allowed to touch. Deep within the Eastern Palace stood a door forged of black iron and secured with eighty-one locks. He told her she could go anywhere in the Eastern Palace, anywhere at all, except there.

In the fourth month of their marriage, she could no longer resist and opened the door. Inside, she found a man in chains. He raised his head and called her Yingying. His face was exactly the same as her husband's.

His heart had long since turned dark and rotten, yet in that place of decay, she bloomed like a flower.

She would never understand that he had once been ordered to impersonate his elder brother, becoming the pure and immaculate Crown Prince and stealing half a day of pleasure for himself.

Since she liked it, he would play the empire's beacon of light, the wise ruler revered by the people, and the husband she longed for, for the rest of his life.

Desire that takes root in darkness cannot be restrained once it awakens.

He sighed gently.