After My Kingdom Fell, I Clung to the Young Assassin

Cold, "beautiful" assassin x resilient, sunny princess

One-sentence summary: After my kingdom fell, I clung to the most dangerous swordsman's leg and trembled with fear. Only later did I discover he was actually a devoted puppy.

When her kingdom fell overnight, Princess Luo Chengyu, once known as the greatest princess under heaven, became a lamb waiting to be slaughtered.

Unwilling to accept a fate as someone's caged bird, Luo Chengyu, who had spent eighteen years living by the rules, made a bold decision: she would run away.

Taking advantage of the chaos in the palace, Luo Chengyu escaped through a secret passage. Who could have guessed that as soon as she emerged, she would run into a young man in black, covered in blood?

He heard the noise and opened his eyes, then asked politely, "Do you have anything to eat?"

Luo Chengyu was about to shake her head, but the next moment she saw the young man's long sword shift, thick blood dripping from its blade.

"I do!"

Luo Chengyu immediately took out all her possessions and offered them for him to choose from.

The young man in black nodded in satisfaction and decided to drag this naive little "lamb" aboard his pirate ship for the time being.

But once they had settled down, the young man discovered that her clothes couldn't be dirty, her food couldn't be stale, and the toilet couldn't smell bad. She even frowned for three days if blood from a killing splashed onto her clothes.

From then on, he also had to take on the task of looking after her.

So, who exactly had dragged whom aboard whose pirate ship?

*

"Who do you draw your sword for?"

"For... myself."

At first, Jiang Chan set out to become the greatest swordsman under heaven, leaving behind the bloody battle that marked his departure from his master, his hands stained with blood.

Later, he picked up a fallen princess from a conquered kingdom. With a mixture of self-interest and loneliness, he kept her around like a pet. She was a dispensable presence: keeping her with him wasn't a hassle, and leaving her behind would be even easier.

In the end, the swordsman who had always been willing to risk his life cast aside the sword he cherished above all else and knelt at her feet, his body broken.

For the first time, he was willing to become an invincible sword, solely to cut down every obstacle in her path.

For that, he finally understood who his sword was drawn for.

"You saved me, Princess."

He was a summer cicada born in winter, lying dormant in the dark, cold earth. Only on the night he broke through the soil and was bathed in the moon's pure light did the chill of his solitude finally wash away.

Little scene:

"Why did you run away?" Moonlight cast a gentle illusion over the young man. His features were as cool and straight as a green pine on a mountain, his expression detached, his ink-black hair cascading like a waterfall and dusted with snow.

It was the first time he had gone out without his long sword.

"I'm a burden," the girl said in a trembling voice.

"No, you're not."

A little warmth gradually appeared in the young man's eyes. "Get on." He turned his back to the girl and crouched down.

The blizzard raged as the girl huddled against the young man's not particularly broad back. She vaguely saw him turn his head.

"You're not a burden."

1. A heartwarming, healing, sweet romance. After the heroine leaves the palace and lets loose, she unlocks her goofy side.

2. The heroine is a little spoiled at first and only gradually grows up later.

Recommended upcoming novel:

The Second Young Lady Who Transmigrated into a Book and Was Forcibly Claimed

The three beauties of the Cui family in the capital: the eldest daughter is peerlessly talented, was raised by the Empress Dowager from childhood, and married a promising top scholar; the third daughter is brilliant and is the Crown Prince's first wife.

But Cui Lingguang, of all people, transmigrated into the second daughter of the Cui family, the one her own brother-in-law forcibly claims.

She can't outsmart her third sister, can't outrun the Crown Prince, and even her luck means she can find a "wild man" just by stepping outside.

In the book, Cui Lingguang has only two possible paths. First, she is forcibly claimed by her brother-in-law the Crown Prince, kept outside the palace with no status, and eventually dies miserably at her younger sister's hands. Second, she runs away with the wild man she picked up, and her family is destroyed.

Cui Lingguang doesn't want either option. She remembers that in the book, the second daughter had a childhood friend. On a night in the thirteenth year of Tian Ning, he earnestly asked her if she would marry him. Back then, she timidly shook her head because her father despised the low-born young man.

That's right. The second daughter in the book spent her whole life seeking other people's approval, from her father to her sisters. Sadly, when she had beaten herself bloody and died miserably in a secluded courtyard, only that young man shed a few tears for her.

So, on the first snowy day of the tenth year of Tian Ning, she knocked on the door of that dilapidated, tightly shut house.

Cui Lingguang didn't know that a month earlier, her childhood friend had died at the hands of a fugitive swordsman who should never have existed.

*

The second young lady was a beautiful, scentless flower, Qin Zhao thought idly after saying goodbye to her. Yet, for some reason, he slowly began to remember the flower's color, to make out its patterns, and even to smell a faint fragrance in his dreams.

When he woke, their status was worlds apart.

But... Qin Zhao gripped Cui Lingguang's jade pendant and chuckled. A crack had finally appeared in his gentle, jade-like expression.

She was the one who had first blossomed for him. If so, there was no way he would let her walk away.

Theme: Even after fate changes drastically, we must still have the courage to move forward.