[A gentle, beautiful merchant's daughter X A mad imperial tutor who becomes a mistress for love]
[A mistress for love + an overbearing romance]
Shen Qingming first met Gu Heng at a secluded mountain estate of his.
Her father needed money for his injured leg, so she took a commission to copy scriptures. She never expected to have any other connection with him.
The man wore a wide-sleeved black robe. He approached unhurriedly, carrying an incense burner, then sat down in a chair. His calm gaze held a hint of authority.
Shen Qingming bowed to him. "Please tell me your name, sir."
Through the curling incense smoke, the man in the chair fixed his eyes on her.
"My name?"
"Before coming here, Miss Shen, didn't you make sure you knew?"
Shen Qingming's family ran a bookstore. They were just an ordinary household in Jinling City. Seeing that he was a mysterious man of uncertain standing, she feared she might offend someone she couldn't afford to, and decided to abandon the commission.
But she didn't know that she had already fallen into a vast, inescapable web.
A major case at the Court of Judicial Review went wrong, and there was a mole within its ranks. Shen Qingming's fiancé was implicated, tortured, and left on the brink of death.
With nowhere else to turn, she remembered the mountain estate and knocked on its heavy gate in the rain in the middle of the night.
Soaked through, she knelt at the man's feet and begged him quietly to help.
Gu Heng added a slice of ylang-ylang to the incense burner, brushed the wet hair from her face, and gazed at her with eyes full of seduction and predatory intent.
"Miss Shen, would you like to try me? I'm certain my skills would please you more than your fiancé's."
"Or one by day and one by night..."
"Anything, as long as Miss Shen agrees..."
Gu Heng came from a wealthy and powerful aristocratic family. At a young age, he entered the heart of government and became the emperor's tutor. He was like snow on a high peak and moonlight among a thousand mountains, the true power behind the entire dynasty.
He believed he would never make a misstep.
Until he met Shen Qingming, a woman as gentle and resolute as a camellia.
It turned out there were things in this world he could desire but never obtain, things that could drive him mad.
[Reading Guide]: Both leads have only been with each other. The heroine has a childhood sweetheart at the start, so proceed with caution if that bothers you. The setting is an eclectic fictional world, so please don't scrutinize the details.
Theme: The lofty flower descends from her pedestal
