A Wicked Match

[Touch-Starved, Temperamental Beauty * Blind, Dark and Obsessive Crown Prince]

"Last night, did that shadow really not sneak into the Crown Princess's room?"

"I retired early last night and slept soundly until morning."

After a long pause, a teasing laugh came faintly from behind the screen. Crown Princess Li Nanying lowered her eyes, feeling a little guilty.

As the legitimate eldest daughter of the Longxi Li clan, Li Nanying was graceful and refined, gentle and decorous. She had been betrothed to the Crown Prince.

The Crown Prince, Wen Shu, was rumored to have murdered his elder brother to seize the succession, and to be utterly ruthless.

The Li clan feared the Crown Prince's notorious reputation, worried that this marriage would bring disaster.

What Li Nanying feared was her own secret.

She had a strange illness: from time to time, her skin became unbearably dry and itchy.

Three years ago, while studying at Zijin Academy deep in the mountains of Fan Mountain, a handsome, blind book attendant had helped ease her affliction more than once.

Those stolen moments of leisure had been secret and joyful, nearly shattering her self-control. She had thought she was cured.

After the wedding, Li Nanying did her best to be an unimpeachable Crown Princess. But at night, her old ailment grew worse.

Where could she find another blind book attendant who didn't know her identity and would let her do as she pleased? All she could do was endure the torment night after night.

Until one night, as moonlight spilled through the window, a damp palm pressed against hers. Unhurriedly, their fingers intertwined, his grip tightening joint by joint, like a lock, like shackles, like a restraint finally closing after waiting impatiently for so long.

There was a scar on his palm, from when she'd struck him with a ruler all those years ago.

"A Lan?" Thinking it was a dream, she murmured, "A Lan..."

That night, she slept exceptionally well, as though something had swallowed her whole.

The rumors were true. Crown Prince Wen Shu was as unpredictable as the weather. Even with the illustrious Longxi Li clan at her back, he rarely showed himself. Now that they were separated by a screen, they might not even recognize each other.

Li Nanying looked up and glimpsed the Crown Prince's thumb joint behind the screen... There was a delicate bite mark on it.

Which woman had left that mark on him? How brazen...

No, Li Nanying's fine brows drew tighter and tighter. Why did that bite mark look so familiar?

*

Because strange omens appeared in the sky when he was born, Crown Prince Wen Shu had been raised in an ancient Buddhist temple from childhood.

In the solitude of the deep mountains, the clear sound of reading had bewitched him. Zijin Academy in Fan Mountain was merely one white piece in the game he had been patiently setting up.

That highborn young lady had unsettled his heart. She used him, depended on him, and became addicted to him.

But once it was over, she abandoned him without a second thought, naively believing that poor, blind A Lan would never find out who she was.

He knew.

He knew everything.

He knew what would make her smile, and what temperature would make her furrow her brow.

In the Eastern Palace, night had fallen and all was quiet. Rain pattered beyond the window.

Wen Shu sat on the edge of the bed, gazing at her in a lovestruck daze, his fingers wandering over her lovely face inch by inch.

His touch was feather-light, as if he were handling a precious treasure he had lost and found again, or perhaps making sure... she couldn't escape.

After a while, he leaned closer. His breath, cool and hurried, brushed her red lips. "What will the Crown Princess do without A Lan? What you refused to give me back then, I should claim it back in double now."

- The setting of my previous novel, The Demon Queen's Bedchamber, had a serious plot hole, so I switched to this one. I'll still work on fixing the previous novel's plot holes and start writing it again.

- Both leads are each other's first and only love, with a happy ending.

- The male lead really was blind when he first met the female lead. His sight returned later.

Theme: Love is written in the stars.