Joy Through the Years

Lin Zhiyu had heard of Lou Manxiao's talent long before she left the women's quarters. Everyone in the capital said that Lou Manxiao was peerless in talent and looks, and that as a student of the current Grand Secretary, he was destined for a brilliant future. Later, Lou Manxiao did indeed pass the highest imperial examination. On the day the results were posted, the Lou family's procession of matchmakers crossed the Lin family's threshold. The Lin family was a family of scholars, and Lin Zhiyu's great-grandfather had served as a high-ranking official under three emperors. Though the family now had few descendants, its reputation and influence endured. Two-thirds of the important court officials had once been his students. Lin Zhiyu and Lou Manxiao should have been a match made in heaven. On their wedding day, Lin Zhiyu was filled with joy. But when the bridal veil was lifted, she saw only Lou Manxiao's stern, cold face. It turned out he had never wanted this marriage. During their two years of marriage, Lin Zhiyu served him carefully, setting aside her pride and humbling herself, only to be met with coldness at every turn. She tried every way she could to find out why he hated her, and learned that he was in love with a female cultivator in the palace. Then came another terrible blow: the Lin family was accused of treason. With witnesses and evidence against them, all fifty members of the family were sentenced to execution. Not one survived. Rumors swirled around the residence, and then Lou Manxiao suddenly proposed taking her with him to his posting in the south. On the day they set out, Lin Zhiyu learned by chance that the Lou family planned to imprison her in a nunnery to prove their loyalty to the Empress Dowager, then tell the world that she had fallen ill and died on the journey south. Lin Zhiyu's heart turned to stone. During an attack by bandits, she fell from a cliff, her life and death unknown. Ridiculously, Lou Manxiao kept up the act to the very end, gripping her hand tightly even as a bandit behind him raised a blade to strike. Three years later, word spread that Lou Manxiao, the once-brilliant top scholar, had been demoted to county magistrate for offending the Empress Dowager. Less than half a year later, he was sent to the army and made to start as a common soldier. How could a frail scholar fight on the battlefield? But Lou Manxiao survived one bloody clash after another and made his way back to the imperial court. Later, word came that he had been betrayed by one of his subordinates and captured by an enemy nation. He refused their repeated offers to surrender, even though the beast arena was a place where survival was all but impossible, and even though everyone at court believed he had capitulated and imprisoned his entire family. Then came word that, leading barely a hundred elite soldiers, he had wreaked havoc in an enemy prison and rescued a female official from the enemy empress's side. People admired his decisiveness and bravery, while others laughed that he was just a mortal man after all, led astray by a woman's beauty. No matter how many officials impeached him, he insisted on keeping the woman from the enemy nation at his side. No one knew that the so-called enemy woman was his wife, the woman he could never forget, even after coming close to death countless times. Theme: Love life.