Lu Chengjin was born into an eminent aristocratic clan. He wielded power over the imperial family, deposed the incompetent emperor, and supported the new sovereign.
On the day he seized the throne in a palace coup, he was ambushed by his sworn enemy and lost his sight.
Months later, after finally making his way home, he learned that his mother had believed him dead. Following the folk custom of marrying a ghost groom, she had brought a wife into the family for him, hoping to secure an heir and continue the family line.
Lu Chengjin could not accept such absurdity.
He offered her money and goods to send the girl away.
But even after her title as his wife was taken from her, the girl refused to leave. With tears in her eyes, she said she had admired his talent since childhood and knew every one of his poems by heart. Now that her reputation was ruined, she had nowhere to go. All she asked was to stay in the Lu residence and care for him, and to bear an heir for the Lu family in gratitude for their kindness.
Lu Chengjin grew weary of her entanglements.
He already had a renowned young lady he wished to marry. Even if he took a concubine, his future wife would never tolerate a woman who had married a ghost groom to climb the social ladder.
Once his eyesight had a good chance of recovering, he immediately petitioned to leave the capital and hunt down the deposed crown prince who had blinded him. He would also take the girl along and find her another place to go.
Realizing he would not change his mind, the girl gradually stopped clinging to him as she once had.
The day he regained his sight completely, she left without a word and disappeared without a trace.
*
To preserve the dynasty, Yuan Qingyi was made the crown prince of Great Qian at birth. She spent sixteen years disguised as a boy.
When imperial authority fell, she had nowhere left to turn. She changed back into women's clothes, took up a memorial tablet, and married the sworn enemy she had ordered to be ambushed and killed, hoping to wait for a chance to escape.
But before she could flee, her supposedly dead husband came back alive.
They had been classmates for ten years and knew each other all too well.
Yuan Qingyi tread carefully, relying on more than a decade of insight into her enemy's temperament to escape danger time and time again. At last, she made it to Yongzhou and reunited with her cousin.
Later, when Lu Chengjin captured her with his troops and locked her in a death-row cell, she realized that perhaps she had not understood him as well as she thought.
So proper and aloof, he could actually act like a character from a romance novel: eyes bloodshot, he pinned her into a corner and kissed her again and again, passionately and almost deliriously.
=Reader's Notes=
1. Both leads are each other's first and only. The male lead pursues his wife after a breakup, with romantic rivals competing for her.
2. Alternate history. The heroine was inspired by Princess Yuan of Northern Wei.
3. The title comes from a line in Guo Wu's poem The Begging for Love Festival: "Fireflies fly, magpies cross, but neither can be trusted."
4. The first version of this blurb was posted on 2024-12-20 and archived on Weibo.
Theme: Face hardship without fear, and strive to live well
