The Golden Sparrow Hairpin

Everyone thought Song Nanzhi had married into Prince Rui's household to ingratiate herself through scheming. Shen Zhou thought so too.

She had no way to explain herself. Since he had once helped her, she never overstepped her place after they married.

Shen Zhou did not come home, but rain or shine, she went to the Northern Command to bring him food. When the "fiancee" he was originally supposed to marry came looking for him, she pretended not to know.

Seeing her deliberately curry favor with him, Shen Zhou sneered, "What do you want after all this scheming?"

Song Nanzhi was gentle and quiet, but stubborn to the core.

When she learned Shen Zhou was looking for a map to rescue someone, she helped him and was injured in the process.

Then Shen Zhou saw her leaning against someone else, his whole body radiating anger and resentment. "What, am I not enough for you, that you need someone else to take care of you?"

None of his past cruel remarks had humiliated her as much as that one.

Song Nanzhi's face turned pale, her thin clothes soaked through by the rain.

She owed him nothing now.

Shen Zhou was calculating and ruthless. Everyone at court feared him.

He had thought it made no difference whom he married. But when he found her room empty and clutched the divorce letter she had written, he could barely stand.

In September, Song Nanzhi went to a temple to pay her respects. On the way back, rain poured down.

Shen Zhou left his horse by the roadside and waited in vain. The carriage did not stop. Amid the wind and rain, a corner of the curtain lifted, and he glimpsed another man sitting inside...

Spring waters in Jiangnan, swallows chirping low.

Shen Zhou treasured the precious thing he had recovered, afraid it might break if he held it too tightly.

But the swallows of Jiangnan were too delicate, and before he knew it, he had used too much force.

He fell to his knees, without a shred of pride. "I was wrong."

---------Coming soon next door: "Embracing Jade". Please add it to your favorites.

Wen Jiayue's fiance died of illness, and she had resolved never to marry again. But to gain wealth and status, the Wen family forced her to become Prince Qi Li Chengyu's concubine.

Li Chengyu was as handsome as jade, proper and self-possessed, with an innate air of majesty. The noblewomen of the capital regarded him as a moon in the clouds, an unattainable object of longing. They knew he already had someone he loved, and none dared pursue such a noble prince of the imperial family.

Wen Jiayue became the one foolish enough to try. She walked on eggshells in the prince's residence, always cautious.

But Li Chengyu was nothing like the gentle man he appeared to be in public. He tore open her curtain, his icy fingers tracing her skin inch by inch like blades, and taunted her mockingly. "You schemed so hard to get into the prince's residence, and now you know how to tremble?"

Wen Jiayue hoped he would soon marry the woman he loved and let her go. She never expected him to wear a false mask of undying devotion and pretend they were strangers by day, then hold her close at night as if she belonged in the palm of his hand. He used those cold fingers to make her tremble and draw sobs from her, yet would not let her hide from him.

Then the Wen family and their accomplices failed in their ambush, and Li Chengyu was wounded. As the bloodstained blade passed her neck, he wanted nothing more than to take her apart and swallow her whole. "If the Wen family wants to climb to power by stepping on me, shouldn't you show me what you can do and please me?"

Wen Jiayue was trapped in his grasp, trembling, unable even to control her whimpers.

She had no one to rely on. After her mother died, the Wen family was nothing but a nest of rotten enemies to her. She longed for revenge.

At last, the Wen family was convicted and imprisoned. Relieved, she fled the capital without looking back.

A year later, the crown prince died, and the Wen family and Prince Yin's faction were rooted out. The court returned to peace.

In September, news spread through Yuzhou that the top-ranked candidate in the palace exam was getting married. The townspeople praised him as a poor-born man of great talent, a modest and kind man who had not forgotten his wife from humble beginnings.

Li Chengyu was sitting in his carriage when his eyelid suddenly twitched. He lifted the curtain to look outside and saw the little sparrow he had once kept in the palm of his hand day and night, her eyes alluring as she took another man's arm.

That man was the fiance she had once loved more than life itself.

On the wedding night, Li Chengyu sat upright in the hall. Behind him, the wedding chamber blazed with fire, its light glaring against his gold five-clawed dragon robe.

The groom's wedding clothes had already been torn to shreds, and armored guards had crushed his neck into the mud.

With a bright red handprint on his face and blood seeping from the corner of his lips, Li Chengyu's eyes churned with rage and possessiveness. Then he suddenly laughed softly:

"Can a weak, bookish scholar really satisfy you?"

#Coercive marriage; the male lead is sexually inexperienced and deranged

Theme: Judge people carefully and cherish what you have