Sang Ti is the most beautiful woman in Chang'an. The people who admire her include the sons of high-ranking officials, talented scholars from the academy, and mighty generals. As a result, she is also the enemy of the noblewomen of Chang'an. They act friendly to her face, but call her a little seductress behind her back.
Shi Yang is a strategist at the Anyang Prince's residence. Brilliant and graceful, he is resourceful and clever. Watching the eldest young master of the household become lost in a whirlpool of feelings for Sang Ti, he often advises him not to be troubled by love. A bewitching woman like her is a source of disaster, and she isn't worth giving your heart to.
With Shi Yang's advice, the eldest young master gradually finds his way out of his confusion.
On the Shangsi Festival, three or five friends drag Shi Yang to the riverside to attend the purification ritual. By chance, he encounters Sang Ti. She is playing in the stream, her figure like willow branches in the spring breeze and her face like a summer flower. The scene makes her look like a fairy descended to earth. His heart trembles, and he stares at her, stunned, for quite a while. The people around him laugh at him for it.
Shi Yang knows that Sang Ti's face has awakened a secret he has kept buried for many years. When he was young, his family fell into ruin, and just as his life was hanging by a thread, a little girl saved him. Sang Ti looks very much like the girl who saved him in his memory. When he sees the crescent-shaped birthmark on the back of her neck, he becomes even more certain that she is his benefactor.
Sang Ti had long heard that a smooth-talking strategist had arrived at the Anyang Prince's residence, and that he often spoke ill of her behind her back. She figured that if she didn't teach him a lesson, people would think she was weak and easy to bully. On the Shangsi Festival, she heard that the man had come too, and planned to find a chance to humiliate him. But he was even more brilliant and captivating than the rumors said. His handsome face struck her right in the heart, and she couldn't utter a single one of the insults she'd planned.
Eldest young master: "Knowing full well that this woman is a seductress, why are you still falling for her, sir?"
Shi Yang: "I'd rather scheme for a beauty's heart than for all the affairs under heaven."
P.S. The customs in this story are open-minded. Some details are the author's own setting. Both leads are sexually inexperienced, and this is a one-on-one romance.
Theme: Stay true to your original intentions, always
