I Shut My Heart After Being Given Away to the Powerful

The orphan Wei Wan would fight a dog for a bite to eat.

Starving, battered by wind and rain, she is offered food by a young man holding an umbrella. He asks if she'd like to go home with him.

She falls in love at first sight, captivated by him, and Wei Wan nods without hesitation.

He treats her wonderfully, giving her silks and a warm room, teaching her the ruan and painting landscapes. Later, he becomes a powerful chancellor. Though busy with official duties, he keeps the habit he formed when he was young: he listens to her play a song every day.

On Wei Wan's eighteenth birthday, when the begonias bloom at midnight, he visits her fragrant chamber.

The flickering flame mirrors her heart. Her devotion is wholehearted. Not only does she fail to turn him away, she gathers her courage and climbs onto him.

The chancellor, who rarely smiles, sits still and lets her do as she wishes, but never allows things to go all the way.

Wei Wan thinks he is being considerate, refusing to consummate their relationship before marriage. But he says, "Wanwan, do something for me. Once it's done..." He pauses. "I'll bring you back and marry you."

The next day, Wei Wan arrives at the main hall of the chancellor's residence, her face veiled in green gauze and a ruan in her arms.

The chancellor smiles. "Wanwan, hurry and pay your respects to His Highness."

As she rises, the wind lifts her veil. The Prince of Chu sees Wei Wan's face and is instantly stunned.

That same day, Wei Wan learns from someone nearby that the prince, who uses a wheelchair, not only loves the ruan and landscape paintings, but also has an unattainable beloved who looks exactly like her.

It is as if a wheel rolls over her heart. The pain reaches such an extreme that it leaves her numb. She locks away her love and closes her heart.

*

Bian Ruyu, the Prince of Chu, had his legs crippled by a plot when he was young. From then on, he bided his time and concealed his true feelings. He actually hated the ruan and landscapes, yet pretended to be utterly obsessed with them. He had never loved any woman, yet fabricated a beloved from whole cloth.

Had the chancellor really copied the story and presented him with a "substitute"?

Bian Ruyu is utterly shocked, with tears welling in his eyes. He appears overcome with emotion, but is actually laughing so hard he cries. Wanting to watch the "show," he brings Wanwan back to his residence.

Later, the chancellor, haggard and beside himself, kneels outside begging to see her, only to hear sweet words from within, like an arrow piercing his heart.

He doesn't know that Bian Ruyu inside is faring no better. The young prince has long since lost interest in the show. He fawns over her, presenting rare treasures, his eyes fixed on the beauty reading documents. "Wanwan, do you like these?"

Wei Wan shifts slightly, and Bian Ruyu immediately grows excited at her movement. But she has merely been sitting too long and is stretching her limbs. She doesn't even glance at him.

1. One-on-one, both leads are virgins. The hero is the one in the wheelchair.

2. The heroine will shut her heart for a long stretch of the story. She only wants to escape her bondservant status and leave the capital, not become anyone's plaything.

Upcoming story: Climbing the Willow

Crown Prince Liu Zhan is traveling incognito in the south when, in full view of everyone, a strange young woman suddenly throws her arms around his waist.

Noticing that she carries no hidden weapons, Liu Zhan signals his attendants not to act, while silently pressing his hand against the sword in his sleeve.

She looks up at him in his arms, crying, her tears soaking his lapel. "I finally found you, my husband, A Zhan..."

Each name she calls him is more outrageous than the last. Liu Zhan is wary and annoyed, but when he meets her tender, adoring eyes, filled with undisguised love, he is briefly dazed.

He covers her hand and tries to pry it away, but she clutches him tightly and refuses to let go, insisting she can never be apart from her husband, A Zhan, again.

"How dare you, common woman!" His attendant is about to scold her, but Liu Zhan raises a hand. "Take her back first."

He originally plans to interrogate this unknown young woman, whose origins are unclear and whose story is full of holes. But day after day, the interrogation somehow ends up beneath the mandarin-duck quilt.

After one night, Liu Zhan really does become her "husband."

When his inspection tour ends, a palace maid named Yin Zhao is added to the Eastern Palace.

For the next three years, the Crown Prince often summons Yin Zhao to his bed, yet never gives her a title. Yin Zhao never complains. She serves him wholeheartedly, tending him without changing out of her clothes when he is ill, and keeping him company in the Cold Palace during the months when he is deposed.

One day, Yin Zhao hides behind a willow tree and overhears the Seventh Prince ask, "Elder Brother Crown Prince, are you really going to appoint a Crown Princess? What about Lady Yin? She'll be heartbroken."

Liu Zhan replies coldly, "So what if she is? She used underhanded means to climb into my bed in the first place. She should have expected this day."

-

The imperial army returns victorious. In the command tent halfway through the journey, the Crown Prince and commander Liu Zhan glances at the list of betrothal gifts and sets it aside. Instead, he picks up Yin Zhao's register and stares at it for a long time. He takes up his brush and writes the title of Court Attendant after her name, then soon changes it to Secondary Consort, then to Crown Princess, only to hurriedly cross it out in red ink.

A secret report is delivered to the tent.

The Crown Prince loses his senses and rides alone out of camp, returning to the capital ahead of schedule. From the moment he enters the Eastern Palace, his heart pounds and his chest heaves. He searches everywhere, but Yin Zhao is nowhere to be found. She really has left, leaving behind only a note: I mistook you for someone else.

It turns out he was A Zhan, not A Zhan.

She did not climb up to the willow. She was the moon hanging high in the sky, beyond his reach.

2023/06/15

One-on-one, both leads are virgins.

Energetic little-sunshine heroine vs. distant, slightly world-weary hero.

The hero and heroine are each other's only ones, body and soul. (Spoilers involved, so no further details.)

2. The title comes from the Tang dynasty poem Looking South at the Yangtze: "Don't climb me, for if you do, my heart will be torn. I am the willow by the pond at Qujiang. One person breaks my branch, another climbs me. Our love lasts only a brief while."

3. An old-fashioned, earthy romance, written with complete abandon.

Theme: Love and respect yourself.