On the day Shen Qichi is to marry her childhood sweetheart, the usually aloof and self-possessed Crown Prince Pei Che storms into the wedding hall and forcibly takes her back to the Eastern Palace.
The wedding candles flicker, their shifting red glow reflected in Pei Che's eyes, which brim with deep affection.
"Zhengzheng, how could you leave me and marry someone else?"
First, he's the other man. They had never even met before.
Second, how does he know her childhood nickname?
Within the bridal curtains, a secret fragrance lingers as they pant; her chest rises, and her dewy skin is alluring.
After a night of passion, Shen Qichi finally learns the whole story from someone else.
It turns out the woman Pei Che has yearned for all this time is her elder sister, Shen Qingyan.
What's done is done. Everyone knows she entered the Eastern Palace in bridal robes. Fortunately, Pei Che is reasonable and is willing to give her the title of Crown Princess, though he never again sets foot in her bedchamber.
That's just as well. Even if she sneaks out dressed in black at night, no one will suspect her.
An old case is reopened, stirring up turmoil in the court and panic among the people.
Just as she sneaks into the forbidden palace at night to protect the crucial evidence that will overturn the case, wounded and surrounded by heavily armed troops,
the packed crowd suddenly parts to form a narrow passage. Clad in white and bathed in the brilliant moonlight, Pei Che walks toward her.
He sighs softly. "Zhengzheng, how did you end up so badly hurt?"
*
When Pei Che accompanied his father on a tour of the south as a child, he was persecuted and stranded far from home. Just as he was at his most wretched, a little girl took him home, fed him well, and had her father send him back to the capital.
A few years later, a shocking case unfolded in a southern region. The chief criminal and his entire family hanged themselves at home. Pei Che thought he would never see that little girl again.
But one year, at a palace banquet, he saw her in a begonia grove dampened by a light rain, a flower tucked in her hair as she smiled faintly from afar.
Pei Che felt as if he had stepped into an old dream, unable to pull himself free.
Reading guide:
(1) The leads knew each other before, but the heroine doesn't remember the hero. She will remember later. The hero knows her identity from beginning to end.
(2) The leads are each other's only partners. Their act of pretending to be involved with her elder sister is a ruse. The hero schemes carefully to take her by force.
(3) Some political intrigue.
Theme: The people all suffer
