*Possessive coercion**groveling to win her back**a terrible man with a genuine heart*
The disgraced head of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, Su Yanbai, took in a merchant's daughter who came seeking his favor.
She ran a silk shop and wanted his protection.
Su Yanbai sat upright and listened as she explained her plight.
Yet a warm, subtle fragrance stubbornly lingered around his nose.
Unless she had been driven to desperation, with no way to avenge herself, how could Hua Ci have dared approach the Embroidered Uniform Guard?
“Upright magistrate who punishes evil and upholds justice, please bring the people who killed my parents to justice. I am willing to hand over all my family's property.”
Her fingers twisted together until they reddened, and tears filled her eyes.
But the official didn't even look at her. He sat upright and motionless, like a monk deep in meditation.
Looking at the hope in her eyes, Su Yanbai thought of a line.
A face like jade, beauty worthy of an immortal, with a natural allure, yet born in a barren place to an ordinary family.
A commoner carrying a treasure is bound to attract bandits.
*
In the fourth year of their marriage,
Su Yanbai was rewarded for helping the emperor claim the throne and was able to leave that barren place.
The capital was teeming with demons and monsters. Though it was fertile ground, it was no place for Hua Ci to survive.
Su Yanbai faked his death while in office, then fought his way back into court to reclaim what had always been his.
*
Hua Ci, the silk shop's proprietress, became a widow. Her husband had died on a secret mission.
In the past, everyone envied Hua Ci for being lucky enough to marry such a powerful member of the Embroidered Uniform Guard.
But those guards all had their heads on the line, risking their lives to earn their wages. They had to survive long enough to spend them!
After a period of mourning, Hua Ci gathered herself and started afresh.
She was skilled at drawing designs, and the patterns she created became popular among the court's elite, sparking a fashion trend in the capital.
That led to a major commission: providing the red silk for the wedding of the Marquis of Shangyu.
Hua Ci looked up at the lofty marquis, rubbing her stomach as it tightened with pain.
That night, when the doctor came to examine her, he saw her dressed in mourning white and couldn't bring himself to offer congratulations. “Madam, you're pregnant.”
Hua Ci gave the doctor a generous gift, saw him off, changed out of her mourning clothes, and dressed herself up.
The marquis's family was far too powerful. Hua Ci needed to find another father for the child in her belly, so she turned around and took in a distant cousin who had come to seek refuge with her.
*
On the day of the wedding, a group of Embroidered Uniform Guards surrounded the Su family silk shop, and her cousin was arrested for writing poems about rebellion.
A cold hand stroked her tear-streaked cheek. The man's eyes were sinister, his voice terrifying. “You've got a lot of nerve, throwing yourself into danger like this!”
It turned out that her gentle, jade-like husband had only ever existed in her imagination. The man before her had always been a cold-blooded, obsessive monster.
Coming next: Regrets of the Aloof Flower. Please add it to your collection.
Su Qingqing, born to a family of imperial physicians and imprisoned in the Palace Service Bureau because of a treason case, “refused to behave.”
The chief eunuch Nie Chuhuai pulled her half-dead body out of a pond.
He treated her wounds, rescued her from the Palace Service Bureau, got her a job as a constable, and taught her martial arts.
When she missed her family late at night, he held her and comforted her tenderly.
On the day she officially became a constable, Nie Chuhuai broke ties with Su Qingqing, claiming that the inner palace and the constables must not associate too closely.
Heartbroken, Su Qingqing became a coroner on the constables' team.
From then on, she spent her days dealing with corpses.
She also had to catch thieves, interrogate suspects, and match wits with criminals.
Her colleagues complained constantly and lamented their fate, but Su Qingqing never grumbled.
Everyone said Su Qingqing was made of iron and never tired. Only Su Qingqing knew that she had to work until she dropped from exhaustion each day to forget the warmth of that tender embrace.
But no one knew that Nie Chuhuai visited her dreams every night, where they shared tender intimacy.
*
Nie Chuhuai, the chief eunuch serving the Crown Prince, was compassionate, spent his days chanting Buddhist prayers, and had few worldly desires.
He never imagined that someone like him, a man without a manhood, could be so captivated by a woman that he couldn't sleep night after night.
At first, she had only had a nightmare and cried in her sleep.
As a child, Nie Chuhuai had watched his parents die before his eyes. He understood her sorrow, so he held and comforted her tenderly.
Who could have expected that she would later boldly kiss him?
She was young, innocent, and sweet, while he was only a eunuch. How could he dare ruin her youth?
But after they broke things off, she truly began to act as though he didn't exist.
He couldn't forget her or let her go. Night after night, he thought of her and dreamed of her.
Nie Chuhuai could only let himself be selfish for once and try to win her over again, but she seemed to have fallen for someone else.
After the Crown Prince ascended the throne, Nie Chuhuai took charge of the constables.
Everyone else thought Nie Chuhuai was still the same compassionate man with few worldly desires.
Only Heaven, Earth, and Nie Chuhuai himself knew that he had fallen into madness: How dare she enter his heart, then cruelly forget him?
Theme: The weak admire power, while the powerful yearn for sincerity
The male protagonist is too bad, I need to torture him severely