Caged Spring Branches

Xie Miaozhen spent her whole life pretending to be a man. The only time she ever wore women's clothes was while recovering from an injury at Xiangguo Temple.

With heavy snow blocking the mountain passes, she was stranded there and met the seriously wounded Prince Kang, her chief political rival, enemy, and nemesis.

By then, the succession struggle was nearing its end. The crown prince's faction, which she had backed, was clearly on the decline, but as his chief adviser, Xie Miaozhen could no longer withdraw.

So Xie Miaozhen summoned her younger female cousin and pointed to the unconscious man on the ground.

"Take him home and look after him. The crown prince has been deposed. Whether the Xie family survives depends on whether he is willing to show mercy."

Xie Miaozhen raised her cousin's chin. "I'll help you win his favor and become the Princess of Kang, even the regent's wife."

As his political rival, she naturally knew his likes, dislikes, and preferences.

Later, the crown prince fell from power, and Prince Kang indeed became regent. The crown prince's close associates were killed or exiled, but the Xie family survived thanks to the move Xie Miaozhen had made.

Only, Xie Miaozhen never expected Qi Yan to hate her so much,

so much that he stripped her of her title and made her bow before him every day as his subject.

Even when she staged her own death to escape, Qi Yan refused to let her body be buried.

Xie Miaozhen's cousin begged him for three days, but he still wouldn't agree.

With nowhere else to turn, Xie Miaozhen's cousin finally told him everything that had happened back then, hoping he would show mercy.

"Your Highness! She was the one who saved you that day. She was also the woman you've been searching for.

My sister was forced to spend her entire life as a man, even though she was a woman. How could she not deserve pity? Please, Your Highness, show mercy and let her be laid to rest."

For the first time, the decisive regent looked astonished. He stood all night in Xie Miaozhen's funeral hall.

--

He once thought he was the person in the world who hated Xie Miaozhen most.

After all, they had fought and struggled against each other all their lives. Every wound on their bodies had been inflicted by the other, and each time they struck, they meant to kill. Neither had ever shown the slightest mercy.

So when he woke in the snow, it never crossed his mind that Xie Miaozhen had saved him. He showed her cousin only a small measure of generosity.

Even as the person who had saved his life begged him desperately, he only spared the Xie family. He did not spare Xie Miaozhen, and day and night he thought of breaking her proud spirit.

Just as he was about to make peace with Xie Miaozhen,

she died, leaving him with a cruel joke.

The enemy he had hated and remembered all his life was the very woman he had spent so long searching for.

She had saved him when he was at his most wretched, then sent him to her own cousin.

She had shared a night of passion with him, then watched coldly as he searched for her in a frenzy, unmoved.

Only now did Qi Yan finally realize,

that what he had always hated was Xie Miaozhen's coldness and cunning, and the way she never took him seriously.

Though they were cut from the same cloth, she had chosen the deposed crown prince as her master and refused to bow to him.

Later, countless advisers urged him to take a wife and have an heir.

Qi Yan never listened.

In the middle of the night, he often thought of Xie Miaozhen, unable to tell whether what he felt was pain, hatred, or regret.

Then, on the day he arranged a marriage for Xie Miaozhen's cousin,

among the crowd gathered to offer congratulations, he saw Xie Miaozhen, who had been dead for many years.

He realized that Xie Miaozhen had played him for a fool once again.

Reading guide:

Both leads are sexually inexperienced. The male lead only regards the female lead's younger sister as the person who saved his life; nothing inappropriate happens between them.

Theme: Live life positively and make the most of it