A Fine Lover in the Moonlit Night

He was the first romance she ever laid eyes on, before her heart had awakened.

In the eyes of outsiders, Lu Tangning is the most poised and self-possessed eldest legitimate daughter of the Marquis of Fengping's household.

But in secret, she'd already done every kind of rebellious thing, even spending a hundred taels of gold to save someone in a pleasure house.

That dazzlingly handsome young man was the last surviving heir of the Meng clan. His name was Meng Chengzhou.

Twelve years ago, the new emperor ascended the throne. Among the countless bloody cases, both the Meng clan and Lu Tangning's birth mother were victims. So at the Changhuan House, Lu Tangning didn't hesitate to save him.

The world saw Lu Tangning as the model of a noblewoman, but no one knew how deeply she was fed up with it all.

A selfish, biased father, a hypocritical concubine, younger siblings who caused endless trouble...

Lu Tangning slowly smoothed on her vivid lip color. One day, she would tear apart this peaceful facade with her own hands.

There was just one thing she hadn't expected: the handsome young man she'd once kindly saved would repay her by trying to marry her.

[Bonus scene]

To escape danger, Lu Tangning had to find an old friend and pretend to marry him. But on the very day of the wedding, she was abducted to a villa.

Meng Chengzhou seemed terribly drunk, his long hair loose and a faint flush at the corners of his eyes. He looked just like the bewitching demon from a storybook.

Lu Tangning watched helplessly as he took the drug.

But at the very last moment, before she could say a word, he suddenly seemed to wake from a dream, pushed her away, and staggered off in a panic.

Lu Tangning sat silently at the bedside for a long while. Then she got up and knocked on the door of the room next door.

As a boy, Meng Chengzhou was framed by villains. His entire clan was wiped out, and he, still a child, was sent to a pleasure house to suffer every humiliation.

On the night he was formally presented to guests, he idly swirled his wine cup and wondered who would bleed across the bed curtains that night. But beneath the vast canopy of stars, he unexpectedly met someone quite fascinating.

He'd long heard that the Marquis of Fengping's legitimate daughter, who'd lost her mother as a child, was poised and self-possessed, peerlessly refined. But the person he met was nothing like that. She was clearly a... clever, tenacious fool who always stood up for her own.

They save each other.

[You pull me from the mud, I drag you out of hell. Together, we face the world.]

A female emperor, with a touch of an ensemble cast.

Thanks to bs gugu for the cover art~

Blurb dated 2022/12/13 and legally timestamped.

Theme: Never forget why you began