1:
After an accident, Commandery Lady Huaiyue sprained her ankle and was confined to the palace for three whole months.
Crown Prince Xie Yan searched high and low for renowned doctors, personally supervised the palace maids as they brewed her medicine, and brought the most precious remedies to Huaiyue's bedside.
Everyone said Huaiyue was lucky.
She was the orphaned daughter of the late Great General Who Pacified the Nation. Out of pity for her having neither father nor mother, the royal family let her live in the palace and enjoy every luxury. Even the usually aloof Crown Prince treated her with special care.
By the window, Crown Prince Xie Yan held Huaiyue on his lap at the desk. Her delicate jade-white feet peeked out beneath her pink gauze skirt.
He gently wiped the medicine from her lips, then held her jade-like feet in his palm and toyed with them.
"Did you think injuring your feet would let you get away from me, Huaiyue?"
Huaiyue's eyes were misty with tears, a frightened glimmer in their depths. "I... I didn't mean to."
"Liar." Xie Yan smiled tenderly. "I hate being lied to more than anything. You know that."
On a tray not far away lay a set of silver needles for tattooing and a lifelike plum blossom design.
2:
Lately, Huaiyue had been listless and often vomited. The imperial physician examined her and diagnosed her as pregnant.
The emperor flew into a rage. A pregnancy before marriage was a disgrace to the royal family. Just then, a neighboring enemy kingdom asked for a bride, and Huaiyue was sent away to marry into their royal family.
The night Crown Prince Xie Yan received the news, he raced back from beyond the border and angrily executed the enemy envoy, the imperial physicians, the palace maids, and others, a total of 56 people.
On a rainy night, Xie Yan's bloodstained hand caressed Huaiyue's trembling lips.
"Did you forget, Huaiyue? You secretly drank an anti-pregnancy decoction every time. How could you be pregnant?"
"Huaiyue has grown up. She knows how to fight back now."
"You must be punished."
3:
Crown Prince Xie Yan was a man among men, peerlessly handsome, yet aloof and indifferent to women. He had passed twenty and still had no intention of taking a wife.
One day, a charming beauty arrived at the Eastern Palace. She looked remarkably like Commandery Lady Huaiyue, who had died suddenly some time ago.
The beauty had a disability in her foot and wore an exquisite anklet at all times to conceal the scars.
A few little golden bells hung from the anklet.
Jingle, jingle.
Jingle, jingle.
Like a painted thrush singing, like a nightingale weeping.
On the bed, the night breeze lifted the gauze draped over the beauty, revealing a vivid plum blossom mark on her back.
She removed the little metal ring holding the bells and bent it into a golden needle, then looked toward the sleeping Crown Prince Xie Yan beside her.
She carefully sharpened the needle.
Soon, soon. Once the needle was a little finer, she could stab him to death...
Reading Guide:
1: Set in a fictional era. The daughter of the Great General Who Pacified the Nation holds the title of Commandery Lady.
2: The male lead is a violent obsessive who takes what he wants by force.
3: Blurb written on August 21, 2022.
Theme: I may be soft, but I'm not weak
