Synopsis
She breaks free from her gilded cage to become a wildfire sweeping across the plains.
Cinnabar can be used as medicine or forged into blades. Now I'll use it to carve my own path into the Book of Fate.
Ming Zhao died in the third year of her marriage.
A carefully planned poisoning and the slanderous label of "jealous woman who took her own life" became the end of her short life.
When she awoke again, she was Ming Zhao, an orphan girl on the borderlands.
Her mother had died young, her father had just passed away, and all she had inherited was a cinnabar mine and a group of relatives eyeing it greedily.
"How can a woman inherit the family business?" her eldest uncle said, slapping the table.
"Get married soon. At least you'll get a respectable dowry," her third uncle said with a sly smile.
Ming Zhao gripped the map of the mine her father had left behind, remembering the suffocating feeling of being trapped in a mansion in her previous life.
In this life, she would no longer be anyone's pawn.
She would take her fate back with her own hands, inch by inch.
Then, one day, beneath a beacon tower, she encountered a troop of light cavalry returning to camp.
The pounding hooves kicked up clouds of dust. The young general at their head suddenly reined in his horse. His dark armor reflected the setting sun, like a sword drawn from its sheath.
"Would you be so kind, miss," he said, taking off his helmet, his bangs still damp with sweat, but his eyes astonishingly bright, "as to give me a bowl of tea to quench my thirst?"
Ming Zhao looked up.
When their eyes met, she saw in his gaze the vast sky unique to the borderlands.
As Ming Zhao ladled out tea, she heard him praising the mutton buns of the day to his deputy general and complaining that their military advisor had cut their liquor rations again.
Only later did she learn that this young General Huo came from a military family. His father defended the northern frontier, and his mother was a refined lady from Jiangnan.
He helped old farmers repair fences on his days off, secretly brought bones to the stray dogs outside the military camp, and, when he discovered that she understood arithmetic, asked her with shining eyes, "Would you be willing to teach me how to read account books?"
Thousands of miles away in the capital, someone awoke from a long dream.
Looking at the faded marriage contract, Lin Yuxian finally understood:
If she wanted to rewrite her ending in this life, she had to let go first.
[Reading Guide]
Clearheaded, resilient weed-like businesswoman x high-spirited young general x a fated, sickly young nobleman
1v1 main pairing with a happy ending, rebirth + time-loop trope, unrequited love from the second male lead, light ensemble cast and political intrigue
Theme: Exploring freedom and responsibility