After I Flirted with the Enemy Emperor by Mistake

Jiang Cining was the daughter of the Great General Who Guards the Nation. After her father died on the battlefield, she was raised as a princess under the Empress Dowager's care.

Everyone in the palace said that this princess, though born outside the imperial family, enjoyed unparalleled favor and had grown up alongside the Crown Prince. Surely she would one day become Crown Princess.

But Jiang Cining had a dream.

In her dream, the Great Yan army marched on their borders, and everyone in the imperial family feared for their lives.

To ease tensions between the two nations, the Empress Dowager, who had treated her like a precious jewel, sent her to Great Yan as a political bride.

She had heard that the Emperor of Great Yan was hideously ugly, always covering his face with gilded metal. He was also brooding and bloodthirsty, and took pleasure in torturing young women to death.

She knelt before the Crown Prince's hall until frost coated her lashes, only to receive his reply: "Changning, the imperial family has given you ten years of honor and favor. It's time you repaid us."

After waking, Jiang Cining was so unsettled that her tutor, the peerless Crown Prince's Grand Tutor, who was as pure as ice and snow, tapped her palm lightly with a ruler. "Your tutor is speaking, and you're daydreaming. You must be punished."

Jiang Cining remembered that he would later wield power over the court, to the point that even the emperor had to defer to him.

When her life was at stake, what did rules and propriety matter?

One cold night, she finally carried him warmed wine and knocked on his door. "The frost is thick and the night is cold. I came to warm you, Teacher."

The young woman had red lips and bright teeth, her figure slender and delicate. Xie Chen'an gazed at her for a moment, then picked up his ruler with the hand that had never been touched by worldly passions and gently lifted her chin.

On the day Great Yan's army breached the imperial city, Jiang Cining set fire to her palace, intending to disappear with the gold and valuables she had already packed.

She finally crawled out of the secret passage, covered in grime, only for a cool hand to seize her ankle.

Xie Chen'an held a bloodstained sword and looked at her with a half-smile. "I have already destroyed the Gu dynasty for you, Princess. Where are you going now?"

Behind him, the soldiers of Great Yan knelt and called to him: "Your Majesty."

A beautiful princess with no one to rely on × a cold, unrestrained, scheming emperor

Please add my upcoming novel, "Entangling Bonds", to your reading list!

Xiao Yiwei, the eldest son of the Duke of Ying's household, was skilled in horsemanship and archery, well-versed in poetry and literature, and blessed with the striking beauty of snow-dusted jade branches. He was the dream man of countless women in Huaijing.

Unfortunately, when he was fifteen, Xiao Yiwei broke with his family for some unknown reason and rode alone to the northwest. He was gone for eight years.

From then on, the world knew only of the second young master Xiao, a man of refined grace and hidden talent, and dared not speak much of the fearsome General Dingbei.

The General Dingbei was aloof and proud. Even after years of persistent pursuit, the neighboring kingdom's little princess couldn't get so much as a glance from him.

But someone discovered by chance that the general kept a woman's jade pendant, always rubbing it between his fingers.

It had been given to him four years ago by the person who saved him after he was badly wounded and fell from a cliff.

That girl carried him through a night of heavy snow, and her legs were left with a chronic cold ailment from the freezing journey.

An accident had also brought them together for one night, making them lovers.

The borderlands were bitterly cold, and he had never cared much for sensual pleasures. He had planned to return to the northwest, put everything in order, then marry her with a grand bridal procession so she would never have to live a hard life again.

But when he returned to the place where they had met, the news awaiting him was that she had died.

Xiao Yiwei never imagined that the next time he saw her would be at the Duke's residence.

Gu Zhixi wore her hair in an elaborate updo and looked every bit a refined young lady. She followed the second young master, Xiao Che, with tender devotion. "Brother Huaiyuan, try this soup I made. How does it taste?"

Only then did Xiao Yiwei realize that her name was false, her identity was false, and even her accidental death was a lie.

She had saved him only because he bore some resemblance to Xiao Che.

Gu Zhixi was born to a low-ranking servant girl and driven out to the countryside as a child, where no one cared about her.

She knew she was uneducated and uncouth. If her elder sister hadn't entered the palace as a consort and her father hadn't been unwilling to give up the marriage alliance with the Duke of Ying's family, why would he have brought her home and carefully groomed her?

Xiao Che was a man of refined elegance and exceptional talent, and countless women were enamored with him.

Gu Zhixi had to work very hard not to annoy him.

On the day Gu Zhixi finally became engaged to the man she loved, Xiao Che accidentally caught sight of something:

In a dimly lit side room, his older brother, who had just returned home and made a scene, held his fiancée on his lap.

Behind the soft red curtains, their clothes were half undone. Xiao Yiwei ran his fingertips over her red-painted lips and smiled like a demon.

"There are two young masters in the Duke's household, Zhixi. Which one are you going to marry?"

The young heir stumbled backward and knocked over a candlestick.

A silver-tongued, sweet-talking liar × a lonely, broken, mad-dog general × a refined, dignified young heir

Theme: True love lasts forever.