Spring Beneath Her Skirts

Princess Ye Ruo of Qinghe was famous for her arrogance and wanton ways.

Even as the court underwent reforms and corruption was rooted out everywhere, songs and revelry still filled the princess's residence night after night. She lived in blissful abandon with her seventeen male companions, singing and dancing without pause.

The ministers impeached her for her extravagance and debauchery, saying she was unfit for the responsibilities of a princess of the realm. Ye Ruo paid them no heed.

That is, until a young general, his whole bearing dark and sharp, stormed into the princess's residence with a force of soldiers. He sealed off her music pavilion, searched her treasury, and even detained her male companions

Yet this overbearing general knelt at her feet. Bowing his head with lowered eyes, he said, "By imperial order, I am to investigate the princess's residence."

*

Furious, Ye Ruo slapped him.

When word of the incident reached the court, the ministers all agreed that the newly returned, rising general and the princess had now become enemies.

Even the emperor carefully asked him what the princess was like and whether she had cooperated.

The general paused for a long while. A faint, cool fragrance lingered at the hem of the beauty's skirt, like the first stirrings of spring, curling around his nose.

He suddenly clasped his hands and said, "The princess is virtuous and gracious, and cooperated wholeheartedly. I... wish to ask for the princess's hand in marriage."

The emperor and the ministers: ?

Ming Changyan, who returned victorious and was granted the title of Great General, had a secret he could never tell.

He had once been an unseen, hidden guard in the princess's residence.

For countless days and nights, he had watched over her from a place where not even a glimmer of light could reach. Then one day, the beautiful woman, with her cloudlike grace and moonlike features, got drunk. Her cheeks flushed, and in her haze, she curled her little finger at him.

The princess, dead drunk and smiling like spring, told him she would have eighteen male companions one day.

Ming Changyan: ?

*

Everyone said the princess was vain and reckless, lacking talent and learning, a peerless beauty who did nothing but act shamelessly, even framing her younger brother and behaving outrageously.

But Ming Changyan knew that beneath the beauty's eyes lay great ambition and a grand vision. For twenty years, she had kept her light hidden, and even after ruining her reputation, she still had the power and cunning to rise again.

Later, Ming Changyan thought that if he could, he would gladly be her eighteenth male companion.

And the sharpest blade in her hand.

A scheming, captivating beauty x a loyal puppy-like wolfdog from a humble background. Something like that.

Theme: A withered tree blossoms again