Desire Behind the Veil

[Dear readers, please give that little lucky hand of yours a workout and add this to your favorites! Every favorite means a lot to me!]

[This novel features: Defeating the one who got away! Winning back your wife!]

Before she turned eighteen, Chun'er was a courtesan. After eighteen, she became the legitimate daughter of the Duke of Wei's household.

After the Prince Regent, Shen Sui, bought her and brought her to his residence, Chun'er did everything she could to make him lose himself in her tender charms.

And she succeeded. Behind the red curtains, they spent every night in passionate embraces.

But whenever Chun'er confessed her love, he never returned her feelings. She always thought Shen Sui was simply a man who didn't show his emotions, until that day...

It wasn't that he couldn't express his love. It was that his love had always belonged elsewhere.

Chun'er left, never seeing Shen Sui's desolate despair.

-

When she saw Shen Sui again, she had become the legitimate daughter of the Duke of Wei's household. After more than ten years away, she was finally reunited with her family, like a phoenix returning to its home in the parasol tree.

She had a name, parents, and a noble status.

But even a life of comfort and privilege wasn't easy. Her stepmother and younger sister made things difficult for her at every turn.

Whenever she found herself at a loss, it was still Shen Sui who came to her rescue.

-

Two major stories spread throughout Shengjing:

First, the legitimate daughter of the ducal household who had just returned home used to be a courtesan in Yangzhou.

Second, the Prince Regent had proposed to this duke's daughter who used to be a courtesan!

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- Both leads are each other's first and only.

- Set in a fictional world inspired by the Song Dynasty.

Coming soon: Chun Zhi Yao

An innocent, spoiled princess * a taciturn general

Yinyin first met Xiao Jue at the Prince of Qin's residence.

At the time, her father was still a prince of the imperial clan. That day, she'd lost a purse and was searching the entire courtyard when she came across her father's retainers waiting for an audience outside his study.

From far across the courtyard, Yinyin spotted a man in dark robes. He was a head taller than everyone else, standing with his hands behind his back, his posture so straight that he was impossible to miss.

The group of retainers cupped their hands to greet her as the county princess. Yinyin merely nodded, then hurried away without even looking for her purse anymore.

Only when she reached somewhere out of sight did she let out a breath and pat her chest.

The dark-robed man had been staring at her. His slanted brows reached his temples, his phoenix eyes seemed rimmed with frost, and he looked at her as if he wanted to devour her.

Yinyin didn't know his name at the time.

Later, her father became emperor, and Yinyin, as a princess, was to be married off to the northern general who had helped him seize the throne.

Her face hidden by the red veil, she'd cried until her makeup was ruined.

She wanted to marry a refined young gentleman from a noble family, not a crude warrior!

Only later did Yinyin learn that this northern general was Xiao Jue, the dark-robed man who had stared at her at the prince's residence.

Only later did she understand that amid the chaos of war and the division of the land among rival warlords, Xiao Jue was the only person she could rely on. Only he could protect her and her father's throne.

-

In fact, Yinyin remembered it wrong. That distant glance across the courtyard wasn't the first time she and Xiao Jue had met.

Xiao Jue still remembered the first time he saw Yinyin.

It was his first visit to the Prince of Qin. The flower-viewing festival had just ended, and Yinyin, who had been sick and missed it, had recovered and was now insisting on dressing up as the Goddess of Mercy at home.

The Prince of Qin refused, of course. After arguing in his study for a while, he threw Yinyin out.

So Yinyin, dressed in white with a red dot between her brows, swept out of the prince's study with her skirts in hand, fuming as she brushed past Xiao Jue, who was waiting in the corridor to be summoned.

At the sight of Yinyin's jade-like face, Xiao Jue's heart stirred. From then on, whenever he visited the prince's residence, he paid close attention to what she was doing.

He saw Yinyin fly kites in spring, relax beside the lake in summer, and stand sadly beneath the trees as autumn leaves fell. When heavy snow came in winter, she led her maids in playing and admiring the snow.

Later, when the meritorious were rewarded, Yinyin was to be married to Shi Qi, the son of the Minister of the Secretariat. Xiao Jue used his great victory of capturing six cities in ten days to pressure the emperor into reversing the decision and marrying Yinyin to him instead.

Of course, Yinyin knew none of this on their wedding night.

She thought Xiao Jue was a clumsy, crude warrior and that she would never know another moment of happiness.

But only a few months later, the gauze curtains billowed in the princess's bedroom, and broken sounds slipped through their folds.

Xiao Jue brought Yinyin a pleasure she had never expected.

Theme: Everything works out in the end