[Novel Blurb]:
Jiang Muzhen rescued a badly injured man on a snowy night.
The man was elegant and handsome, with a refined, noble air. He didn't even mind the scar on her face, and promised that he would marry her one day.
She cared for him devotedly, even spending all her money on his treatment. When it ran out, she stayed up every night sewing by lamplight, earning money to buy medicine and tend to his wounds.
It wasn't until a group of men in black appeared that she learned his true identity: Lu Xuanyu, heir to the Marquis of Dingyuan.
He took her back to Chang'an and settled her in the most remote corner of the marquis's estate. The warm expression in his eyes turned cold and distant in an instant.
The servants looked down on her. The old madam scorned her low birth and disfigured appearance, and never missed a chance to mock her.
At a banquet, someone accused her of stealing. When he heard, a flicker of contempt crossed his eyes, and his voice was as cold as winter frost.
"Zhenniang, hand it over, and I won't hold it against you."
Jiang Muzhen stared at him in dismay as he stood up for his noble-born fiancée. Her eyes immediately filled with tears.
Only later did she learn that he had been engaged to someone in Chang'an all along, and that the promises he'd made to her were nothing more than a way to keep her from abandoning him while he was gravely injured.
This man had broken Jiang Muzhen's heart.
On the day of his wedding, she quietly packed her things and ran away...
**
Lu Xuanyu was ambushed and stranded in the countryside, where a village woman saved him.
To stay alive, he forced himself to flatter her despite his contempt. Looking at the unsightly scar on her face, he made a promise that only she would believe.
At first, since she had saved him in his hour of need, he thought it would be enough to leave her some money as thanks when he departed.
But on the day he left, seeing the woman's reddened eyes, his heart suddenly softened. He changed his mind and took her back to the marquis's estate with him.
Later, he thought that once he married his principal wife, he could give her the status of a concubine, let her enjoy wealth and honor, and protect her for the rest of her life. That wouldn't count as breaking his promise.
But this lowborn woman had the audacity to run away.
The first time, he soon caught her and, suppressing his anger, promised to raise her to the rank of favored concubine.
The second time they met, three years had passed.
The tides of fate had turned. He had become the emperor, supreme over all, while she remained a village woman in simple clothes and a hairpin.
What was different now was that the scar on the woman's face had healed. She stood beneath the flowering trees with a handsome young scholar, their affection for each other plain to see.
He heard her softly call the scholar "husband" with his own ears, and watched her fair face flush pink as the scholar smiled and drew her into his arms.
A mass of guards immediately rushed forward and pulled them apart. He planted his foot on the scholar's head and glared at her with a sinister look.
"Zhenniang, I'll ask you one more time. Who is your husband?"
Reading Guide:
1. The hero pursues his wife after losing her, with a forced-marriage and possessive-love storyline.
2. The hero appears elegant and gentle, but is actually dark and dangerously obsessive. (His experiences as a child twisted his personality, making him cruel and vicious.)
3. The heroine is gentle yet resilient, like a hardy reed.
(Blurb written on April 14, 2024, with a screenshot saved as proof.)
Theme: Perseverance in the face of adversity.
