Fire Lotus in a Cage

Zhong Qingchen first met Atu Lu Boli on the northern battlefield. The boy on horseback wore red, with dark hair and bold, striking features. He was unbearably arrogant. They crossed blades several times, and he lost each time. Even when knocked off his horse, he still fixed her with wolfish eyes full of defiance.

Later, Zhong Qingchen learned that he was a young lord of the Atu clan, part of the Beiji royal family. After Beiji was defeated, he became a tool to repair relations between the two nations, sent here for a political marriage and made Zhong Qingchen's husband.

Boli was his given name. In the Beiji language, it meant "rain." Looking down at the boy kneeling at her feet, clearly yielding in posture but still full of indignation, Zhong Qingchen raised the corners of her lips and said, "From today on, your name will be Yinzhu."

The Beiji boy, now renamed Yinzhu, kept his old ways, proud and unruly. He stood out in Dongqian, where men were expected to be refined and humble, like a carnivorous beast that had barged into a flower garden in warm spring.

His name was soft, like lingering rain, but his temperament was like a ball of fire.

He punched the young men in Zhong Qingchen's household, kicked the servants who couldn't stand him, and lifted his beautiful, striking face whenever Zhong Qingchen punished him, refusing to admit he was wrong. Then he continued to turn her estate upside down.

Go on, make a scene.

Watching him slowly lose his edge, like a beast trapped in a cage, Zhong Qingchen rested her chin on her hand and thought contentedly.

It's more fun to turn a tiger into a kitten.

* A dark-hearted, mischievous, cold-blooded princess x a proud, aloof foreigner, a Hello Kitty (not really)

* Female lead has had sex; male lead has not / older woman-younger man romance / enemies to lovers

* Matriarchal setting where women can impregnate women

Cover artist: Fu Zei

Theme: Change can happen in an instant