After I Wronged the Commander

◎ A scheming, deep-thinking Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard x a captivating, cunning brothel spy who is gentle on the outside but tough within

◎ Reunited after a breakup / reunion after a long separation / a touch of mystery-solving

Wen Yi took over her mother's brothel, and business soon flourished. She dutifully became the youngest madam in the capital, while secretly taking over her mother's role as a spy for the Crown Prince.

In her spare moments, she sometimes dreamed of the day she might avenge her mother's death and return to Jiangnan to retire.

In the dead of night, she couldn't help thinking of that graceful young gentleman, as radiant as jade, amid Jiangnan's misty rain.

The young man in white turned his robes as he walked toward the bridge, his steps quickening.

She could not catch up. She stamped her foot in frustration, tears welling in her eyes.

Every time she turned around, however, she would run right into his arms.

His callused knuckles brushed her tear-stained cheek, and he let out a helpless, amused sigh.

"Why are you so delicate?"

Sadly, she had turned away too decisively back then, leaving no room for retreat, and lost him in Jiangnan.

On the Lantern Festival night the following year, the star courtesan of the Zuihong Brothel was found dead beside a guest.

That night, the newly appointed Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard surrounded the Zuihong Brothel with his men.

At dawn, the man came walking from the far end of the light, dressed in a crimson flying-fish uniform.

Wen Yi sat beside the stage in the main hall, resting her face in her hands as she looked at Pei Wu. Her alluring smile stiffened a little.

She watched his men pin down the people in the brothel, watched everyone inside cry out and panic, and watched his black official boots step closer and closer until he stood before her.

"It's been a long time, Miss Wen. It seems you've amassed quite a fortune in the capital?"

Wen Yi looked up. His inscrutable eyes suddenly drew close, taking on a dangerous edge, though his voice was low and tender, like a lover's whisper.

"So it wasn't that you had no interest in love, Yiyi. You simply had no interest in me."

The cold hilt of his Xiuchun saber brushed her forearm, its chill matching the cold in her heart.

*My other novel, Zhe Zhi Yue, is complete and awaiting readers! Princess, please give it a read, and if you like it, add it to your collection before you go~

The blurb for my next novel, Chun Zhi Xue, is below. Please add it to your collection!

◎ A resilient, clear-eyed, principled young lady x a possessive Commander of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, starved of love

◎ Coercive romance / regret and redemption / reunited after a breakup / sudden arrival vs childhood sweetheart

In the winter of the twenty-fifth year of Xuande, the entire family of Grand Secretary Jiang, who had been stripped of their property and imprisoned, perished overnight.

The treasured daughter of the Jiang family, raised in the seclusion of the inner chambers, was suddenly disgraced. Everyone wanted to find her and take their turn admiring her.

That night, amid the heaviest snowfall in ten years, Jiang Xun, the youngest daughter of the Jiang family, was carried from the Directorate of Music into a rear courtyard in a small sedan chair. From then on, she became a concubine whose identity could not be revealed to outsiders.

The heir of the Duke of Zhenguo, Shen Que, who bought her freedom, was both the sworn enemy of her betrothed and the man she had secretly loved for years.

The young lord Shen was noble and aloof, feared by everyone in the capital. She alone could not forget the snow plum branch he had snapped off for her when she first returned to the capital.

But the noble young lord's outrageous actions were no romantic tale of mutual affection, as the gossip in the streets claimed.

Jiang Xun knew she was nothing more than a possession he used to show off to others.

His tenderness and sweet words were merely deceptions born of a passing whim. She refused to sink into such false affection.

At last, one day, she decided to leave, carrying the irrefutable evidence that the Jiang family had been framed.

She wanted to shatter with her own hands this dream of moonlight reflected on water and flowers mirrored in a pool. Yet on the night before she left, she heard the man beside her pillow tugging at the corner of her robe as he murmured:

"Yingying..."

He called her again and again by the childhood name she had never once told him.

[Male Lead's Blurb]

On the night of the Lantern Festival, when the curfew was lifted, a woman stood by the peach branches and spring waters, smiling brightly. Her peach-pink jade earrings swung in circles against her pearly white earlobes.

A pearl cluster hairpin adorned the beauty's hair, as if a spray of snow had fallen upon her dark locks.

Shen Que had only once before, aside from claiming the title of heir, felt so determined to have something.

The woman's figure was hidden deep among the lantern lights. The man beside her smiled tenderly as he adjusted her hood.

A gifted beauty and a talented gentleman, truly a perfectly matched pair.

Shen Que glanced lazily at the man's face and smiled with amusement.

He had climbed to the top over a trail of blood, only to hear the world say he was no match for the upright, honorable, and spotless heir of the Duke of Song, born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

If that was so, then whatever he wanted, he would take, one thing at a time, no matter how underhanded the means.

"The only one to blame was that spring when plum blossoms reflected in the snow, and her eyes bewitched me."

Theme: Trust and steadfast love have the power to heal the heart.