Spring's Splendor

After staking out the place for days, Xie Chuling finally caught her target. She sized up the "fiance" she'd never met, the one everyone envied, from head to toe, then said with open disdain, "Ever since our engagement, my elders have been dying one after another. You're a curse on the Xie family. We're not suited for each other."

Hmph. She doubted the Chancellor's grandson, a noble young gentleman of Chang'an, could put up with such an insult.

Days passed, but the Du family never sent anyone to break off the engagement. Instead, she received an invitation to a flower-viewing banquet.

Xie Chuling ground her teeth. The Chancellor's family had such good manners that they really intended to make their grandson marry a country bumpkin like her?

But at the banquet, a man pointed at her and shouted, "You have no virtue or grace, and you're not pretty. I'd never marry a fool like you."

Huh????

She'd mistaken the wrong person last time!!!

Xie Chuling was mortified.

Fortunately, this real "Ziheng" didn't want her either, and the engagement was successfully called off.

Xie Chuling decided to find the fake "Ziheng." As long as he was neither engaged nor married, she could make him agree to marry into her family, even if he was arrogant about his talent and treated money like dirt.

*

Murong Jingye rarely left home, but one day he went out for a spring stroll and was accused by a noblewoman of being cursed and bringing death to his relatives. She even said they weren't right for each other.

After confirming with his guard that his royal elder brother hadn't arranged a marriage for him, Murong Jingye paid no attention to it, even when his friend teased him.

He never expected to meet the noblewoman again at the Huguo Temple, where she actually tried to marry him by force... Ahem, tried to make him marry into her family.

Prince Jing'an, a first-rank prince: ...???

Did he have an ordinary face and look completely down on his luck?

Murong Jingye was annoyed. "People say the Xie family's daughters are 'brilliant as Xie Daoyun and graceful as the ladies of the bamboo grove.' Could it be that when things reach their peak, they must decline?"

Xie Chuling pouted. Don't think she hadn't heard him mocking the Xie family's downfall. But it didn't matter. "I'm not from the Taikang Xie clan."

"But we're as bad as each other, a quail and an owl." Weren't you using the same name as the Chancellor's grandson to climb the social ladder?

"You need money to keep up appearances, and I need a live-in son-in-law. We're a perfect match."

A splendid screen embroidered with blooming peonies, a chorus of grievances on Little Mount Heng.

At Qujiang, swallows carry flowers and butterflies offer gifts; I first met you in the bright spring breeze.

P.S. Mistaken identities and the wrong live-in husband won't stop this from being a sweet, marriage-first, love-later story.

Theme: Self-reliance and strength