Story blurb
Yanhou is a second-class maid in Prince Gong's mansion, doing menial work like sweeping the courtyard.
Unlike the ambitious maids, she's timid, afraid of making mistakes, and keeps her distance from her masters.
Once, she made a mistake while on duty and spilled tea on the young master of the Gu family.
She knelt among the shattered porcelain, trembling and not daring to speak up and plead for mercy.
Just as she thought she was doomed, Young Master Gu chuckled:
“Sorry, I didn't see you just now. I stood up so suddenly that I startled you, didn't I?”
She cautiously looked up and saw only Young Master Gu's gentle features and composed smile.
Bathed in the spring light, his refined brows were as graceful as jade and pine. He was a man of incomparable beauty. His warm, gentle voice swept away her panic and despair.
Because of Young Master Gu, she escaped death and received only a mild punishment.
But later, the Gu family made the wrong move in the succession struggle and were sentenced to execution in their entirety.
And Young Master Gu, once the most celebrated man in the capital, fell off a cliff and vanished without a trace.
After learning what happened, Yanhou burned some paper money for Young Master Gu, hoping he could be reborn soon. But perhaps she'd burned too much paper money that night, and the fire had been too strong: that evening, she dreamed that Young Master Gu was imprisoned in the dungeon beneath the prince's mansion.
After dreaming of it several nights in a row, she began to make her way toward the place her dreams pointed to.
His long, tangled hair fell over his shoulders like dead grass. His wrists were rubbed raw by shackles, leaving deep bloody marks, and his body was covered in countless lash marks and brands.
Hearing a sound, he raised his head and looked at Yanhou.
Looking at those eyes that had once held the boundless brightness of spring, now dim and desolate, Yanhou made a reckless decision: she would save him.
But Young Master Gu didn't remember her. His voice was hoarse, as if he could no longer speak normally.
“Who are you?”
Supporting him, Yanhou struggled forward through the vast snowfield. “My name is Yanhou.”
**
Many years later, Young Master Gu rose to the highest ranks of government, with former students and associates spread throughout the land.
A curious onlooker asked who the woman behind him was.
Though his voice was hoarse, Young Master Gu still smiled gently as he had in his youth. “My wife.”
[Disgraced nobleman in dire straits x bright, resilient maid]
Theme: Love guides people out of hardship.
