By Graceful Means (10,000 Words Drafted)

[Free-spirited young swordsman gong x sinister, sickly scheming prince shou]

Xiao Mian, the young prince of Prince Qi's residence, was born frail and sickly, yet he insists on defying fate.

Everyone calls him a jade beauty, a porcelain Bodhisattva, never realizing that his eyes conceal knives and his sleeves hide blades.

Until the night he is ambushed, when a young swordsman arrives beneath the moon, carrying a gleaming sword. "By my master's command, I will keep you safe for three years."

The young man's name is Lu Chengfeng. He once challenged the Sixteen Blackwind Strongholds with his sword and got drunk at the Mandarin Duck Tower in Jiangnan. He is the wildest wind and the strongest wine in the martial world.

He teaches Xiao Mian to ride and shoot, sneaks him out of the manor to see the Lantern Festival, and breaks off a plum branch dusted with snow for him.

But he doesn't know that when Xiao Mian's pale fingertips brush the plum branch, he is thinking about how to break the peerless sword that is Lu Chengfeng.

-

The night of the palace coup.

Lu Chengfeng fights thousands of rebels alone, his sword broken and his strength spent, yet he never stops shielding Xiao Mian.

As the rebellion nears its end, Xiao Mian tugs at the hem of his robe and, coughing blood, asks, "You want the martial world, and I want the empire... Lu Chengfeng, are you willing to stay with me?"

The young swordsman's eyes darken. With one stroke, he cuts off the bloodstained hem. "Our three years are up. We won't meet again in the martial world."

Later, the new emperor ascends the throne, and the ninefold palace walls lock away all the springtime beauty.

Rumors in the martial world say that people have seen the frail emperor sitting alone in a high tower all night, holding a broken sword, with no one by his side.

And in some tavern, a white-clad swordsman, dead drunk, touches the old wound over his heart. "If only... I'd taught him how to miss me."

"I once offered you both my sword and my heart."

"But you used them to build a stairway to the throne."

Reader's Guide:

1. One-on-one romance, gong-focused, both are virgins, both are strong. The ending hasn't been decided.

2. The shou is genuinely sickly and ruthless, willing to do anything for power. The gong is at the pinnacle of combat prowess. He likes the shou, but loves freedom more.

Theme: Freedom matters more than love.