The entire Zhu family of Jiangnan had been loyal heroes. Now only their youngest daughter, who had just come of age, remained.
The emperor brought Zhu Qingwan into the palace, gave her the title of "Princess Yongle," and raised her under the empress's care. She also grew increasingly close to the fourth and sixth princes.
With the border under threat, the sixth prince received an imperial order to lead the troops into battle.
Before he left, the two promised to marry once he returned victorious.
On the day the sixth prince departed, a torrential rain fell over the capital.
Zhu Qingwan returned from seeing him off at the city wall, her eyes red from crying. As she passed the empress's palace, she accidentally bumped into someone with a dull thud.
She looked up and suddenly found herself staring into a pair of sinister eyes.
-
The sixth prince's funeral had barely ended when the emperor died of grief, passing the throne to the fourth prince, Fu Hanchuan. The first thing he did after ascending the throne was to make his sworn younger sister, Princess Yongle, his empress.
The court was in an uproar, but no one dared advise the new emperor, whose methods were as ruthless as iron.
And so the empress's coronation ceremony went ahead as planned.
That night.
Fu Hanchuan stayed in Zhu Qingwan's chambers. Within the mandarin-duck curtains and phoenix-embroidered bed hangings, he held the warm, soft beauty in his arms and stared into her eyes, filled with resentment, indignation, and unwillingness, but not the slightest trace of love. His lips curled into a crazed smile. "Be good. Let me hear you call me husband."
Zhu Qingwan clenched her teeth and refused.
So what? Fu Hanchuan did not care.
The realm was his, and so was his beauty.
He had never failed to get what he wanted.
-
The empress had been missing for over a month, and none of the people sent to find her had returned with any news. Everyone knew Her Majesty was probably dead.
The emperor flew into a rage and ordered his trusted aides to return to Jiangnan and search every last corner for her.
No one knew that deep in the night, the exalted emperor would collapse to the ground, holding a portrait of the empress as he murmured despondently, "A'Wan, please come back."
"I know I was wrong."
[Reader's Guide]
1. A forced-love story. The leads are not related by blood. Early chapters are full of angst and melodrama, with a strong male lead and a weak female lead. The male lead is possessive and loses all sense of humanity when he snaps. The heroine will fight back, but this is not a strong-female-lead story!
2. The male lead is pure in body and mind, has no harem, and this is a 1v1 HE.
3. Political maneuvering at kindergarten level. The setting is entirely fictional, very fictional, extremely fictional!
Theme: Stay positive and embrace positive energy
Thank you to heaven, thank you to earth, thank you for your hard work~
My hands are still scabbed, won't I rub the scab crumbs into the pastry? =????(???????)