The Pearl's Easy Grace

Blurb

[Gentle, resilient princess sent to marry for peace x pure-hearted, straightforward young assassin]

Li Suizhu is a county princess of the imperial clan. Her mother died young, and her father dislikes her.

She thought her future would be like that of any other imperial clanswoman: married off to some nobleman's son she'd never even met, then spending her life raising children and sleepwalking through the days.

In the ninth year of Jianye, the emperor made peace with the Turks, and the Turkic Khagan asked for a princess of the realm to marry.

Unwilling to send his own daughter far beyond the frontier, the emperor ordered a woman of the imperial clan to marry in her place.

Unfortunately, that woman was Li Suizhu.

She accepted the decree naming her Princess He'an and climbed into the bridal carriage with a heart full of despair, prepared to live out her life in misery.

The Turkic Khagan was nearly sixty and already had a principal consort. Li Suizhu had never imagined that she might not even be allowed to become his official wife.

But on the day the wedding procession crossed the border mountains, it was attacked, and Princess He'an disappeared without a trace...

Han Ji is an orphan. As far back as he can remember, he was raised in the Yisheng Sect and lived a life with a blade at his throat.

Everyone says he's a once-in-a-century assassin in the making. Han Ji just smiles, while inwardly dismissing them as good-for-nothings.

Then, on an utterly ordinary night, Han Ji got bored and somehow acquired a little tagalong, someone who, at first, seemed good for nothing but looking pretty...

Theme: There is hope even in the darkest circumstances.