Liang Zhaoran was the most overlooked princess in the palace.
Yet at sixteen, she was bestowed upon the Grand Secretary, a man whose power reached across the court and whose reputation was as pristine as a cloudless sky.
On their wedding day, the man who lifted her bridal veil wore only ordinary clothes. He looked down at her, his eyes like blades tempered in ice, full of mockery and derision.
That night, as heavy snow fell, she was sent away to the most remote courtyard, where no one paid her any mind.
Everyone in the residence pitied her, but she was grateful. Without Shen Yanchu, she would never have escaped the palace walls.
So she treated him twice as well.
At a flower-viewing banquet, assassins suddenly attacked. Liang Zhaoran didn't hesitate to take a sword for him. The cold blade pierced her skin, and as she fell to the ground, she saw Shen Yanchu's face.
It was still as cold as ever, still utterly unmoved, as if everything were only to be expected.
While she recovered, he wouldn't even deign to visit her.
She comforted herself, thinking that since she had taken the place of his legal wife, she deserved to endure his coldness.
Then she became pregnant. Overjoyed, tears in her eyes, she excitedly told him.
But Shen Yanchu only frowned. His gaze turned ice-cold, his face filled with disgust.
Later, a bowl of abortion medicine was brought to her.
The self-respect she had painstakingly reclaimed over the years was crushed to pieces, and the love she had carefully hidden became worthless.
She smiled as she took the bowl, and finally decided to let go.
At first, when the Divorce Agreement arrived from Cangchun Courtyard, Shen Yanchu merely glanced at it and put it out of his mind.
He had never believed that the person who had willingly followed him every step of the way would leave him of her own accord.
Only later, when a great fire consumed Cangchun Courtyard and the woman who had always gazed at him dreamily, her eyes curved like crescents when she smiled, perished in the flames, did he understand.
That night, snow fell thick and fast. His eyes red, he knelt among the ashes. But this time, all he could hold was her ashes.
In the seventeenth year of Tianyuan, Grand Secretary Shen Yanchu stormed through the palace gates and seized the throne.
Yet the new emperor, rumored to have been plunged into gloom by his wife's death, one day barged into a Buddhist temple and abducted its beautiful abbess.
Autumn winds whispered through the ancient temple, where green lamps flickered beneath the gaze of Buddhas lining the walls. Shen Yanchu approached, step by step, the person he had longed for day and night. Watching her trembling figure, he lost control and pinned her against the altar table, his voice almost pleading.
"Zhaozhao, you mustn't leave me this time."
Theme: Treat others sincerely and promote truth, goodness, and beauty
