Marrying the Princess

The realm had a princess known as Mingjing.

Though she was still unmarried, her renown had already spread far and wide. According to the rumors, when she was born, rosy clouds filled the sky. She held a bright mirror in her hands, and a red dot adorned her brow. Her beauty resembled Guanyin's, and she was a once-in-a-millennium auspicious child, cherished by the imperial family.

In truth, however, the princess had been frail from birth and was bedridden all year. She was not expected to live long.

To prolong his beloved daughter's life, the emperor had no choice but to bring her half-sister back from outside the palace. Using a soul-burning technique, they took blood from the girl's heart each month to make medicine and keep the princess alive.

On the final night before her younger sister entered the palace, Shen Mingjing had a dream.

In the dream, she was merely a mad villainess in a storybook, while her newly arrived younger sister was the heroine favored by Heaven. Her sister was dazzling and excelled at everything. She also had the healthy body Shen Mingjing could never possess, and had earned a debt of gratitude by giving blood to save her. Before long, everyone in the palace admired and loved her.

Afraid of losing favor day by day, Shen Mingjing opposed her at every turn and used every means to frame and torment her. But her sister always escaped danger and rose higher at every step. Shen Mingjing alone ended up ungrateful and infamous, stripped of her place in the imperial clan, and abandoned by everyone once she fell. In the end, her heart failed and she died.

When she awoke, her newly arrived younger sister had already entered the palace and was waiting outside her hall.

What was done was done.

*

Shen Mingjing feared her and hated this sister, who was only half a year younger. So she never met with her, yet somehow they kept running into each other.

The first time, they argued and accidentally jostled one another. Just as her sister was about to fall flat on her face, she suddenly turned and caught Shen Mingjing in her arms.

The second time, her sister secretly had Shen Mingjing's medicine and food replaced, making her vomit and suffer diarrhea. Shen Mingjing missed the ceremony to worship Heaven, leaving her sister to steal the show.

The third time, Shen Mingjing left the palace to escape the heat, only to find her sister at the summer retreat. Far from the emperor's reach, her sister forced her to do hard labor every day.

The incidents were too numerous to count.

The last time, the heir to the Prince of Qin came to the palace for an audience and fell in love with Shen Mingjing at first sight. He invited her to go boating with him, but her sister beat her to it, and a fine marriage fell through.

Shen Mingjing was grinding her teeth with rage. She wanted to tear apart this heaven-sent younger sister, even if it meant defying the storybook plot. That night, she sneaked into her sister's chambers, intending to give her a proper dose of trouble.

But beneath the lamplight, her sister had taken down her hair and was completely undressed, about to bathe.

The flickering lamplight made her fair, snowy features look even more radiant, and even half her back was long and beautiful. Shen Mingjing had never seen a beauty bathing. Startled, she backed away and knocked over a vase.

Her sister whipped around, and Shen Mingjing saw that his chest was completely flat.

Her sister... was a man!

Shen Mingjing's eyes nearly popped out of her head.

*

At first, they were at odds, never exchanging a kind word when they met.

Who could have guessed that later they would be inseparable, becoming a love story for the ages?

Theme: Love you forever.